"The truth of the matter is ... somebody is going to die here in the NFL. It's going to happen.''
-- Cincinnati's Carson Palmer, in my quarterback roundtable discussion this week in Sports Illustrated.
I found that comment chilling, to say the least. The other quarterbacks at the table --
Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan, Tony Romo, Aaron Rodgers -- didn't dispute Palmer's words, and when he said them, the table got very quiet. They know. They feel the same thing happening in this game, too. And the fact that this statement has gotten zero traction in the last four days tells me something that all of us should find frightening: People read that line and just said,
Yup, someone's going to die. We accept that. Now bring on football, dammit!
I gathered the five quarterbacks after their Friday round of golf at the celebrity golf tournament at South Lake Tahoe in mid-July. [If you think that was easy, for my next trick I'm going to pull a rabbit out of this MacBook Air.] It was a loose group. The light beer flowed, and it was the kind of scene you wish could have lasted five hours, not one. And so occasionally, a Roethlisberger would grab his phone and text someone, or chat with Rodgers about something that happened out on the course, but when Palmer said what he said, the table got quiet and everyone listened.
My question was about the endless defensive grousing concerning the overprotection of quarterbacks by the NFL, and Palmer went on, stridently, for a couple of minutes. "I don't mind [the league's protection of passers],'' he said. "In fact, I love it.'' In SI's preview issue, we edited some of his comments for space reasons, but here's much of what he said:
"Guys are getting so big, so fast, so explosive,'' Palmer said. "The game's so violent. Now that they're cutting out the wedge deal on kickoff returns, those guys [are] coming free, and at some point somebody is going to die in football. And I hope it's not anyone at this table, and I hope it doesn't happen, obviously. Everyone talks about the good old days, when guys were tough and quarterbacks got crushed all the time, but back in the day, there weren't defensive ends that were
Mario Williams -- 6-7, 300 pounds, 10 percent body fat, running a 4.7 40.
"The game has changed, the game is getting bigger, faster, stronger, and there needs to be more protection. If I weren't a quarterback, I would be mad about the rules. If I were a safety or a defensive back, I would be mad about the new rule that you can't hit your helmet above their shoulder pads or whatever it is because it does take some of the ferociousness out of the game, but somebody is going to get seriously hurt, possibly die.
"I don't think you can change it. It's the nature of the world. The ways that guys train now, the way that guys eat and take vitamins and take supplements and all these things, guys are getting more muscle mass, more explosiveness, faster. Like I said, I hope to God it doesn't happen. Since I've been in the league, I feel like the D-Ends that come into the league, they're freaks, they're freaks of nature, and I hope it doesn't happen, but the rules need to be adjusted a little bit because [the violence] is getting a little out of control.''
Read more:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/09/06/mmqb/3.html#ixzz0T6pMbGCT
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