Greg Hardy's Domestic Abuse Controversy

While the NFL this season has been unnaturally silent on news with players making bad decisions and getting suspended, the one story that has been going on all season is the one revolving Greg Hardy and his incident with domestic abuse. Dating back to last season, allegations came our involving Hardy assaulting his girlfriend which led to him being released by the Panthers. Hardy ended up getting a signed by the Cowboys and then received a ten game suspension which was later reduced to four games. Most recently, Hardy is off his suspension and playing for the Cowboys, however, graphic pictures have surfaced showing what Hardy did to his girlfriend. These pictures have led to people wanting Hardy suspended again, but since the NFL has already suspended him once for this case, it is up to the Cowboys organization to make any further suspensions. The only problem with this is that the Cowboys seem to be behind Hardy 100% and don't think he needs to be disciplined anymore for what he has done. In my opinion, I don't think the pictures surfacing should be a deciding reason for him being suspended more as the NFL should have suspended him for a longer time period in first place. The reason I say this is because there were reports that the NFL had already seen the pictures when they originally suspended Hardy. This should have led to more than just a four game suspension as they knew what he did, and pictures shouldn't be needed to seen to show how wrong what he did was.

Violence and Bad Parenting in Youth Sports

All across America, there have been acts of violence in all of the different youth sports. There have been crazy stories that have come out in recent years showing just how bad parents are getting when it comes to their kids and the sport they play. One story was about a man who was a referee in a soccer game and had a coach break a couple bones in his face because the ref called off the game. The coach was upset with how the man was calling the game and kept yelling at the ref to the point where he called off the game. This enraged the coach so much that he confronted the ref and assaulted him and badly broke some bones in the ref's face. Aside from this there have also been stories of things getting to the point of man being murdered at a hockey practice.

An interesting fact is that out of the 20 million kids that participate in youth sports, 70 percent of them end up quitting with the main reason being that they weren't having fun anymore. This can almost be directly related to coaches and parents taking the sports too serious and taking out the main reason kids play sports: to have fun. There have been stories of coaches and parents getting so upset to the point where they are yelling at, hitting, and even choking their kids and other kids on the teams.

I think that all of this going on in youth sports is crazy. Parents and coaches are taking the youth sports to another level of competition as they seem to care more about the results of the games more about the actual kids do themselves. The level of seriousness they have is causing kids everywhere to lose interest and end up quitting their respective sports. Parents and coaches need to realize the games their kids are playing in are meaningless at that young of an age and need to learn to have a level head when watching and coaching a game.

Gambling on Youth Football

Youth football is supposed to be about having fun and learning teamwork for young kids. In some places however, there are much more sinister events taking place during these games. What has been happening is people have been gambling on youth football. One area where this has been happening frequently is in South Florida. An ESPN investigation has caught people on video in the stands exchanging money as they are making bets on the game. Previous players for this team in South Florida told stories of how gamblers would give him money so he would play a certain way and affect the outcome of the game. Along with the gambling, there are stories and worries of gamblers getting mad about losing money and taking violent measures to get out their frustration.

The ESPN investigation shows what crazy things people will do to try and make money. These gamblers are taking a game meant for kids to have fun and turning it into a scheme to make money. This occurring in a youth South Florida league shows that gambling is more than likely happening in several youth leagues all throughout the United States, not just in football, but in other sports as well. It's crazy that people are taking an innocent game for kids and turning it into a business for themselves.

Comments For Kids

The organization, Comments for Kids, is a way for bloggers to get their blogs more known and also get feedback on them as well. This is a great tool because it shows kids that are working hard on their blogs that people are reading their blogs and appreciating their work. People can tell the kids what they are doing well, and then give them feedback on things they may want to try and implement into their blogs as well. Getting a comment from someone other than a classmate or teacher can make a kids days as they realize people are actually enjoying what they are working hard on. If done correctly, I believe Comments for Kids can actually be a pretty useful tool.

Negative of the Pink Movement

While there is good that comes with the pink movement of the NFL, there is also a good amount of negative things that come with it as well. The pink movement is meant to raise awareness for breast cancer and also raise money for it as well. The controversy that comes with all of this is that many people have raised concerns as to how much money the NFL actually donates to breast cancer. Every year in October, people go crazy and buy all kinds of different types of pink equipment for their football games, thinking they are donating to breast cancer and also showing awareness at the same time. What they be doing however is just giving the NFL more money, although they are still showing awareness by wearing the pink items. One reason people are skeptical of the NFL for how much money they really donate is because the NFL doesn't release a report showing how much money they actually give to the breast cancer charity. These things coming out about the NFL not actually donating much money to breast cancer may make people start to second guess their decision every year to go out and buy $150 worth of pink equipment.

