Sunday, December 2, 2012

NFL Televisual Ecstasy

One note has to be struck in today's Seahawk victory song.  After his defense allowed the Bears into overtime, Russell Wilson methodically, skillfully rammed the ball down Chicago's throat.  It was something to behold a gassed Brian Urlacher.  The celebrated (but aging) Bears defense had nothing left.  Wilson's passing on the move and rushing yards, along with some fine receiving by Sidney Rice and Golden Tate, won the game.  I went from the slough of despond to, if not the pinnacle, the third floor of ecstasy.  And this is what makes the NFL unique; it regularly delivers a range of emotions.  For a mediated-saturated culture -- I look out my window now and can see a neighbor's big screen lit up with the afternoon Pittsburgh-Baltimore game -- that's saying something.

NBC opened coverage of Sunday Night Football with yesterday's murder-suicide: Kansas City Chief linebacker Javon Belcher murdered his wife and then drove to the Chiefs facility and shot himself in the head in front of Romeo Crennel.  Dave Zirin wrote that the NFL should have suspended play for the day.  At halftime Bob Costas said we need to think about why we have all these guns around.  I am so inured to this kind of violence that though I saw the headlines online I ignored them.  Repetition will do this.  (See Jill Lepore's New Yorker piece on the Trayvon Martin homicide from last spring.)

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