You like many other posters think it's as easy as, "just suck it up" and play. Maybe 1% of the people on this board have a clue on what it's like to go through what these players have gone through in the past 2.5 years.
You and everyone else can bloviate until the cows come home. You're just another know it all internet poster that people "in the know", i.e., coaches, players and scouts laugh at on a daily basis.
People post like they have a clue. They don't. Not one iota of a clue. "Man up"....Don't quit on the team"....Play hard all the time"
I doubt there are more than 3 people on this board who could put in the effort these players put in 12 months out of the year.
Takes real men to bash them to death after the bull they've been through.
Really easy from the bleachers ain't it guys?
By the way...all you smart guys who thought Smallwood's stock has dropped this year? He's a semi finalist for the Butkus award. Top 12 in the country.
Boy, are you sadly mistaken. I played 14 years of football from a tike through college. Many here have played the game I am ceratin. That makes many of us brothers. If you played the game even for a few years you understand it for what it is - a mental battle. In fact, I can directly relate to almost every kind of hit those guys experience. You name it I can remember it, being flipped, being blind side hit, being speared, being hit so hard you actually see colors and hear a buzz, falling on your head, geting rolled up on, etc, etc.... When its cold and freezing rain its a battle, when its sweltering hot its a battle, when your fingers are crushed and thrombing its a battle, when you get a stinger or your shoulder seperates it a battle, when you get your clock cleaned its a battle. Those who have never played think its physical. Wrong. Its physical intensity brought out by mental will power coupled with the ability to execute. Dont think for a minute that the game is not won or lost man to man, play to play, hit to hit. The game is about mental dominence of your opponent through physical battle. I can assure you based on your commentary, among the two of us you know nothing. I have great respect for those who fight like annimals and are overmatched. They are warriors. I have little respect for those who have the ability but have conceded defeat on the field.
At my riping old age, I proudly wake with a knee that aches every day, a left shoulder that locks up and I cannot lift over my head, and a fractured 5th vertbrae that causes me pain when I sleep. I would not trade a single day of physical aches and pains for my time playing the game. There is hardly anything greater or more accutaely defning in the character of young men, except actual warfare. I think i have earned the right to levy my assessment, and I know many others here have as well.
