Does the NFL really care about player safety?

I don't think so. The league does a good job of pretending to care while slowly ruining the game.

Here's an example of the league's rampant hypocrisy regarding the safety of players in the National Football League.

The NFL makes new rules that are meant to improve safety. The league basically eliminated the kickoff return two years ago.

In 2012, the NFL started playing their Thursday night schedule in early September. The NFL Network Thursday night games used to start in late November. Of course, the NFL Network Thursday night games are relatively new, beginning in recent years.

If the teams playing on Thursday night came off a bye week, meaning the teams had a nice long rest between games, then that would be fine.

But the teams playing on Thursday night have played on the previous Sunday. So where's the concern for player safety? By pushing the start schedule back to September last year, that meant a lot more teams and players were subjected to playing at least one game on the short, unhealthy schedule.

In olden times, the only short-week-rest games were played on Thanksgiving Day. Two of the teams, Dallas and Detroit, played on that day every year. But only four teams, two games, were exposed to the unhealthy effect of playing on a short-rest week.

But now, it's many teams exposed to the NFL's safety hypocrisy. And the NFL wants to add more games to Thursday night. The NFL wants to expose even more players to the dangers of playing when the body has not fully recovered from a Sunday game.

So keep changing the rules and pretending to care while trying to make as much money as possible at the expense of player safety.

• Oct 15, 2013 - Report: League considers adding more Thursday games

• Oct 16, 2013 - NFL is a despicable league that we should say goodbye to, but won't

Will the pansy-ass sports media rail against this move toward more Thursday night games in order to protect player safety, or will the lamestream sports media continue with the safe topic of trying to get the Washington Redskins to change their nickname? (Keep the nickname but change the logo to a potato.)

The NFL had a court settlement this summer over a lawsuit about player safety. People think it was a victory for the league. No. It's only the start of more and bigger lawsuits.

The NFL won't disappear, but one day, it will take a huge financial hit when it loses its tobacco-style lawsuit. The league should lose when it does obviously stupid things like playing on Thursdays with only three days rest for the players.

If more teams are subjected to multiple short-rest-week games per season, then it's possible that teams may tank those games by playing starters for only a half or so and not playing key players who could play if absolutely necessary, but they are a little banged up, so they could use the rest.

The teams could fight this by treating Thursday night regular season games like a preseason game and playing mostly backup players who could use the experience anyway. Coaches could use the games to test new schemes. The home crowd may not like the lower quality play, but then the fans can join the players and revolt against these unsafe short-rest-week games.

For a team, the short-rest-week games comprise only one or two games of the 16-game regular season. But the teams may decide that keeping players safe for the rest of the season is more important. Sort of like the mindset today of not playing starters in the fourth and final preseason game.

• Oct 15, 2013 - Anquan Boldin: Thursday games compromise player safety

Last year, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis spoke out against the NFL over the Ravens early season schedule that had the Ravens playing more games than normal over a short time period. Lewis criticized the NFL for ignoring player safety when the league created the schedule.

San Francisco receiver Anquan Boldin believes the NFL’s slate of Thursday night games shows that the league’s owners are more concerned about revenue for NFL Network than they are about player safety.

Boldin told the San Jose Mercury News that he believes the league does deserve some credit for certain player safety measures, like mandating that players get cleared by independent neurologists before they can return to the field after suffering head injuries. That doesn’t mean Boldin is on board with everything the league is doing, though.

“But there are some things that just don’t make sense to me,” Boldin said.

“I mean if you’re so concerned about player safety then why do you have every team in the league playing on Thursday night when they just competed on a Sunday, knowing how difficult it is for guys to get back to being healthy after playing on Sunday? Guys really don’t feel like they’re back till probably Thursday or Friday to prepare for that next week.”

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