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battleangel · 4 months ago

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Super Bowl Sunday: Brainwashing Kids & Brett Favre's Damaged Brain

On Super Bowl Sunday, while over 120 million Americans tune into the big game and hundreds of millions more watch worldwide, since I no longer watch football I wanted to examine how the NFL exploits & brainwashes children.

Fight For Every Inch

Reddit “I can't speak to non NFL players as they're not really contact sports, but in the NFL, you're taught from an early age to fight for every yard possible. Some guys are so insanely strong that while they're fighting for yards, they'll hurt themselves.”

Youth Football Coach #1 — Reddit "Coaches used the “quick whistle” (so guys hit and continued 100% until the whistle but were instructed to stop at the whistle which was often blown at the onset of tackle/heavy contact) in a lot of drills/scrimmage and usually we started drills at like 75% and worked our way up to 100%."

Youth Football Coach #2 — Reddit "I’m even fond of doing team periods and whole practices in “thud” once or twice a week in-season with shoulder pads and shorts—and a VERY quick whistle and watchful coaches."

So, the play’s over but the ref hasn't blown the whistle so the ball is still in play.

No matter how injured a player becomes in this scenario — no matter how far away the player was from the actual ball, the play itself & the meaningful action on the field — whether during kickoff or during any other play — players when asked always say the same exact thing: that they have been trained since Pee Wee to "play through the whistle" and that the play isn't over until the ref blows his whistle.

Pee Wee is ages 5 to 9 — literal children being brainwashed to hit with everything they have until a whistle is blown and they are then allowed to stop.

How is that not Pavlovian conditioning?

They’re taught from the literal time they are children to hit not think, to play at absolute full tilt & full speed, every single play, 70 to 80 plays a game, until the all mighty whistle is blown.

Until then, they are trained as children to risk their lives, risk their limbs, risk their bodies, risk their brains, risk their minds on every single play, no matter how far away they actually are from the ball on the field.

They as a person, they as people, they as children, do not matter — all that matters is the ball, football.

That is Pavlovian conditioning!

That is brainwashing!

During mindless, endless, numbing hitting drills during training camps, the coaches push their adolescent, teenage and young adult male charges to their absolute limit and breaking point and the only time that they are allowed to stop — linemen hitting drills, red zone drills, 1 on 1 "beat your man" drills, etc. — is when the coach blows his whistle.

Until then, you are nothing but an inhuman battering ram smashing yourself repeatedly into your teammates in drills, practices & scrimmages and opponents during games, waiting to hear a merciful whistle to end your brain being battered.

Short bursts of violence, intensity, explosive action, balletic destruction that all comes to an instantaneous immediate stop the moment the ref whistles the play dead.

Until then, you unthinkingly unflinchingly risk catastrophic & debilitating injury, paralysis, concussion, physical & mental incapacitation, spinal cord injuries, broken necks, permanent brain damage, nerve damage, internal bleeding, punctured & collapsed lungs, broken collarbones, temporary memory loss, anterograde amnesia, loss of consciousness, blacking out, convulsions & seizures, fencing responses . . .

Never hesitating, never flinching, never thinking.

As the old NFL VHS series were called, Search and Destroy.

War Stories.

Strike Force and Merchants of Menace.

Simulated battle with actual real-life casualties.

Constant programming & brainwashing at all times at all levels of the sport.

How else do you get a human being to smash into another human being 70 to 80 times a game without thinking and without hesitation?

It's what the military does when brainwashing its recruits during basic training.

It's getting human beings to have absolutely no regard for their own physical well being.

Attack!

Go over that hill!

Get into that bunker!

Get into those trenches!

Charge!

The parallels between the military & football are stark, undeniable, sobering, unnerving & fucking terrifying.

Same cold, militaristic, dehumanizing demands.

Same unthinking, unquestioned obedience to authority.

Sir, yes sir!

Yes, coach!

Same brainwashing tactics.

Same inhuman, inhumane, unreasonable, cruel demands.

Same breaking down of the mind, body and psyche.

Same militaristic ideals of masculinity, virtue, physical courage, valor & bravado.

Same willingness to die for the cause.

Same replacement of the individual with the group — the unit or squad in the military and the team in football.

I am soldier.

I am player.

I am football.

I will kill myself until I hear the whistle.

I will hurt and be hurt until then.

I will maim and be maimed.

Search & Destroy, as the NFL VHS 80s video series was called.

Injure and be injured.

Leap, jump, twist, grab, shove, pull, growl, grunt, push, crawl, fight, drag, scratch, claw, punch, stomp.

Anything for ball.

Anything for coach.

Anything goes.

In between the white lines and the whistle is where essential truth lies.

