27
football’s downside. “Not only am I a
co- conspirator, now I’m making my
kids a co-conspirator,” he says. “There’s
no greater cause for dissonance than
thinking that we’re hurting our kids.”
But giving up watching football
comes at a cost. You sacrifice potential
bonding experiences with your kids. You
lose a common language with friends
and colleagues. “I can be at a party and
say, ‘How about those Vikings?’ and
strike up an instant conversation,” says
Michael Bennett McNulty, a professor
of philosophy at the University of
Minnesota who grew up in South
Dakota supporting the Minnesota
Vikings. “When that bridge is lost, it
can be tricky.” Despite that, McNulty
no longer watches the game. “Without
all the individuals supporting the sport,
the harms wouldn’t happen,” he says.
“Saying one is complicit is right and
justified.”
In considering the ethical quandaries
of watching football, my mind wandered
to a fifth-grader’s science project. After
New England’s Brandin Cooks was
leveled on a helmet-to-helmet hit in the
2018 Super Bowl, Max Gorenstein, the
son of one of my neighborhood friends,
grew curious about the effects of football
head trauma. So for the science fair,
he explained the basics of CTE, and
highlighted some of the players afflicted
with the disease on a poster board with
a football-field backdrop. He made
two brains out of peach Jell-O: one of
a normal brain, and one with reddish
stains that represented the tau proteins
that kill brain cells and signal CTE. Max’s
project took a top prize.
I wondered if his research had
changed his football-viewing habits.
Not really, it turns out. While Max no
longer wants to play the game, he still
pulls for the Detroit Lions (his father
Doug grew up in Michigan). But he does
watch football with more concern for
the players. “I think I’m going to start
watching less,” says Max, now 12. “I
feel guilty because I know football can
be harmful.” Doug injects a dose of pa-
rental skepticism. “I know Max loves
football,” he says. “I can’t imagine him
watching less over time.
I don’t think he has to or
needs to. The players are
adults who’ve chosen to
take on serious risks. And
in the end, the sport is not
going to go away.”
Though my son Will’s
fifth-grade science project
was not about football,
he’s also familiar with
CTE. “Any time players
get hit in the head, hard,
it can affect their future,”
he tells me when I ask
him about it. “They can
get depressed.” But he doesn’t feel bad
about watching and would be plenty
ticked off if I cut him off from the sport.
He’s also, I found out, unhappy about
the NFL’s treatment of Kaepernick,
who has gone unsigned since the 2016
season. “Everyone is allowed to have
political views,” Will says. “He might
have different political views than
the owners, but that doesn’t mean
he shouldn’t have a job. It would be
different if he sucked. But he doesn’t
suck. He carried a team to the Super
Bowl.” But again, it’s not enough to
make him reconsider his fandom. “It’s
just part of it,” Will says. “It’s the one
thing I don’t like about the NFL. That
doesn’t mean I should boycott the guys
on the Giants.”
His analysis is not that different
from my own. There’s a lot to dislike
about football, but there’s still so much
I love. So even as I feel some guilt
about what I’m watching, I continue
to tune in week after week, often with
my impressionable teenage boy by my
side. To give up football would mean
giving up days like the one at MetLife.
Though we could bond in other ways,
Will’s deep love of football is now part
of his personality. Abandoning the game
would not just alter his fall Sunday
routine but cause parental resentment
my heart couldn’t bear.
What I’ve realized, however, is that
it’s also not O.K. to simply be spectators.
As my son gets older, I have to be better
about engaging him in age-appropriate
conversations about the reality of the
sport. Football may bring us joy, but
it’s not unadulterated. And I would
not be doing right by my
son if I didn’t continue to
talk to him about both the
good and the bad. It seems
unlikely now, but perhaps
as he gets older and learns
more about these issues, he
will make a different choice
than the one he currently
feels so sure about.
This knowledge does
not prevent my dissonance
from going into overdrive.
Fully aware that I will
watch the 49ers and the
Chiefs with Will by my
side, a plate of nachos between us, I
still have a nagging feeling, a desire for
someone to reassure me. I reach out to
Ira Hyman, a psychology professor from
Western Washington University who
has sworn off football—“As someone
who teaches my students about the
risks of repeated head injuries, I’m not
comfortable watching”—and ask him to
give it to me straight: Am I a hypocrite?
Hyman says I can take comfort in my
coverage of football safety. Educating
the public could lead to positive change.
“I’m not going to call you a hypocrite,”
he tells me, with a friendly laugh.
I suspect he’s just being nice. □
Even as I feel
some guilt
about what
I’m watching,
I continue to
tune in week
after week,
often with my
impressionable
teenage boy by
my side
ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX NABAUM FOR TIME
