Pablo Torre Finds Out - How We Forgot About CTE with Domonique Foxworth

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Domonique joked about his forgetfulness for years, and Pablo gas-bagged about the ethical dilemma — and existential crisis — of concussions in the NFL. But with football more popular than ever, fewer people seem to give a sh*t about CTE — and who's watching the watchers. So it's about time for an honest conversation about fear, family, aging, masculinity, hidden science and what it's like inside the huddle, when there's a horror movie inside your brain.• Subscribe to "The Domonique Foxworth Show"• 7-year NFL veteran Domonique Foxworth saw 'Concussion' and it made him question everythingIf you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Another amazing episode created by me. Right after this ad. Cool guy with cool pants and cool jacket. What happened to your voice? Man, why is everyone pointing this out? You sound like a man, it's weird.

I sound like a man? Yeah. I thought you're gonna make fun of me because I feel a little congested. You sound a little bassy. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about football.

Brother. Oh, gosh. Talk about football. Hold on. Let's make sure that our microphones are placed correctly. Oh. It is placed correctly, brother. Should I explain why I asked you to do this specifically?

Should we get into the premise of this episode? Are you excited for the premise of this episode? I mean, I know what you texted me, but it doesn't feel like much of a premise of an episode. What? All right. All right. So let's recreate the premise of this episode. because what I did was scroll through Instagram

and I saw a video of Greg Olson who you may recall from his time as an NFL tight end and the best color commentary guy in the business I thought you're gonna go with Best College rapper What's your name? Greg What you do?

Get head. Drop my drawers and let us see my third leg chilling on the seventh floor I gotta let these chickens know Greg is in the house and I fin to make these ho's joke Who played a Trigman. Tragman's the better rapper

to the white jZ of course a separate but related investigation i did see that greg olson weighed in on a topic that i wanted to talk to you about and was sort of jarred that he was so blunt about and i guess we should just play it as you take off your jacket i probably have a less pc answer than most people i think there's a very individual component to head injuries and concussions I think the guys that we see the horrible stories that are real, mental health, depression, suicide. There's a real and they're awful, they're tragic. I think to put all of that on NFL is a little misleading. I think there's a lot of guys that have CTE and have mental health issues and have drug addiction and have steroid abuse.

To say which one of those was the final straw to break to Camels back, I don't pretend to know. I've had many concussions in my life. If you cut my brain open right now, do I have CTE? Probably. Can I live as a functioning husband, father? Yeah. But if you were able to right now do a CTE and I was diagnosed with CTE,

I think people would look differently at CTE and say, okay, that's a little different than the story we've heard of guys driving their cars off a bridge. And so in there... I hadn't seen that clip. You just said yes to... You didn't even click on it when I messaged you? Of course not.

I don't click on anything you sent me. That was a lot of words. He said a lot of things there that are pretty interesting. I would say that there's a lot in there that I thought a lot harder about, like a dozen years ago. Yeah. The reason I reached out to you is not only because you're my best football player friend. I was just going through my head to see who other football player friends I'm in competition with, or I was hoping I could think of somebody to put above me. I mean, you know, Darren Oloski doesn't like you, right?

Why? I don't know. He just said he don't like you. Because I put fucking hot sauce on my chicken breast. Yeah, he hates seasoning. And he hates you. Well, you know what? It's the season.

It's the season that, you know. Maybe he's a Clippers fan. Annalowski's carbon footprint is out of control. And I'm going to get to the bottom of it. What is amusing to me is that there was a time in media when the number one topic of, like, hand-wringing importance was, CTE. And like Malcolm Gladwell was out here talking about how football, college football especially

should be banned, that football as a business would go extinct. There is all of this, I think, powerfully suggestive evidence that some portion of football players are going to come down with a serious degenerative neurological disorder, known as CTE, which is directly the consequence of being hit in the head, repeat. repeatedly over the course of playing football. And at a certain point, you have to ask yourself as a fan, or as anyone who is in any way connected to football, is it appropriate in the modern day and age

for us to support and participate in a game that has such a serious risk of physical harm to its players? Mark Cuban, my old friend who sat in the chair recently that you're sitting in now, you was saying, famously, quote, I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion. The famous quote he went on to say was pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, and they're getting hoggy. Which is...

