Post by Funkytown on Sept 11, 2019 20:02:55 GMT -6
Had to share this. Found on r/nfl:
60 in 60: Innocence Lost (2001) by u/BlindManBaldwin
60 in 60: Innocence Lost (2001) by u/BlindManBaldwin
There’s a fragility to life that we all ignore on a daily basis. We go through our routines and our daily grinds, walk a mile each day in our ruts, and a generally comfortable with the way things are. We have our personal problems, our grievance, our strifes and our struggles—but if you’re posting on Reddit and if you’re able to read this post, then you have luck, of some kind, in your life. Things haven’t gone complete to sh*t for us, yet. Things aren’t truly horrid and wretched, yet. Things may be tough and painful, and we may feel like we are at our wit’s end, but we have our basics. We can be thought of as safe and secure. We’re able to live in a cocoon of ignorance, facilitated by protection. We are, on some level, privileged.
I’ve always felt that sports fandom is an expression of this privilege. I had a conversation with a good friend of mine the other evening a few weeks ago—the friend is not a sports fan—and I remarked how odd the level of genuine emotional distress and angst I feel at sports are. I am not in the game, I am not a coach. I am just a schmuck sitting on his couch watching the Nuggets choke a 17-point lead at home against the Blazers in a crucial Game 7. Yet, here I was letting this game ruin my day. It made me angry and depressed and an overall toxic person to be around that day. It turned me into something I was not. But this game posed no actual danger to me. I would go about my day, eat safe food, have a roof over my head, and would wake up the next morning perfectly unharmed. My, relatively speaking, comfortable lifestyle sanitisizes and saccrahinzies the reality of life. We all live in this bubble of innocence.
On an individual level, life events can happen that burst this bubble. They remind us of our mortality, of our follies, of how really unsafe and chaotic our personal environments are: a death in the family, a crime, some sort of disaster, failure. These can happen on a collective level as well. To a certain generation, the assassination of JFK was this event. To others, Pearl Harbor. To more contemporary folks, the Challenger disaster. All three of these events reminded society of how unsafe and dangerous things really can be. All the peoples of these times had their bubbles of innocence and their escapes. They clung to truly insignificant things, like sports, and attached their egos and emotions to them. These events break this connection and remind us that these things, these puny things we build up in our mind, really small and irrelevant in comparison. After all, it’s just a game.
Speaking of games, one Monday Night in the fall of 2001 had three major sporting events. Two of these were WWE’s Monday Night RAW, a recap of which can be read here, and a baseball game. The baseball game—between the A’s and Rangers—was a mostly unremarkable 7-1 A’s victory. Jeremy Giambi homered, Jason Giambi had an RBI, and the A’s gave up only 4 hits. Nothing too special, nothing that would dominate the sports papers the next day.
More relevantly to a football subreddit, the Broncos kicked off that season’s slate of Monday Night games with their home opener in Week 1—a showdown against the defending NFC Champion New York Giants. The Giants entered the 2001 season with high expectations after making it to the Super Bowl with an 11-5 record the year prior on the back of their top 5 defense and “Thunder and Lightning” rushing attack of Ron Dayne and Tiki Barber. Kerry Collins was a solid, if nothing special, QB who could game manage this pretty good roster. The Broncos were coming of an 11-5 season as well, only they went one-and-done in the playoffs. Both teams found their 2000 seasons end at the hand of Ray Lewis and his legendary defense in Baltimore. This would be a marquee matchup that could, on paper, be foreshadowing a potential Super Bowl. More excitingly for the Broncos, this would be the first game in their new stadium—Invesco Field at Mile High. The old stadium had some of the most legendary moments in Monday Night Football history, so it was fitting for their latest season to kickoff in what would surely be the home to future all-time classic Monday Night moments.
Everything was peaches and cream in Broncos country entering this game and, based on the 31-20 result, the crowd leaving the game should’ve been happy and excited for the upcoming season. Terrell Davis, finally healthy, had a 100 yard game for only the second time since 1998. Brian Griese, also healthy, went 21/29 for 330 yards and 3 TDs—a 144.3 rating. The ball, as Nuggets fans say, was popping that night. Ed McCaffrey scored, Rod Smith scored, even Patrick Hape scored!
But this wasn’t the talk amongst fans in the stands that night. Those watching on TV amongst Broncos Country weren’t joyous and relieved that night. No, something bigger happen. Ed McCaffrey, one of the Bronco greats, suffered a horrific leg injury. He suffered a broken leg, which was visible and nauseating to anyone watching the game. It was a stark reminder of how gruesome and violent this sport can be for the players. They compete and grind for our entertainment and to taste the sweetness of victory, but occasionally this can come at a horrible price. People were disturbed and appalled by this play. Bronco fans everywhere went to bed that night, in the Mountain Time zone, thinking this would dominate the morning shows the next day. A Tuesday Morning in September has nothing bigger going on to cover.
