Tears for Gronk

In all honesty, I have no problem with the hit on Gronk. This is the reality of the NFL of today. Players aren't allowed to hit high so they have no other choice but to dive at knees. What else are they supposed to do? Gronk is 6 foot 6 and 265 pounds. TJ Ward is 5 foot 10 and 200 pounds. If he can't hit Gronk high, how else is he supposed to take him down? It just sucks because you know a lot of these players would rather get hit high and take the risk of a concussion and miss a game or two than get hit low and tear an ACL thus ending their season.

This hit is uncomfortable to watch. These vicious hits, both high and low, happen on a weekly basis in almost every game. Seeing players get hit so hard that they get knocked out and lie on the ground without moving for 30 seconds or seeing players shred their knees and break bones is simply uncomfortable to watch. As a kid, watching the big hits was cool, but now, as I get older, I am having a harder and harder time seeing these guys get knocked out or severely injured. I used to think that the people who said football is following a similar path to boxing were crazy, but the more I watch and see these vicious hits, the more I am coming to accept that the future of football is uncertain. Football is a violent sport. As our society progresses, there seems to be, at least in my eyes, less excitement and interest towards this violence. In the future, fans may begin to shift away from the violent game of football towards basketball and the NBA, which lacks the violence but still has the entertainment and also has a unique player-fan relationship because fans can see the players' faces and bodies on a level that does not exist in the NFL where players are covered in pads. I am not sure what the future holds, but there is no denying the current state of the NFL is extremely violent--even with the rule changes that have been put in place to make the game "safer", the games are still filled with vicious collisions--and this continued violence has had a negative effect on my interest in the league.