And everybody should buy into the NBA. That's right. And then he sold out. Well, and the NFL, despite all of these sort of like thought leaders saying this stuff, really did shed the premise of CTE, neurological damage, as this existential threat. And so did I as a guy who, like, thought about such things once upon a time. And I think I know why I did, but I'm curious how you have evolved or not about this. Yeah, I mean, the information is, I mean, I think honestly, like, what I heard and what Greg was doing is a lot of, like, reasonable mental gymnastics that we all do for very, very good.

various things. And like, I think it's important to be honest with yourself or try to be as honest with yourself as possible. None of us are truly honest with ourselves, but like, football's dope. And there's a price to pay for that game that we all enjoy and is like so ingrained in our culture. I think all of us want to be heroes and we all want to be good guys and we want to be able to paint the things that all the things that we do as like morally justified. And I think you can still justify it and be comfortable with it, but you also, like, let's not pretend that what's happening isn't happening. And, like, I cover football.

I enjoy football. My son, seventh grade, is the first year I let him play tackle football. And I had told him I wasn't going to let him play tackle football. He'd been begging me to play forever and forever and forever. And was like, all right, you do well in school. Sixth grade, we'll let you play seventh grade, see how it goes. And so I'll let him play. And, like, I recognize the risk.

And that's why we were a flag family up until. then. I'm on TV talking about football all the time. I played football and we only played flag up until last year. Now he's on a team that I very strategically selected because they are really, really good and they've allowed one touchdown this year. Oh my God. And he doesn't have to play that much. Wait a minute. So your solution to football's neurological crisis is I'm going to stack my team. That's not my team. It's a team that was already stacked. And I put my son on the stack. team. I see.

And so he doesn't start and he gets in when they're blowing teams out. It's wonderful. So your solution has been, put your son on a team that is so good that he doesn't actually need to take the damage. Ain't been hit yet. Ain't made a hit. He hit nothing. He got a carry last week.

He looked good. He got a tackle, but he looked good. I'm not here to tell us straight like Dan Orlovsky, Declan's highlights. Yeah. Although that would be a great segment. No, thank you. I'm also pointing this out, though, because I similarly, like, full disclosure, I probably watch football more than any other sport recreationally at this point.

We all, America, I mean, again, if you've been asleep, like, it's the one thing that culturally matters beyond dispute. Yeah. And for me, the way that I reconciled it as media analyst person who claims to have a conscience is, like, I have covered and watched boxing for decades now. And boxing is literally consensual concussions. But that's not reconciling it. Well, what I reconcile is that in boxing,

there is a full transparency of this shit is getting you hit what? Why are you calling a timeout? Because I just, what I just said, let's do it, man. Let's not pretend. Like, you're doing all this bullshit, the same bullshit that Greg Olson was doing. The Gug is doing right there. It's like, it's like, all right, if you have to do this to live with yourself, then why you invite me here.

Like, if you want to live in your... I'm not looking for that. No, you're trying to make it about me. It's about you, though. You don't like that. I got a show, too. I know how to host my... I can host my...

Am I hosted better than you? Are you trying to Oklahoma drill me on my own damn podcast? I'm not Oklahoma and you? Listen, what I'm saying, it's a fair point. It's a fair point. It's a fair point. What I'm saying is, in boxing,

the boxers always knew what they were there to do. No, they didn't. The boxers didn't? They know what they're getting themselves into is a justification. Even if they did know what they were getting themselves into, it doesn't change that you are still participating. You can point out that boxers are disproportionately from very tough situations normally. Like, you won't find a lot of boxers who are like, man,

should I take this scholarship to go to college or should I go fight? Like, it's a rarity. Yeah, Phillips Exeter Academy is not producing a lot of heavy weights. It's a rare rarity. So, like, that's a form of, like, you could argue, exploitation. And so, like, I don't know. I guess. But what I'm saying is football for me.

You're no better than Greg is all. I don't want to establish. And you're no better than me or Greg. It's where you all rationalize it. You want to be honest? You want to have me on the show? Cut it. I have a leg, maybe even a third leg to stand on.

Stop it. I'm here to just make seven-four. I'm just here to make seven-cruc jokes. I could tell, by the way you carry yourself. Stop it. What I'm trying to say is my discomfort with football was it didn't seem like the players necessarily knew what the actual medical risk was. And now we're at a point where that seems disclosed almost parallel to the way that boxers clearly know what they're getting into. And that was my concern was like, is the league, is the science?