It's where I can test myself as a man against another grown ass man.

There's no hiding behind, going around, going up or over or getting someone else to do it for you or anything like that.

The true measure of a man — just you and me, lined up against each other, squared up, pads against pads.

The distillation of manhood as we stare into each other, neither one willing to bend — so who breaks?

The ultimate test of manhood.

Masculinity boiled down to its purest essence.

So rare in today's day and age of tweets, twitch and texts.

Who is a man? Who came to play?

Who came to hit?

Who wants it more?

Are you going to take it away from me or am I going to take it away from you?

We both want the same exact thing so the only question as we line up against each other is — who wants it more?

No excuses, no hiding, no running — just squared up against each other, me vs you.

The essence of manhood and war.

The only way past me is to run right through me.

To overpower me. To have a stronger will than me.

To want it more than me.

To be more of a man than me.

A true battle of wills unparalleled anywhere else in our current day genteel, sterilized, homogenized, bubble wrapped existences.

Lined up, one on one, mano y mano.

My will against your will.

May the least battered brain cells win.

In between the white lines.

Its where ligaments and tendons are torn, where muscles are pulled, where bones break and shatter, where brains and minds are concussed to jelly, where neurons tear, where brain cells die, where white brain matter is lost, where seasons are ended, where careers are ended, where blood and sweat and tears flow, where screams are bellowed, where war cries are yelled, where players go down on a knee, where players collapse to the turf motionlessly face down, where players lie immobile, where players are carted off, stretchered off & driven off by ambulance, where cerebrospinal fluid leaks, where traumatic brain injuries occur, where brains bleed & swell, where helmets clash & collide, where facemasks crash into one another, where cleats dig into soft bruised skin, where players bodies are bent backwards, snapped upwards, crunched in between multiple defenders, hit high and hit low, where human beings are obliterated, crashed, smashed, destroyed, pulverized, crushed. . .

Anything goes until the whistle blows.

The darkest violence, the most unhinged impulses, the most feral & ferocious attacks.

The whistle is what the players are trained, conditioned and endlessly brainwashed as children in countless training camps, hitting drills, 1 on 1s, 7 on 7s, 11 on 11s, end zone drills, scrimmages and gametime scenarios to listen to, slavishly obey, and follow like salivating Pavlovian dogs.

Whistle, salivate. Whistle, stop being an inhuman battering ram, back to being a human being.

Until the ball is snapped again, ofcourse.

Listen for the whistle at all times as it will tell you whether to dive on top of a pile of fellow human beings where anything goes because even in 2025 the cameras cannot see what goes on under a pile of 22 writhing behemoth men killing each other for a bouncing ball.

The whistle will tell you whether to hit, smash, run full tilt into another human being also running full tilt into you, whether to launch yourself like a missile, to leap over the end zone straight into a 350+ pound defender, whether to torpedo yourself in open space at a really shitty angle against an offensive player in a tackle attempt that has the potential to seriously hurt you with the added bonus of probably not even knocking the ball loose, kamikaze'ing yourself on kick off since a fair catch wasn’t signaled whether it puts you on injured reserve for the rest of the season or not he is going to pay for not fair catching that ball . . .

The whistle is all-powerful.

The whistle tells you when to pop, when to jam, when to fill the hole, when to hit high, when to hit low, when to launch yourself like a weapon, when to lower your shoulder and obliterate your opponent, when to compress your spine, when to fracture your vertebrae, when to willingly enter yourself into the concussion protocol, when to willingly check yourself into your local hospitals neurology ward, when to transfer yourself to an assisted living facility, when to shave years off your life, when to shrink your own brains white matter, when to physically & mentally incapacitate yourself, when to make yourself see stars, when to make yourself taste blood, when to pop off an opponent's helmet, when to risk a crazy angle that may take you and the other guy out, when to break a stiff arm, when to pulverize a guy that is heading out of bounds, when to demolish a QB who started sliding just a little late, when to punish, hurt, maim, injure, destroy, destruct, damage, pulverize, pulpify, put in a blender . . .

Give it everything you've got!

You’ve gotta go hit the person in front of you!

Run through them like they're not even there!

I want to see violence! Aggression!

Make him pay!

Make him see stars!

Make him swallow his mouthguard!

Who's a man? Who's afraid to hit?

Who's afraid to be hit?

We're going to see what's what once those pads come on.

Militaristic brainwashing tactics employed in bootcamp with adult recruits are utilized in hitting drills in Pee Wee football with 5 to 8 year old children.

Football is brainwashing.

