Anyone been following Oakland LB Nick Roach lately? He’s pretty much off most people’s radar, unless they’re unfortunate enough to be a Raiders fan. Seriously, pick a new team already, people. There are 31 other teams out there, and at least 28 of them don’t punish their fans the same way Oakland does. Anyway, Roach suffered a concussion right before week 1 this year. He sat out the first four games, had a bye week, and then was placed on injured reserve, ending his season. When I’m logging injuries like into my database, extreme cases like this always stand out and pique my curiosity. Clearly that is one ugly concussion, and Roach must have some serious complications going on for the team to take such a drastic measure and lose him for the season. (Let’s be clear, I’m all for the team trying to protect his health and shutting him down, so don’t go thinking that I’m rooting for Roach to hurry back in there.)
Given the severity of Roach’s injury, I find it offensive to read crap like this, written by ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Go ahead and take a read there to see if you find it as ridiculous as I do. If I could summarize that story into three points, it would look like this:
- Nick Roach was devastated by a concussion this season.
- Nick Roach is still having problems with vision and balance.
- Nick Roach will be just fine.
Which one of those stinks like NFL pom-pom waving bullshit? How can any responsible reporter look at this case and write an optimistic outlook on the player’s future? This is the sort of spin that Nick Roach’s mom would put on Nick Roach’s condition when she tells Nick Roach’s grandmother, who has a heart condition and isn’t supposed to worry so the family edits all the news they tell her. “Oh yes, Nicholas had some trouble there for a spell, but he’s going to be just fine gammy. Hey, have you knitted anything awesome lately?”
One last thing. I’m not saying that Roach won’t be fine next year. Nobody knows. I hope he is. I’m just saying that if you’re going to go that much against the grain and ignore all current facts, you might want to hedge it a little or dig a little deeper into your reasoning. That’s the sort of crap that drives my crazy about current NFL reporting. Rant over.