Is that all being hidden from you guys? It was, and there's reason to believe because it was that there is more that we don't know. The problem is you want to talk about the way that I view it and how it impacts me, but it feels like the way that you're framing this question is about how the rest of us, like me as a spectator, now I'm in the same place as you. So like, I don't understand how my perception of this is any different than yours. If you want to talk about me as a player or the father of a son who plays, those are different conversations.

But in this one, we all are in the same boat, and we're all like finding. different ways to lie to ourselves or rationalize or justified. And of course, you can do this for a number of different things in our lives. I am no better than anyone else, but I try to be honest about the fact about where the precious metals come from that are in my iPhone or in my wife's wedding ring. You got those rare earths? Yeah, I try to be honest about it. Like, it sucks, but like, I don't know. It doesn't make me any better or worse. It's just like, why we, I'm incapable of tricking myself at that level. I don't know. Genuinely, that summary is why I wanted you to talk about this is because I think, to put the pun aside, there are three legs to assess here.

There are. There really are. You just laid them out. And look, all of this is going back now almost 10 years ago. Because January 5th, 2016, I opened up my copy of USA Today. Oh, God. Well, you don't want to confront yourself? No, I don't. Here's the headline. Seven-year NFL veteran Dominique Foxworth saw concussion the movie, and it made him question everything. And this is a column. And I bring this up not just because it's very funny to imagine you watching Will Smith and having your life changed.

It's because the column is actually incredibly interesting to the point where our mutual friend, Wyatt Sannack, has long mused about like this perspective, this is you being the former player, former NFLPA president. This perspective is actually like cinematically interesting. Wyatt thinks it's funny. And it's also funny. He's a comedian. He thinks it's funny. T-E Dad was the, if we can just stomp on his IP claims. So it makes me cringe because I thought I was a good writer and I wasn't.

So that's why I cringed at that. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I didn't expect this to be some sort of exploration of the fears that I have about what has happened to my brain and the brains of people that I care about. And I don't have this research with me at this point. But maybe it's just I'm more attuned to football players. but it just seems like of the athletes. And it's a bigger league, so there's more players.

That's part of it also. It seems like those type of mental health horror stories and deaths and suicides are disproportionately football players, and it sucks. And by the way, that's some of what Greg Olson was touching on, which is that there are like multivariate equations where it's hard to isolate. Is this addiction? Is this mental health? Is this something that can isolate in some sort of clear way,

such that someone can be held liable beyond the individual? for it. But in this case, I am curious, like, having played the sport for people who did not read this column, what about watching a movie, a cinematic adaptation of the sports' foremost controversy at this time, 2016, made you feel something that actually did get your brain going, in a sense? So I'll tell you what's in it. You don't have to go read it and experience the bad writing. I think it's like any movie that you watch is like if it, and anyone who has a line of work that gets turned into something cinematic, like you view it differently.

So I think that was it. And I think this is probably a function of being a man who's like comfortable and physically athletic and strong. Like I don't go through my life much being like worried about things and having fear and being like, I don't know. I remember our friend, Mina Kimes, one of the first like work trips that we were ever on

at Super Bowl together was like whenever she rides the elevator with men, she makes sure that they get out the elevator first. And it was like shocking to me. And I was like, and then just generally, I think it was Chappelle who told a joke about how he got paid $10,000 or something for a show in cash, and he took it home on the subway and a paper bag. And he was just thinking if anyone knew what I had in this bag, they would hurt me. And he was like, women, his joke was essentially that women walk around with that all the time and everyone knows they have it. And so I think that is somewhat just privilege is like also being like a black man. younger black man, no one looks at me and it's like, oh, that guy looks like a target.

I bet that black dude in a hoodie has a lot of money and will be an easy win. So, like, I just don't walk around life like that. And so I think it was the first time that I really felt like I could be a victim and be helpless. So that was like a little, it was a different experience. Yeah, this is one line that you wrote. Stop it. It's a good line. I'm not here to dunk on the line.

It's a bad line. It wasn't good writing. Just paraphrase it. Basically what you write is that the boogeyman in this horror movie was not vanquished at the end and actually could be lying in wait in your brain. So you took that home with you. I didn't write vanquished that's disgusting. Did write vanquish. That is embarrassing.

It's so embarrassing. Forsooth, the villain. Vanquished? You three Musketeers-ass-Writer? You could tell I was trying too hard. D'Artagnan-ass words. The word vanquished is like, I was like, man, I'm going to show that. Damn, I'm a use banquish.

