The Media and Football Essay by Stefan

The media should stop saying bad things about football because parents will worry and won’t let their kid play. For example, I have a friend who was coming home from school and wanted to play football with a sibling. He was looking everywhere for the football.  Earlier that day his mom had hid the footballs that the family owned. My friend was looking for a week without finding them. Eventually he found out that his mom had hid them. Apparently it was because a player on Sunday had broken his arm and his mom had worried.

In addition to that, parents start to think that sports like baseball, basketball, tennis, soccer, and football are dangerous. To back up this evidence, I was antsy to go outside and practice kicking the football. My mom said I wasn't allowed because I could "slip on the ball and get a concussion.” About a one out of one-hundred chance of that happening.

The media doesn’t balance the bad things in football with the good ones.  Usually, when you play, you come out rolling in the dough. This can be donated to charity or help find houses for orphans. The media says, “So & so got a concussion” or “So & so has a shattered knee!” instead of what the retired players do that’s good with their money! What the press doesn’t do is say, “Let’s give a whooping shout out to Rob Gronkowski for making a diving catch and rolling into the end zone for a touchdown that won the game for the patriots!!!” or, “The patriots give thanks to Drew Bledsoe who has retired, and served a long career!” Before the game, the reporters say the highlights of the previous game. I love it when they do this because it is the one time that reporters aren’t saying all that football is bad for.

When the newspaper says something, people believe it because the newspaper said it. But really, the paper sensationalizes their stories all the time. They exaggerate their stories so people will read them and say to their friend what a good story it is. The most dangerous position is running back because of high momentum collisions. But even running back isn’t that dangerous. The most dangerous thing you can get is a moderate concussion; and in the coaches opinion, a fumble! The only reason that the running backs get concussions is because they run straight into the pack. This position isn’t as dangerous as the newspapers make it sound. The paper exaggerates how bad injuries are. They say that a sprained wrist is a broken arm. They say that a broken toe requires surgery. I’ve broken my toe and the thing that it needed most was ice.

I understand that sometimes something awful happens and people have to report it. But in the news we already have too many stories of bombing, suicide, and wildfires. Why add football injuries to the list? With too many bad stories on the news where so many people get their local news, it makes the world seem like a terrible place to live.

The last reason and the most important is that there will be a generation of bad football players because nobody has experience. They will be so awful that not a single person wants to watch the games in person or on T.V. The teams won’t be able to pay the players salary and the N.F.L. will have to drop teams. The little fans that still watch will sue the N.F.L. for dropping their team. They lose more money and have to drop even more teams. People keep suing the N.F.L. and more teams get dropped. Eventually, there are no teams left and the N.F.L is lost forever.

 I think the media should stop saying bad things about football because parents will worry and won’t let their kid play, the media doesn’t balance the bad things with good, and the game of football will be gone forever.