Last Sunday, in the third quarter of the Jets/Bills game, Mike White got folded practically in half by Bills linebacker Matt Milano, in one of those plays that make you feel guilty for watching football.
It wasn’t the first big hit White took during the game, which he was pulled from twice and ended with a “precautionary” trip to the hospital.
There were two common reactions to this performance, which you can see if you look at the replies to the above tweet.
The first was: Wow, what an impressive performance by Mike White who continues to earn the respect of his coaches, his teammates, and the whole league.
And the second was: Um, they probably shouldn’t have let him do that…
On some level, this is just the latest example of a persistent problem in the NFL, where it seems like every week there are questions about the extent of a player’s injury, whether it is advisable for him to keep playing, and if the team is handling it in an honest way. Most obviously, we saw this in what happened to Tua back in September.
It’s easy to think this is a problem specific to football, and obviously it IS more pronounced in the NFL. But the question of how to keep workers safe at their jobs applies to everyone, and I think the NFL shows how it can get complicated.
The thing that’s easy to overlook in both examples is that both Mike White and Tua Tagovailoa WANTED to come back into the game. This seems obvious; athletes, and especially football players, are SUPPOSED to play hurt. They’re supposed to be tough, to want to win, to put their teams ahead of themselves, and all that stuff. But I think there’s a simpler explanation: Football players like their jobs. They appreciate the limited opportunities they have, and they want to make the most of them.
This is particularly true of White, who was a fifth-round draft pick who didn’t play a game in his first three seasons. He was originally signed to the Jets practice squad, and entered this season as the third quarterback on New York’s depth chart. This might be the only time in his whole career that he gets the chance to start for a team in playoff contention, so he’s not going to let a few potentially broken ribs get in the way. He WANTS to play.
I mention this because most of the policies aimed at keeping workers safe rely on the idea that most people don’t like their jobs, or at least that they will readily skip work if they are sick or injured. Most protections for workers are aimed at allowing them to take time off, whether in the form of laws mandating sick leave (paid or unpaid), protecting them from retaliation if they have to take time off, or allowing them to seek compensation if they are injured or disabled. These are all obviously important protections, but they run up against a simple road block — sometimes people WANT to work — more often than we realize.
We saw this during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the very first, and most obvious, precautions urged was: If you are sick, stay home! It seemed like easy, common sense advice, but it was only when it took on such social urgency that we saw how often people ignore it: People show up to work with the sniffles, or a bad cough, or any number of symptoms, and insist “I’m fine.”
The dynamic isn’t all that different from Mike White’s situation. Like White, these people don’t want to be seen as weak or selfish. And like White, they WANTED to go to work. Often that is just because there are always downsides to missing work — maybe you fall behind and have to do twice as much when you get back; maybe you miss a meeting where something important is decided; etc. But often it’s just because some people LIKE working.
And that’s good! It’s a bummer that so many people hate their job; we should all be as lucky as Mike White. The problem is that sometimes there are long-term health risks and, more to the point, that there is a capitalist class that reaps the benefits of health risks borne by the working class.
Indeed, this is why I support socialism, and not just “ethical capitalism” or whatever nonsense that non-socialists are peddling these days. Because it’s not enough to just protect workers. Pro football players have more protections than almost any workers in the country: They get very high salaries, they have a union (which is pretty weak compared to other pro sports unions, but better than what most American workers have), they have a ton of visibility, and a fair amount of health and safety protocols.
But as long as there is a capitalist class running the league, we can’t trust it to handle player safety properly. As long as there are owners who benefit from Mike White’s labor, then they will exploit White’s impulse — his understandable and admirable impulse — to play through pain. Because in theory you might want to say, “Well, White is an adult and he knows the risks, so let him make his own choice.” But in reality we know that owners have deliberately buried or misled players about the risks. They covered up research about the threat of concussions, and they cover up specific injuries to avoid having to sit players. It’s not a process that can be trusted, as long as capitalists are in charge.
Which is a real shame. Watching athletes overcome physical limitations is one of the thrills of sports, whether it’s Willis Reed in the NBA Finals, Terrell Owens in the Super Bowl, or [reference to 2004 ALCS redacted]; it shouldn’t have to come with guilt. If we want to enjoy these games, then we need to liberate the workers of the world…