That's right. That's right. Part of what you did establish at this time, almost 10 years ago, was that your identity as football guy was also as the smart football guy. NFLPA president, I went to grad school, guy who, and you have all the disclaimers in here

that you say you're probably of average intelligence, but you sort of had this identity that made it such that you're branded as a smart guy. Right. And that was a factor in just, again, feeling, wait a minute, I am maybe vulnerable here in ways that I didn't realize. Yeah. I mean, I think the, so the horror stories about things going wrong for athletes is not new, especially for football players. But I think positioning myself as the guy who's going to go to business school and go do things afterwards, it's like, none of that's going to happen to me.

I think that was the part, that was part of it that was like, there's nothing I can do about this. is, I don't know if there are like, lots of people can probably relate to having some sort of family history of something where it's like, no matter how well you eat, how much you work out, you're predisposed to whatever bullshit you're predisposed to. Yeah, the hypertension movie for me is less,

less haunting, though. I'm probably watching that movie with you. You know, the pre-diabetes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Will Smith. Absolutely. Pointing at my G.P. You watch it.

Tell the truth. watch the sickle cell movie, you're not going to feel nothing. But me and my brothers and sisters watch the sickle cell movie a little bit more concerned. Well, but this is part of the whole thing with me is that we have made jokes in passing where you forget something and it's like, you know. I always make the joke. Like, my wife doesn't think it's funny. But if anything goes wrong, if I forget anything, get anything wrong, it's like, C-T.E.

It's getting to me. Because it's how I cope. One of the coping mechanisms with the fear that it could happen to me. And you can't see it. You don't understand anything. That's the scary part. And it's like I don't walk around my life being scared, but like it's in the back of my head. And it's like a little reminder every time you forget something is like you, or you get angry faster than you think you should.

Or you feel like sad over something that's not super big. Anytime something like that happens, you're like, hmm. Am I emotionally maturing? Or am I neurodegenerating? Yeah, that's the question that is just lingering in the back of your head all the time. One of the other lines here about Ashley. And look, Ashley, shout it to Ashley.

She has a line that she hits you with where it's about Declan, actually. Do you remember the line? Because this paragraph is about how... Nope. Okay, well, what Ashley replied in a jokingly defiant tone was, quote, if you were to lash out at your family,

the way that people, of course, players, there are scenes in the movie where retired players lashed out violently at their families. So now you're using my whole family. You're using your old family. To sell your podcast. I'm using, you using it.

Okay. All right. But she says is, don't worry. Your son will be strong enough to restrain you by then. He won't be. I'll still work out, baby.

You're telling you, what you're saying for Declan, when Declan, you listen to this, just know that your dad will, quote, vanquish you. Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, we joke.

But, yes. And I want to be clear, too, about how I feel about this, which is, there are lots of dangerous jobs. Like, ice road trucking or whatever the fuck. Like, the people who go out, deadliest catch, that seems dangerous. Oh, my God, deep sea fishermen. It's like in the middle of the ocean. And it's just, like, these TikTok videos where they throw, like, meat into the water and all the sharks show up. I have not seen those.

I went out deep sea fishing one time with my son and just was nauseous the whole time. forget about all the deadliness, just like shaking around. Let me read another passage from here. Oh, you an asshole. Yeah. I want to find some of your early writings. Oh, it's bad. I bet you wrote Vanquish.

I mean, I proclaimed things flippantly, which is a phrase that you say in this article. Oh, gosh, did I say that? As many men proclaimed flippantly. Who was I trying to be? Me? I hate, yeah. I was trying to be you. And it failed almost as miserable.

as you trying to beep me. Oh, God. You want something? I don't, actually, but you're going to read it anyway. Dripping with the pride of a living martyr. I don't read anything else. I know the risk, and I would do it all again. Even if I were guaranteed, it would end in a way.

We all fear, because, comma, with the money I have made, comma, I am able to drive my children with advantages and opportunities. I didn't even know existed. I hate it. I have changed the trajectory. my family's future. I would trade my quality of life, even years off my life, for a better chance of a prosperous future for my kids and their kids. I think you feel that, though. That's a version of what you just, I mean, it is... I mean, yeah, we could, you want to make fun of it first, or you want me to respond to it because it deserves to be made fun of. It already was, though.