The Good of the Pink Movement

Every year in October, the NFL has a pink movement to try and bring awareness to breast cancer. All of the players in the NFL accent their uniforms with pink equipment, whether it is their gloves, cleats, towels or something else. The color pink brings a sense of happiness to a dark subject. Football teams everywhere go out and buy pink items as well as it is not just the NFL teams that do it. People all around America come together for a good cause and raise money for breast cancer. While the NFL has been questioned about how much money is actually donated to breast cancer awareness, it still is a good thing what the NFL is doing. Not only are they raising money themselves, but it is more than likely making people want to donate themselves and making people more aware. So while the NFL may be in it for the money, they are also bringing awareness to a serious type of cancer.

Chase Utley Controversial Slide

In the seventh inning of game 2 of the NLDS, there was a very controversial play that occurred at second base. What happened was the Mets were attempting to turn a double play and when Ruben Tejada caught the ball at second base, Chase Utley slid into Tejada to break up the play and the end result was that Tejada broke his leg. Trying to break up a slide is legal, but what is making it controversial is that Utley did not slide towards the bag, but off the bag towards where Tejada was going to make the throw to first base. The result of this slide after the game was Chase Utley receiving a two game suspension. While the slide was against the rules, I don't completely agree with the decision to give Utley a two game suspension. The reason for this is because if Tejada had not broken his leg on the play, then there would more than likely be no consequence for Utley. There have been numerous times where I have seen slides like this and a player received no discipline for it. If the league wants to give Utley a suspension, then they should be consistent with giving players a suspension every time a slide like this happens and not wait until someone get seriously injured to do it.

Sports Stations and Daily Fantasy Sports

ESPN, CBS and other sports news sources have been doing tons and tons of business with DraftKings and FanDuel since they have become popular. It is seemingly impossible to watch a sports channel and not see 1 or 2 daily fantasy sports ads every commercial break. However, with all of the recent news about daily fantasy sports allegations and debate about whether it is gambling or not, this could lead to these news sources thinking again about their deals with these companies. While these couple of negative things may make sports sources think twice, I doubt they would completely cut off any type of deal with DraftKings or FanDuel. Despite the debate about daily fantasy, it still continues to grow week in and week out as the news has not affected whether people use it or not. In fact, directly after all of the news about the insider trading, daily fantasy sports had it's biggest week ever in week 5 of the NFL. Though there has been controversy, the rapid increase in daily sports popularity is too much for sports sources to resist, as they will most definitely keep showing the ads, as they should. Why would they not show ads for the most increasingly popular thing in sports and fantasy sports.

Daily Fantasy Sports Scandal

The big news recently in Daily Fantasy Sports has been about whether or not it is gambling, and now directly following this controversy there has been an insider trading scandal between FanDuel and DraftKings. What happened was a DraftKings employee basically used his insider information in a FanDuel league and ended up winning $350,000. Apparently the DraftKings employee had data about the percentages of players that were being selected in each contest, something that normal people wouldn't be able to see until after their contest started. He used this to choose the best players that a low percentage of people chose so that if these players had a big game, he would have the advantage over everyone else. This is clearly what happened as the employee turned a $25 entry fee into $350,000. What this shows is that the companies don't have knowledge about what their employees are doing, and what information they are allowing their employees to have access to. This is also shows that this could be happening more often, and this might not be the only time an employee has used insider information to get an advantage on the competition. If more people are doing this, then it basically makes some of the games impossible to win, as all of the people with inside information will have a huge advantage over all of the other people in the contest.

Icing Kickers

An unethical part of football would be when opposing teams "ice a kicker." Icing a kicker is when opposing team's head coaches call a timeout right before the ball is hiked. Opposing teams usually do this for potential game winning field goal attempts in order to try and psych out the kicker and make him think more about the kick. In some instances, the opposing team calls a timeout, but the kicker still kicks the field goals and makes it. But then on the real kick on the next play, he ends up missing the field goal and losing the game for his team. There has been a good amount of discussion about whether this is unfair, or just part of the game. I believe icing the kicker is unethical because teams know what they are doing by getting in the head of the opposing kicker and possibly causing him to mess up and lose the game.