Brainwashing Children

“It’s chaotic. It takes years and years of brainwashing to go along with a lot of the shit. Lol. It starts at Pee Wee [youth football]. We were groomed from a young age to care a little less about humans. Training camp is brainwashing camp. I used to always laugh watching guys who came in one way and left another after the daily brainwashing. Like, damn they got another one. Psychologically it’s some really dangerous shit. Athletes experience a lot of physical and mental abuse. It’s a traumatic experience. The PTSD.” – Martellus Bennett, former NFL defensive end & Super Bowl winner & author of "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable"

“The brainwashing & dividing of culture for a small piece of jewelry No Longer Exist...Being around too much Ego to even understand that someone has the same skin as you No Longer Exist ... People using me for Entertainment and not understanding that i Am a Black Man in America No Longer Exist." — Rishard Matthews, a former wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints wrote on his social media.

NBCNews.com:

"Former college football linebacker Michael Keck had played tackle football since he was age 6 and had sustained more than 10 concussions by the time he was a junior in college.

Keck knew something was going wrong with his brain. He was only in his 20s and his memory was failing. He was having trouble concentrating and he’d become uncharacteristically emotional and short-fused.

By the time Keck was 25, he had lost the ability to work and had become completely dependent on his wife.

Keck died from a congenital heart defect at the age of 25 in 2013.

In the researchers' report, published in JAMA Neurology, doctors found clumps of abnormal tau protein scattered throughout his brain in a pattern researchers say is one of the hallmarks of CTE.

"It was the worst CTE I’ve seen in an individual this young," said study co-author Dr. Ann McKee. “It was quite widespread," said McKee, chief of neuropathology at the Bedford Veterans Administration and a professor of neurology and pathology at the Boston University School of Medicine.

Researchers discovered that Keck not only had CTE, but also that it was as severe as what had been found in the brain of 43-year-old Seau.

"He started playing when he was quite young,” Dr. Ann McKee from Boston University's CTE research center said. “So he had 16 years of football behind him. That’s a lengthy exposure."

Even as a youngster, Michael had been taught to play through pain, even if it was associated with a brain injury, his wife said.

“He told me that when he was 8 he would be sitting on the bench holding his head and the coach would be rubbing it because it hurt so bad,” Cassandra, Michael's wife, said.

Whether Keck was playing youth, or high school or college football, the message was “if you’re hurt, you just get out there and play — don’t be a wuss,” Cassandra said.

Regardless of how dope Kendrick Lamar's halftime show is, or whether the former team I supported for 15 years before I stopped watching football actually beat the Chiefs & win their second Super Bowl in less than a decade, or how hilarious the ads are (Seal as a...seal?) or how breathless the reporting is on Taylor Swift's outfit is, if her & Travis Kelce wore matching outfits & the over/under for how many times the broadcast will switch to Taylor reacting in VIP during Kendrick's performance...

I will be sitting at home not cheering the Eagles on, not watching the Super Bowl, the ads, the halftime show & all the rest of the spectacle, glamour, glitz that encompasses what has essentially become a national holiday — the Super Bowl.

Lest you think it's just because of children being conditioned in creepy Pavlovian violent militaristic brainwashing drills, there is also the issue of Brett Favre at 55 already being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease by five different neurologists & struggling to hold a screw driver in his hands.

Was football worth Brett Favre's mind?

Brett Favre: A Warning From The Future — 90 Seconds:

youtube

East Bay Times — 2016:

“HE WOULD take off running, screaming, waving his arms and raising his fists, until he reached the object of his “man love.”

He didn’t think twice about vaulting into the arms of a lineman or climbing the back of a receiver.

He would hug and kiss coaches, teammates and opponents.

Everyone was his friend, and he spent 16 seasons hauling us around for one of the wildest, craziest, greatest rides in sports history.

Then he had to go and add good-ole-boy charm to his package. Favre was a regular guy, one of the boys. He showed up in Green Bay and immediately began pushing out burps that could be heard all over Wisconsin. He was the overgrown country boy with the twinkle in his eye, embracing every moment, squeezing it to the last drop.

Favre no doubt fantasized about dumping a bucket of water on Paul Tagliabue, the stuffy patrician mannequin-with-a-brain who served as No Fun League commissioner for most of Favre’s 17-year career.

If Favre was not smooching a teammate, he might be seen wrapping a friendly arm around a “hated” opponent such as Warren Sapp or taking a dive to nudge Michael Strahan into the record book.

While most football players tend to be programmed and many are utterly humorless — especially on the field — Favre was the opposite. His imagination never took leave, his love the game never went absent. He was a such highly unique football player, we have to turn to three retired NBA stars to capture his essence.