I mean, you do call it in the next paragraph a dignified can response that shuts them up and gives me the moral high ground. So I think you were self-aware at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's horseshs. Because, because, I mean, I believe that it's... Get that whole quote ready. It's not. Dominique Foxworth on Dominique Foxworth. I mean, it's not that it's horridged completely. It's that I don't have a choice now.

And that's like, yeah. And I mean, to be fair, in this episode, I feel like I'm trying to be as honest with myself as possible. So to be fair, like, I genuinely believe that. However, I hope at some point I make it clear that I haven't experienced, like, the worst parts of this. It's like, I can't imagine ever. feeling as low as to feel like there's no other option than to take one's own life.

I mean, look, by the way, July 2025 at NFL headquarters just to put some of the real-world into this, you know, that shooting that happens, it was carried out by somebody who was posthumously diagnosed with CTE, who apparently, according to his own, again, incredibly, incredibly terrifying planning went there because of this. again, that's where I believe some of the impetus for the Greg Olson conversation was. It's like, what do we do with this? Yeah. And if all of this is a roulette wheel and it lands on us with some degree of randomness,

but with some degree of consent. And again, I think consent is where I return to. How has this conversation, when it comes to people you played with or other football players, is there a difference as time, as the last decade has gone on? Not really. I mean, I think there's differences in how the game is played and how conscious you are, like, with my son's team. Like, they barely hit in practice. And I think the NFL is similar to that.

And there's a evolution in, like, from Bear Bryant saying you're not allowed to have water because it means you're weak to, you're weak to, like, people taking water breaks in really aggressive physical practices, to maturing to, like, the ability to get up from a concussion and return to play was a badge of honor to now. I think teammates are less likely to encourage someone to do that. So it's always, and honestly, to be fair, the teammates have always been the ones that were more likely to protect you than anyone else, like including yourself. You won't find any stories of players pushing other players who got concussed to get back on the field. You'll find stories of coaches and fans and people around them. What you will find, though, is a lot of players like telling on other players. Guys would be like, hey, he's not, something's wrong. You could tell because sometimes somebody would come back to the huddle

after like head bouncing off the ground or something, come back to the huddle and they're just looking past you. And somebody would recognize it and be like, nah, nah, he got to go. Like you got to go check him out. Then you go to sideline. You pass the tests and they send you ass back into the game. One of the other football friends that I do have who is not as good a friend as you,

unfortunately, for Alex Smith. Alex told me the guy who wanted to lie to the test administrator more than anyone else was him. Yeah. Job insecurity. So the whole idea of like

who's going to police this stuff, like you can't expect the actual players to do it because the incentives are such that. There is no luxury in disclosure. You risk your employment. Even if you're a quarterback, especially maybe if you're a quarterback. And so then the question becomes

who watches the watchers. And we're living, I'm watching football, and one of the great memes of this season is Cam Scataboo. Yeah. C-T-Eing all over the place. It's a joke now. I'm trying to hold in my head at the same time,

like why it is that I found this alarmism, if not outright justified concern, that was at the basis of this movie concussion? And how it is that not that long after that we're here. And it's funny to me. Yeah, I mean, you can't say that word. We can, as former football players.

CTE. Oh. That's your word. It's our word. And we can laugh at the jokes. You better not be. However. I have a stiff upper lip watching Pam Scataboo being transposed to the Juggernaut X-Men mean.

I'm surprised that you are confused by it. The funniest shit is all like the, like, discomfort and pains that we feel together or apart. So, like, yeah, the reason why that Colin making CT jokes about Cam Skadipo is funny is because it's a little bit taboo. And so, yeah, like, I guess I'm not surprised that it's funny. It would be weird. Like, everything that is terrible has a line of jokes that I would laugh at if they were

good enough. I think that's correct. I think I'm really sort of, like, identifying, though, the way in which there used to be this thing. I remember going on ESPN. And it would be like how, how, and I think it's even more embarrassing, in fairness to you,

to go back and watch me on television at this time because I'm saying a bunch of stuff that I clearly don't stand by now when it comes to like what needs to be done. And by the way, I don't even know now what's left to do. Because by the way, like guys, like Chris Nguinsky,

who runs the Concussion Institute and all these people, we both know some of them, this is their bag, raising concerns about this. I assume, if I'm going to be sort of a realist here, a pragmatist, that you do still want some people who are going to watch the watchers. I'm glad those people are still super sincerely invested in monitoring this. What I'm identifying is that fewer people seem to give a shit that those guys exist. Yeah. And I wonder if that's just, maybe just we found our equilibrium.

