Abstract

Pro Football - The Maiming Game

The article focuses on the Super Bowl. Fortunately, football sells its violence in many ways. Several videos produced by the National Football League (NFL) can help the aficionado fight withdrawal and keep his insanity while awaiting Super Bowl XXVI; these tapes include "The NFL's Greatest Hits," "Thunder and Destruction," and "The NFL's Crunch Course." On November 24, Broderick Thomas, a linebacker with the football team Tampa Bay Buccaneers, felled the New York Giants' Jeff Hostetler, fracturing three of the quarterback's vertebrae and putting him out for the rest of the season. Luckily, he suffered no neurological damage, as did Mike Utley the Sunday before. The rare but dramatic injuries like Utley's obscure the long-range consequences of routine injuries in pro football.