After a large number of Kansas City Chiefs fans cheered when their own quarterback left the KC-Baltimore Ravens game Sunday with a concussion, infuriated Chiefs offensive tackle Eric Winston decided to take a stand.
Winston held a one-man press conference blasting people who expressed their joy at Matt Cassel’s expense.
“We are athletes, OK? We are athletes. We are not gladiators. This is not the Roman Coliseum. People pay their hard-earned money when they come in here, and I believe they can boo, they can cheer and they can do whatever they want. I believe that,” Winston said. “We are lucky to play this game. People, it’s hard economic times, and they still pay the money to do this.”
This is true. Fans pay good money for tickets. You guys make a lot of money. Why can’t I cheer for what I want, whenever I want?
Not quite so, the lineman says, referring in part to the long-lasting impact of concussions on players that’s still being studied, even while some retired athletes struggle to fully function and others choose suicide over disability.
“But when somebody gets hurt, there are long-lasting ramifications to the game we play. I’ve already kind of come to the understanding that I won’t live as long because I play this game, and that’s OK. That’s a choice I’ve made and a choice all of us have made.”
Winston continues.
“But when you cheer, when you cheer somebody getting knocked out, I don’t care who it is — and it just so happened to be Matt Cassel — it’s sickening. It’s 100 percent sickening. I’ve been in some rough times on some rough teams, I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life to play football than in that moment right there….
“Matt Cassel hasn’t done anything to you people, hasn’t done anything to the media writers that kill him, hasn’t done anything wrong to the people that come out here and cheer him. Hey, if he’s not the best quarterback, then he’s not the best quarterback, and that’s OK. But he’s a person. And he got knocked out in a game, and we have 70,000 people cheering that he got knocked out?”
Winston continues about the stadium of sickos.
“Boo him all you want. Boo me all you want. Throw me under the bus. Tell me I’m doing a bad job. Say I gotta protect him more. Do whatever you want. Say whatever you want. But if you are one of those people, one of those people that were out there cheering or even smiled when he got knocked out, I just want to let you know, and I want everybody to know that I think it’s sickening and disgusting….
“I’ll sit here and I’ll answer all your questions for the next 30 minutes if you want to ask them, and I’ll take all the responsibility I can take because I deserve it. But don’t blame a guy and don’t cheer for a guy who has done everything in his power to play as good as he can for the fans.”
Winston’s words don’t only convict those responsible for the rant. His words convict a culture of people who have lost sight of their mutual humanity with the guys in the uniforms being toted off the field.
After reading this long call for embarrassment by Winston on the Kansas City’s Arrowhead Pride fan site (where I pulled the quotes from – credit to them for transcribing), I read some of an article written by Yahoo Sports’ Eric Adelson. He agreed, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m going off a little of what he said, so you might give his article a read. I thought I’d join in on the conversation.
Adelson used a picture of Friday’s Braves-Cardinals Wild Card game (see right), where fans pelted the field with bottles and other litter after one of the umps made a controversial call. I began to really think about how bad this is getting. 
I wasn’t a huge fan of the replacement refs, but goodness gracious, the fact that those men had to be escorted out of the stadiums (especially those who officiated the forever controversial Packers-Seahawks MNF match-up) speaks volumes.
We live in an age of death-threats made to players via Twitter. We live in an age where the player’s safety is cast to the wayside in the stead of a big win. We live in the age of “Bountygate.”
We live in an age where sports fanaticism has reached an all-time, incredulously dangerous height.
I’m a huge Atlanta Falcons fan who couldn’t be more thrilled to see my team with a 5-0 record. During yesterday’s game against the Washington Redskins, rookie QB Robert Griffin III made a dangerous decision to dive for the first in a must-make situation. “RGIII” put himself in a rough place, receiving a huge blow to the head by Atlanta defensive back Sean Weatherspoon. Spoon’s hit was as clean as they come, but were there people who wanted to see the great rookie go to the locker room?
Not me. Sure, it was nice to have Kirk Cousins throw two picks to wind down the game. But as much as I wanted Atlanta to win, there’s no way in the world I would have wanted Griffin to go out the way he did.
He’s on the opposing team, but he’s still a human being who has a family and friends who care about him and his well-being.
It’s OK to get emotional about sports. Those Brave fans had every right to get angry about a call that could end their season. But man, how immature and classless was the bottle-throwing? People were just throwing bottles aimlessly, not even caring if they hit one of their fellow fans.
Just imagine if one of those bottles had hit retiring Braves legend Chipper Jones.
How, as moral people, can we “fix” it?
We can start here at Lipscomb – at Allen Arena. When a player on the opposing team gets hurt, throw out your partisan feelings and pray for their recovery. A Belmont Bruin doesn’t come down with an injury. A college student, just like you, comes down with an injury. It’s OK to not like Belmont (I know I don’t), but it’s also perfectly OK to hope that their players exit the game scratch-free.
I remember in high school under the Friday night lights whenever a player on either team got hurt. I would grab my water carrier (always the manager, never the player, fine by me), rush out to the field, hydrate the sweaty teens and join in on the on-field prayer.
Being open and proud about condemning bad behavior isn’t self-righteous – it’s the right, and only, thing to do.
It’s OK to be a passionate fan. It’s OK to care about your favorite sports team. But things get out of hand when victory triumphs over character.
During those short few hours on the couch watching the week’s big match-up, winning can seem like the only desirable outcome. But never forget that through victory or loss, you’re still going to turn off the television and go about your daily routine after the post-game report. It might be with a smile or frown, happy or sad dinner conversation, proud jersey Monday or sulky bumper-sticker viewing Monday.
Surely and inevitably, life goes on.
But those Kansas City fans who threw out human decency to cheer when their QB suffered a brain injury, which is — even if minor — what a concussion is, they solidified themselves as sickos, choosing idiocy over decency.
These are the inhumane morons who make death-threats at players on Twitter, would harm a referee for a bad call, would hope for injury on the opposing quarterback, would throw bottles onto a field in protest of a ref’s decision, would pay the players to purposefully go after the opponent with an aim to harm, would throw out their moral ideology to chalk up another W in the win column.
My rant’s over, but let yours begin. Let’s start right here at Lipscomb and do our part.
After all, it’s just a game, you know.
Matt Cassel picture courtesy of Sports Illustrated. Braves picture courtesy of Yahoo! Sports.