It's not going to go away. I think there's a relatively newer concept to me that I've been hearing, especially with like bigger, more important issues in sports, it's just about how everyone has their roles to be played. And not everyone is in position to take the stand all the time, but there is a value to people trying to pull

in a futile way at something that they will never get accomplished. Because it allows for, like, the Overton's window to be moved to a place to where the person who does have the power to make these decisions is free to make the decision that they want to make, because previously without some counterbalance.

So, like, if, that's the point that you're making, yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that at all. I think it's, it's important that it doesn't go away because there's no motivation for anyone in this enterprise, like the players, the coaches, the owners, the commissioner, the referees, like, no one is really incentivized to do the best, most healthy thing. So the idea that there's someone always pulling you to, like, banish it. Then it makes no padded practices feel like, reasonable thing to suggest. Oh, those guardian helmets.

Yeah. Those insane, I mean, look, and instinctively, I'm like, that looks dumb as hell. And yet I'm like, that's truly like a function of the argument that took place. Yeah. I mean, we can all agree they look stupid. They're just a little big. And they're just a little big. It makes everybody look like a kid.

Like a little kid running around. Everyone looks like Kyler Murray out there. Like a kid out there, as it were. The NFL in February of this year, I want to be, again, fair to their data collection as much as this must be taken with the obvious grain of salt that this is the NFL's own data collection.

Operations.Nefel.com announced injury data for the 24 season, which revealed a significant decrease in concussions. A historic low, 17% reduction compared to the 2023 season, including all practices in games and both the preseason and the regular season. Largest safety improvement in helmets worn on field since 2021. There's a lot of things that you said.

Yes. So the... Hosted better than me, please. If you're allowed to... No, the concussion... So the reduction in concussions, like, of course, like you have to take the NFL data with a grain of salt, obviously.

But you can also, like, reasonably conclude that immediately after we started to be more vigilant about concussions, like, the number went up. Yes. And that seems like the normal response is like, all right, they're not more concussions. We're just recognizing them more. And then, since then,

there's been, like, changes to the... to the game and they've been changing to equipment. And like logically, the argument would suggest that maybe these things over time would have an effect and they should go down. The problem is, though, measuring concussions seems like

you don't fully understand the science. Right. Of this? Is the wrong? Is that the variable that we should be tracking? Yeah. And we'll explain that, though. So, I mean, it's pretty like intuitive when you think about it.

is like the big knockout concussions have effect that stick in your mind. You're like, yeah, that's what did it. When in actuality, like, there are players who have been found with CTE who never had one of those plays after they died. All the subconcussive episodes that happen in a course of a game that are just natural football plays, they don't knock me unconscious, they don't make me feel whatever. But the concept is, like, you pluck your brain enough time. that there is going to be some damage.

So like, yeah, I mean, reduction in concussions, wonderful. That's good. I'm sure those aren't good for you. But I don't know that that means that we actually have taken a chunk out of the future of CTE. I kind of feel like you play this enough times, and it doesn't even have to, it doesn't even feel like it has to be a real long time, that you're going to be exposed to it. And then that's when you get to Greg Olson's point.

There are plenty of people who live fine lives having played, having played high school, college, professional football. But then it's like all this other stuff. It's like, are we sure that it's not some medical predisposition? Are we sure that it's not a function of all these other things? But we do know that this is a factor. That's the one thing that we can't avoid no matter how hard we try. Yeah, the subunclusive thing, the fact that linemen in the trenches on every play

are accumulating these things that can't be identified as, yeah, a thing that would go into the jacked-up montage that they also, by the way, function of the times eventually got rid of on ESPN and those such shows. But part of me, I want to sort of broaden it out to like how I feel about such things. Because it's not merely an analogy to boxing that I think of. It's an analogy to any sort of thing where I understand that there are costs and risks. And I do have a general opinion when it comes to all sorts of drugs for instance, consenting adults who know the scientific risks and the medical disclosures should be

able to make choices about what they spin the roulette wheel on. And that's my general perspective when it comes to gambling, when it comes to legalizing drugs, when it comes to lots of things. It's different. I mean, I think... Why is it different? It's different because I imagine if there was people who would argue for the legalization of drugs and understanding the risk, if there was a drug, that did not have any risk, you would advocate for that, right? And so this is different because I think that people believe that they could find a way to remove the violence from football and it'd still be fun and interesting, which, like,

I'm not sure we can. And even if it's subliminal, you love it. Like, we love it. I recognized this because when I was six, I wanted to be a pro football player, in large part because I thought that was like the most masculine thing. Like I didn't want to play basketball. Like I would play basketball. But like basketball was for the guys who weren't tough enough to play football.