Gambling Controversy

Gambling has always been a huge part of the NFL throughout it's history. The current season going on right now is projected to have people bet $95 billion throughout the season. Out of that money, $93 billion of it is projected to be illegally gambled. Since gambling is banned in nearly every state in the United States, people have to go through with their gambling illegally, and people have clearly been getting their bets in. An example of a gambling controversy in the NFL's history would be with an ex player named Jerry Sturm. Jerry Sturm was a Houston Oilers center who was part of one of the two potential game fixing schemes known about in NFL history. Sturm says that back in 1971, he was approached by a former teammate, who was no longer in the league at the point, and was asked to throw the game on December 5th against the Steelers for $10,000. This amount of money may not seem like much today, but back then, Sturm was only making $30,000 a year. The former teammate that offered this money was running back Donnie Stone. Sturm said Stone asked him to snap the ball badly on extra points and field goals, and make an occasional bad snap to the quarterback to blow the game. Sturm ended up turning away the offer and turned Stone into the FBI. Nothing happened to Stone however, as he denied the allegations and got away with it. This was one of the few known times where a gambler has tried to interfere with a game in the NFL's history.

Daily Fantasy Sports Controversy

Within the last two years or so, the rise in the popularity of daily fantasy sports has been astronomical. Not too long ago, barely anyone played daily fantasy sports, or knew about it at all. Now it seems like you can't get through a sports game without 20 commercials from DraftKings and FanDuel each. The main reasons for the recent boom in the popularity of daily fantasy sports is because people see it as a quick and cheap way to win a lot of money. They spend a few dollars and and want to believe they will win and get a lot of money out of a small investment. Another reason that people have flocked to daily sports is because there is no season long commitment. People want a chance to win money every week instead of having to wait a full season to see if they will win some money. So basically the reason everyone wants to play daily fantasy sports is because they are impatient and greedy to sum it all up in one sentence.

Along with the explosion in popularity of daily fantasy sports, has come lots of controversy about whether it is gambling or not and if it should be illegal. In 2006, there was a ruling that said daily fantasy matches are a game of skill, not chance. Since then, people everywhere have challenged this ruling, calling daily fantasy gambling, and wanting it to be outlawed. In my own opinion, I do not think that it is gambling. The reason for this is because it does take a good amount of skill to be successful and have a chance at winning money. You have to know the players in your sports, the match ups and you have to have a strategy going in due to the salary cap you have. Any random person that throws in a lineup obviously has a chance to win, but the likelihood of it happening are slim to none, as there are people that are experts at daily fantasy sports that will more than likely beat out the people that don't know what they are doing.

Daily fantasy sports impacts football a lot, more than any other sport. One of the biggest reasons that daily fantasy sports has exploded the way it has is because of football. There have been people that spent thousands and thousands of dollars every Sunday to try and win big.

Biggest Challenge for Football Players

Without a doubt, the biggest challenge that all football players face around the world is injuries, most notably concussions. If there is one thing that could possibly threaten the future of the NFL, it would be the problem with concussions. There have been problems with concussions throughout the NFL's history, but just recently have people really been realizing how much of an effect they have. Within the last five years, a group of more than 5,000 ex-NFL players got together to sue the league because they believed the NFL was hiding the dangers of concussions. To back up the case, there were scientists that researched brains of NFL players that had died to see what kind of long term effects brain injuries have. After a long court case, the former NFL players won it and every player involved, along with the families of players affected by long term effects of concussions, can get up to 4 million dollars in compensation. This shows that head injuries during an NFL player's career can really affect their life afterwards.

With all of this big news going on about the dangers of concussions after a players NFL career, it has to be the most threatening thing to the sport's future. It could get to the point where people stop playing or don't start playing football because they know the serious risks the head injuries could have on their future. It has already happened within the last year in the NFL, as players such as Anthony Davis and Chris Borland of the San Francisco 49ers retired at the ages 25 and 24 because of the risk of brain injuries.

Blog Introduction

Welcome to Drumming Down the Field, my name is Kyle. As you can probably tell, the sport I will be writing about is football. I am a big fan and follower of the NBA, MLB, and NFL, but since the football season is just starting, it is what I am currently most interested in. My favorite NFL team my whole life has been the Philadelphia Eagles. Some of my favorite players in the NFL are Jamaal Charles, Aaron Rodgers and Julio Jones. What I hope to get out of this semester is a good and popular blog along with more knowledge about a variety of different sports.