By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Regarding the present lockout in the NFL, I admit a small amount of giddiness at the prospect of no 2011 season.

I mean no ill will toward the players missing their large checks, toward network grips missing their smaller checks, or toward Packers fans missing a shot at a repeat. On the contrary, I've long believed football to be the greatest sport on earth.

I grew up in Baltimore, in the wake of the Baltimore Colts' midnight exodus to points Midwest. And when all my childhood friends became Redskins fans, I took to the Dallas Cowboys to spite the world. Your world is small when you're 8 years old and growing up in West Baltimore -- I had no sense of the mythos of "America's Team." I've stuck with the Cowboys for more than 25 years, and unlike those whose pride is rooted in Super Bowls, my pride is rooted in sticking with my team through the heartbreaking '80s, culminating in a woeful 1-15 season. I wear that loyalty like a badge, like a partner in a trying and thrilling marriage, and on my most ego-driven days, I like to think it says something about me.

It's not so much that the thrill is gone. In fact, if anything, it's more intense. I live in a household of football crazies. My spouse loves Peyton Manning. My son worships the Giants. Pro football is a household pastime, one of those things that, every autumn, unites us together before the altar of a small-screen. Some of our greatest memories are football-inflected -- I'll never forget sitting with them, watching Devin Hester almost single-handedly dismantle the Broncos from the lowly vantage point of special teams.

My son played for a few years, and that feeling of being together, of cheering on the team, is special and irreplaceable. There's something special about the physicality of the thing, something about the collective experience of controlled brutality that forces a union, even among youth, that's rather awe-inspiring to behold.

But it's brutality all the same, and increasingly the fact of that cannot be escaped. Last month, Dave Duerson, a safety on the legendary defense of the 1985 Bears, put a gun to his chest and took his own life. Duerson seemed the model of the athlete who learns to cope with the world after the cheering stops. He graduated from the Harvard Business School. He started a string of his own ventures. He advocated for the rights of retired players. But increasingly, he was convinced that like many of his comrades, the game he loved had left indelible scars on his brain. Duerson was suffering financial troubles that may or may not be attributable to his playing days. But the fact is, Duerson joined a tragic list of players, from Andre Waters to Mike Webster, whom I'd rooted against but eventually had come to respect, and who in the afterglow of glory died early and horrible deaths.

Duerson shot himself in the chest because he wanted his brain left intact for analysis. Over the past few years, researchers have come upon evidence that pro football significantly endangers the brains of its participants. Many of the players are adamant about their right to continue to play. I am with them on that. But still, I am faced with my own culpability. A man has the right to bungee-jump. But perhaps I have the responsibility to not watch.

Let me not paint myself as overly earnest. My turning away from football is also about the product, which over the past few decades has become one of the most bankable entertainment properties in the country. And with that has come the need to sell the game within an inch of its life. Stadiums are renamed. Everything is sponsored. And the commercials around the Super Bowl are almost as big as the game itself. As sure as I believe in the right of players to give their bodies to a game they love, I believe it's the right of the league to sell that game for all it's worth. But it's also my right to not watch.

The toughest part is not simply ending my relationship with the game, but ending my relationship with the collective spirit the game fosters. Football is language that allows me to strike up a conversation with people with whom I have nothing else in common. Americans of all stripes remember the Music City Miracle or The Drive. This is the beauty and challenge of era. Increasingly we have the right to go our separate, individual ways. This is as it should be, but I can't help but look back wistfully at the Collective.

For now, I'm on the precipice and have yet to decide whether I'll leave the sport I love. If the lockout continues unabated, maybe I'll get lucky and be granted another year to decide.

 

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NFL Football Fissure