It's like in actuality, then for the guys who are tall enough and smart enough not to play football. But your screen name, once again, for people who have not listened to your previous appearances on this show, your screen name, your Aval screen name was. NFL bound. Yeah. Long time ago. NFL bound, what number again?

It was 36. Yeah. It was my number for like, two weeks in college because I came in early because 36 is an ugly number. I don't want anybody to think that. That's another embarrassing choice. Anybody think that I'm actually a 36. Stop it.

I was six in college. But anyway, I mean, I think that's the part. But that, right? Like, we all like it. And, like, I wanted to be a part of it. I recognize that the fact that you could get knocked out in it was part of the reason why I wanted to be there. And the fact that it is very, it has a level of physicality is probably the most

differentiating factor of football from a lot of other popular sports, and it's why it's the most popular. So the popularity, to me, how I think about football has radically changed in this way. In the last 10, 12, 15 years since we were having these like real ethical dilemmas in which I was going on television and talking and hearing about people point out that football without concussions is like making a safer cigarette. It doesn't really exist. It's a story you tell yourself about yourself so you can keep smoking cigarettes. But the popularity of the game has gone from this thing that was

15 years ago, part of the indictment, to now being part of the virtue. We're living in this time when everything is fragmented. No one watches anything together. I can't walk into a room with somebody who votes the opposite for me and be cheering for the

same thing anymore. But that sh** happens every Sunday, every Saturday, every Friday, and now every day the week, depending on how effective Roger Goodell's risk board is going to be. What?

Are concussions going to save our republic? Is that what your argument? It feels like you're mounting an argument for... Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Are you about to write a vanquished sentence? Is that what you're doing? I'm doing the thing where, like, at a video game, you, like, charge up. I'm holding down the B button. I'm about to argue

that concussions are going to save the Republic. I genuinely watch football, and I think to myself, thank God we got something that is this popular. It's a throwback to a time when things were popular. Everything now is subcultures, and it's a zillion little substack subscriptions or channels that don't interact. And here we have this thing where I'm like, I'm... I've reconciled with the fact that America, of course, is a violent country.

That's not something I faint about. But this, it feels so not just uncool, but unproductive, to be the guy saying, you should stop watching this. And by the way, I really do love watching it. So there's that, you led with that, acknowledged, asked and answered. But then I'm just like, I actually don't want people to stop watching it. I want people to continue to get into buildings together to enjoy something, even if it's the fucking Coliseum.

And I mean, even to your point, like, there's, there, even if you're not on the same team, but you're not rude for the same team, there is still like some, for the most part, there's some, like, shared experience and camaraderie. And it's an early question, I think, that comes up when you're meeting someone new. And they don't need you to say the same team as them. They just need you to know that football exists and something's going on. And then that's, like, the obvious, like, conversation piece that, then breaks the ice words.

Oh, you're just saying, oh, then you start making some jokes. And then they get along and they're like, man, I was born in this darkness. And then you have a conversation before you know it. Can't get a win. You're just like onto a zillion reference points that microwave connection. Yeah. And I think that that's incredibly valuable. And the whole thing about why do I still think sports are incredibly important for all sorts of reasons?

One of them is they're a passport to every other part of the country. I did literally go to a wedding in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and guess what I'm talking about? I'm talking about the fucking Razorbacks. Talking about Darren McFadden. They bring him back Bobby Petrino? Is that the plane? They're building a statue of him with the neck brace. Are they really?

No. They should know. Honestly, they should. Jeff Saturday is a really close friend of mine. Without football, I don't think he and I would see eye to eye. And I love him because he's someone that I would try. trust with anything. But if I was exposed to his social media feed and he was exposed to mine, I would be like,

I don't like this dude. With some of the recent events, we've had conversations about it. And because I have such a long track record and trust and love for him, we were able to come to the conclusion that we live in different realities and we see different things. And like the things that bother me about whatever is happening and the things that bother him are because he don't know the things that I know and I don't know, or I don't see the things that he sees. And so we wouldn't have had that relationship without football.

