In Defense of Football
It's a rough, sometimes dangerous sport, but critics exaggerate football's risks
The tang of fall is in the air, and every American knows what it portends: the sights and sounds of cleats digging into grass turf, of grunting linemen colliding shoulder pad to shoulder pad, of an oblong leather ball spinning through the air, high above the mortals below. Football season is almost upon us, and with it comes another season of controversy, prompting fresh claims of a crisis in the game.
College football is perturbed by news that Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, the first freshman ever to win the Heisman Trophy, may be suspended for accepting autograph payments. The National Football League is buzzing over the arrest of cashiered New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on murder charges.
Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present" (Liveright, 2013).
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