Going to an NFL game in St. Louis would kill anyone’s passion for the NFL. The Dome was dark, and there would be more people wearing Blues and Cardinals stuff than Rams gear. The Rams were maybe the 5th most popular team in a 3 team town.

I know some religious types that I like and respect. I don’t associate with the ‘bad ones’, but apparently they’re out there since our country is currently controlled by assholes that court that crowd.

There is a difference between “Religious types” and
“people like Ray Lewis/hypocrites of the ‘Guns and God’ crowd’.” I know many good religious people just like I know many atheist assholes.

I think the fact that he was really good at football got him more loyal followers than anything

Proof that in America you can be an awful person but say you believe in god and be respected.

Yes, there are two sides.

You are THICK man, jesus.

You realize that at some point chasing after something isn’t worth the hassle right? The NIH doesn’t exist to serve as a debt collector. Their job is to conduct research. If they have the money to do their work and NFL is being a pain the walking away is the best option.

Litigation is expensive, time consuming and requires one to deal with a lot of bullshit, even under the best of circumstances. When your opponent is an organization like the NFL, you also have the additional displeasure of dealing with human beings who are especially arrogant and dishonest jerks.

I was a development intern at a nonprofit in college. Where’s my salute?

They don’t want it anymore because it means the NFL can essentially control the research they do. $16 million dollars isn’t that useful if you can’t use it to actually study what you’re supposed to. It’s not that complicated. If I’m studying gun violence and the NRA gives me $16 million, but gets to decide what I…

Nih budget is something like 34 billion a year, so a token 16 million that comes with dubious ethical questions is something they can, and should, walk away from

Glad that came through.

The NFL, in other words, was interested in paying for propaganda, and the NIH refused to play along.

Didn’t the NFL approach the NIH in the first place after all the backlash about concussions? They were willing to give the money on their terms for propaganda purposes. That way they could say “Hey! We gave $30 million to concussion research and they didn’t find anything!”

Yes, and while we’re at it, why tax tobacco companies when we could all just pay the health care costs for lifelong smokers? 

I mean, is anyone surprised that the NFL is not really committed to concussion research? Why would a business fund research that is going to directly harm them?

“But why is viewership down 8%?”

A front loaded NFL contract that they had no intention of honoring? They must have thought the NIH was a player.