We submit that Favre was a blend of Larry Bird’s cool, aw-shucks swagger and Magic Johnson’s exuberance and creativity, with a generous sprinkle of Charles Barkley’s innate insouciance.

That aside, Favre was a tremendous thrower, with unmatched toughness, outstanding arm strength and a machismo that spread to his teammates. Though Montana and Elway were great leaders, neither was any better than Favre, who shared with them the ability to make magic, thus inspiring faith among teammates and fans.

Another shrewd discovery of the superb scout Ron Wolf, Favre joined the Packers in 1992 as a backup and in less than a season established himself as the man to engineer their turnaround.

Favre started 253 consecutive games, which given the pounding a quarterback takes is as impressive as Cal Ripken’s feat of playing in 2,632 consecutive baseball games.

Favre won most of those games and, moreover, appeared to enjoy the action as much as we enjoyed watching. If he were to say he’d have played for nothing, I think I’d believe him.”

Sports Illustrated

"You would never come out of the game for a concussion because nobody thought concussions were that bad," Favre said. "It was a matter of toughness. You didn't come out of a game because you were dinged, you saw stars, or fireworks are flashing — which are all results of a concussion, as we know now. Ear ringing, kind of like the dinner bell dining — 'time to come eat' — that should be a wake-up call: You just suffered a severe brain injury."

Boston University Medical Campus:

A study of 211 deceased football players found that those who started playing tackle football before age 12 developed symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) 13 years earlier than those who started later. The study also found that each year a player played before age 12 predicted an earlier onset of cognitive problems by 2.4 years.

U.S. News & World Report

Favre was known for his durability during his Hall of Fame career. He had an NFL-record streak of 297 consecutive starts, a figure that goes up to 321 if playoff games are included.

He won three straight MVP awards with the Green Bay Packers from 1995-97. Favre led the 1996 Packers to their first Super Bowl title in nearly three decades and brought them back to the Super Bowl the following year.

Fox11Online

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was Favre’s teammate for three seasons in Green Bay, said Wednesday it is “unfortunately” part of the game.

“You know, the older you get, and some of you know this, like the mortality gets kind of thrown in our face a little bit more,” Rodgers said. “It’s actually unfortunately more normal to hear about a death or a cancer diagnosis or a diagnosis like this. And it doesn’t desensitize it for me. I mean, I feel bad for him and (his wife) Deanna, but it’s unfortunately part of our game. That’s part of the risk of playing.”

Favre said five Parkinson's specialists told him they believed head trauma played a role in his developing the disease.

“Well, hell, I wrote the book on head trauma,” said Favre, who once estimated he had “thousands” of concussions.

Packers.com

Number 5: "The worst hit I remember in college was a game at Auburn," Brett says. "The defensive back, I never saw him, and he hit me right here," he says, pointing to his chin. "It was Carlo Cheatum. I'll never forget his name. You live and learn."

Number 4: Greg Lloyd, Aug. 13, 1995, at Pittsburgh (preseason). "Yah, I keep forgetting that one," Brett says. Wonder why. Lloyd hit Favre and knocked him silly. "That would definitely be in the top 5," he says.

Number 3: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, Dec. 24, 1995. Remember that streak of blood trickling down Favre's chin as he led a scoring drive to win the division title? So does Brett. "I tried running into the end zone, got smushed by two guys. I ended up coughing up blood."

"They laugh in the huddle," Brett says. "Frankie (Winters) always tells me, 'You're the craziest son-of-a- --- I've ever seen.'"

"I look at this game as being brutal, and you've got to get up if you can. Other players don't look at it that way. But jumping up, and pumping up our players and fans, it may give us an advantage. I'll use anything I can, including my body."

Was it truly worth it?

Losing your mind over a game?

Your memories? Your personality?

Your ability to work?

Becoming mentally incapacitated?

Forgetting who your wife is?

Forgetting who your children are?

Forgetting your coach Mike Holmgren?

Forgetting making history & being MVP three years in a row?

Forgetting winning the Super Bowl for Green Bay’s first Lombardi in three decades?

Forgetting bringing the Packers to the Super Bowl back to back two years in a row?

Forgetting your consecutive streak of starting nearly 300 games in a row — over 320 games if post season playoff games are included — and subsequently being known as an ironman with unmatched toughness?

Was it worth not knowing who you are?

Was it worth debilitating & demoralizing Parkinsonism symptoms?

Was it worth dying with the shakes, tremors, trembling, physically fragile & feeble, losing most of your weight, struggling to walk, move, stand, sit, talk, swallow & breathe?

Was it worth a slow, agonizing, debilitating, demoralizing, soul crushing death that robs you of your personality, memories & dignity?

Was it worth it being superman if it made you lose yourself?

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