What the Bronco fans woke up to was a reminder that football is just, no matter how it feels to us, just a game. Life is bigger than sport. Innocence, for this generation, had been lost. The bubble had been burst, the flowerhead had been cut. The world had been changed forever. Life would never be the same. Ignorance was shattered and a new reality descended upon us.
On 9/10/2001, Ed McCaffrey’s leg worried us all. We wanted to know what this would mean for the Broncos season; how this would impact their effort to make it back to the playoffs.
On 9/11/2001, none of that mattered.
I’ve always felt that sports fandom is an expression of this privilege. I had a conversation with a good friend of mine the other evening a few weeks ago—the friend is not a sports fan—and I remarked how odd the level of genuine emotional distress and angst I feel at sports are. I am not in the game, I am not a coach. I am just a schmuck sitting on his couch watching the Nuggets choke a 17-point lead at home against the Blazers in a crucial Game 7. Yet, here I was letting this game ruin my day. It made me angry and depressed and an overall toxic person to be around that day. It turned me into something I was not. But this game posed no actual danger to me. I would go about my day, eat safe food, have a roof over my head, and would wake up the next morning perfectly unharmed. My, relatively speaking, comfortable lifestyle sanitisizes and saccrahinzies the reality of life. We all live in this bubble of innocence.
On an individual level, life events can happen that burst this bubble. They remind us of our mortality, of our follies, of how really unsafe and chaotic our personal environments are: a death in the family, a crime, some sort of disaster, failure. These can happen on a collective level as well. To a certain generation, the assassination of JFK was this event. To others, Pearl Harbor. To more contemporary folks, the Challenger disaster. All three of these events reminded society of how unsafe and dangerous things really can be. All the peoples of these times had their bubbles of innocence and their escapes. They clung to truly insignificant things, like sports, and attached their egos and emotions to them. These events break this connection and remind us that these things, these puny things we build up in our mind, really small and irrelevant in comparison. After all, it’s just a game.
Speaking of games, one Monday Night in the fall of 2001 had three major sporting events. Two of these were WWE’s Monday Night RAW, a recap of which can be read here, and a baseball game. The baseball game—between the A’s and Rangers—was a mostly unremarkable 7-1 A’s victory. Jeremy Giambi homered, Jason Giambi had an RBI, and the A’s gave up only 4 hits. Nothing too special, nothing that would dominate the sports papers the next day.
More relevantly to a football subreddit, the Broncos kicked off that season’s slate of Monday Night games with their home opener in Week 1—a showdown against the defending NFC Champion New York Giants. The Giants entered the 2001 season with high expectations after making it to the Super Bowl with an 11-5 record the year prior on the back of their top 5 defense and “Thunder and Lightning” rushing attack of Ron Dayne and Tiki Barber. Kerry Collins was a solid, if nothing special, QB who could game manage this pretty good roster. The Broncos were coming of an 11-5 season as well, only they went one-and-done in the playoffs. Both teams found their 2000 seasons end at the hand of Ray Lewis and his legendary defense in Baltimore. This would be a marquee matchup that could, on paper, be foreshadowing a potential Super Bowl. More excitingly for the Broncos, this would be the first game in their new stadium—Invesco Field at Mile High. The old stadium had some of the most legendary moments in Monday Night Football history, so it was fitting for their latest season to kickoff in what would surely be the home to future all-time classic Monday Night moments.
Everything was peaches and cream in Broncos country entering this game and, based on the 31-20 result, the crowd leaving the game should’ve been happy and excited for the upcoming season. Terrell Davis, finally healthy, had a 100 yard game for only the second time since 1998. Brian Griese, also healthy, went 21/29 for 330 yards and 3 TDs—a 144.3 rating. The ball, as Nuggets fans say, was popping that night. Ed McCaffrey scored, Rod Smith scored, even Patrick Hape scored!
But this wasn’t the talk amongst fans in the stands that night. Those watching on TV amongst Broncos Country weren’t joyous and relieved that night. No, something bigger happen. Ed McCaffrey, one of the Bronco greats, suffered a horrific leg injury. He suffered a broken leg, which was visible and nauseating to anyone watching the game. It was a stark reminder of how gruesome and violent this sport can be for the players. They compete and grind for our entertainment and to taste the sweetness of victory, but occasionally this can come at a horrible price. People were disturbed and appalled by this play. Bronco fans everywhere went to bed that night, in the Mountain Time zone, thinking this would dominate the morning shows the next day. A Tuesday Morning in September has nothing bigger going on to cover.
What the Bronco fans woke up to was a reminder that football is just, no matter how it feels to us, just a game. Life is bigger than sport. Innocence, for this generation, had been lost. The bubble had been burst, the flowerhead had been cut. The world had been changed forever. Life would never be the same. Ignorance was shattered and a new reality descended upon us.
On 9/10/2001, Ed McCaffrey’s leg worried us all. We wanted to know what this would mean for the Broncos season; how this would impact their effort to make it back to the playoffs.
On 9/11/2001, none of that mattered.
... and neither is this Chris guy.