Vince Lombardi once said, “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”
I wonder what he had in mind. I believe that as of late, we, as football fans, have been cheated out of witnessing the glory that Lombardi described. This begs the question: Is victory that is attained by controversial tactics really a victory? The controversies I speak of have been swirling ever since a game two weeks ago between the New York Giants and St. Louis Rams. As the Rams marched down the field, preparing to go into a “no huddle” offense, Deion Grant, a safety for the Giants, fell down clutching his knee. An official’s timeout was called and it stalled the Rams offense.
When the Rams failed to push the drive any farther, Grant returned to the game miraculously healed.
Grant’s phantom injury had shades of soccer in it. One of the criticisms of soccer, coming mainly from football fans, is the theater of the injury that is part of the game. Players sometimes go down flailing their arms without a nearby opponent touching them. The ref sees what he or she thinks is a foul and takes a yellow card out of their pocket. Mission accomplished for the actor. Whoops I mean soccer player.
Football players should not stoop down to this level. Somewhere Lombardi was turning over in his grave as he watched Grant take to the turf grabbing his leg.
After a few complaints by the Rams following the game, the NFL sent a memo out to all 32 teams warning of fines, suspensions and loss of draft picks for “feigning an injury.”
Feigning an injury just to gain the upper hand goes against everything that professional sports stand for. I am in full support of the penalties for “feigning an injury.” However, I understand the problems that can arise by instituting such fines. The glaring problem is how to define a real injury. There is simply no way to tell. One solution is to require any player leaving the field due to injury to sit out the series.
The bottom line is this — if players feign injuries and use “bush league” tactics in order to win, how does that follow any of what the great Vince Lombardi said about victory? It doesn’t, and we as fans deserve much better. I hope that, for the sake of the integrity of the game, teams stop using these tactics.