And to your point, it's one of the locker room is one of the places where you bring a bunch of people together that share football, and that's about it. I feel like one of the things that's hard to distinguish in your ongoing aging is, am I maturing emotionally, am I experiencing neurological degeneration, am I just becoming like an old crusty dad for whom cliches? Like the locker room is where earlier today in a conversation with Jeff,

not the locker room thing is, but like the older I get, the more I realize that cliches are right. I'm with you. And we were talking about leadership and about coaches and culture, and he and I were talking about how we characterize people as culture setters and whatever, but like the culture is actually carried out by everyone underneath. and like those are the people really set the culture. And we're talking about the story

and how Mike Vrable told everyone to pick up washcloths in the locker room when you first got there. And I related it back to something that Ed Reed did in the Ravens locker when I was there too. And I was saying like those type of little things when you're young and dumb, you're like, eh, whatever. Like, is that going to help me get an interception? But when you get older, you're like, no.

It's about setting a tone for how you behave and how you live and how you're going to act and how you're going to perform in this specific place. This is the culture when you walk in here. It starts with the way you watch film all the way to the way that you wipe your ass. Like, all of it matters. And now that I'm old, I'm like, yeah, I'm clichés be right, man. Yeah, you're doing broken windows coaching.

No, no. That's what you're doing. No, stop it. That's exactly what you're doing. Well, it's not. No, it's not at all. It's not at all. You just literally said, everybody in this locker needs to pull up their pants.

Well, I mean, it's a locker room. You have to pull down your pants. What do you mean? You kind of got to get naked in the locker. You never been... Oh, it's right. You're a debate guy. That's right.

You've never been in a lot. My locker room is a locker room of the mind. That is really awful. That's gross. So your teammates, you never saw your teammates' ass? Never seen the ass of a teammate. I did have to share, like, hotel rooms on the road for, like, debate tournaments. So, invariably.

We are getting way off of the topic, but there is some level of... intimacy and connection and as stupid as it sounds and as like, I don't know, homoerotic as it might make people feel like, being naked with people is like, hey, we're together, man. None of this other stuff matters. I mean, I feel like I lost you on this one. You were following me anywhere, but we get the male nudity and you get all uncomfortable. Don't get uncomfortable with me.

I'm putting on my shorts underneath a towel. Really? Just give you a sense of how I moved. Oh, that's why I lost you. because you've never had this experience. There are some key differences between you and me. One of them is comfort with nudity. I guess you hadn't been exposed to it.

You would have gotten comfortable with it if, like... I like to think there's an alternate... I mean, Cortez is fucking texting me right now. He is pointing out that I wouldn't take my shirt off when I did the Belichick ring cam video. That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, I'd defend you on that one. I mean, you're coward. However, like... defense going to start? No, I mean, it's that, it's different. It's like the world is different than, like, Jeff.

Yeah. I mean, you're gonna lie. And I was never on the same team as Jeff, so. Right. But, like, I mean, you're just like. Not with that attitude. I'm not trying to. And trust me, Jeff is absolutely not trying to allow that to happen.

Love him. Love him to death. We ain't gonna play. We ain't gonna play like that. Oh, my God. Oh, man. So, another amazing episode created by me. You're welcome. Do you remember how much I could pay for this?

Do you remember that you use the word genuflection in this column? Now you try to bring me down. You want to bring me down? I was too high on my horse right there? You're trying to bring me down? I was irritated by their gasps at footage of real NFL collisions. In that moment, I guess I wanted genuflection. I needed to not feel like we were being viewed as pets dying slowly in front of them

because we were too dumb to know not to chase the ball. in traffic. I mean, the sentiments are strong. I was going to say, like some of this. Yeah, it started to turn up a little bit on that ass, didn't it? It started to turn up on that ass a little bit. The seeds were there. It's like a great athlete.

Like, he ain't got it. You know he got it. You can stop right now. We end it right there on the hot-no. Now you're going to go back to some bad writing. No, no, I'm not going. Yes, you are. You are.

Dominique, there's just one thing I want you to do here. Gosh, I knew it. It's just the one thing. The truth. Tell the truth. You did it. I don't have to do it. Oh, man.

Talk about people who have erratic behavior as a result of as a result of concussion, the movie. He was being a method, a method concussion. He slapped his shit out of Chris.

I love Chris, man. He's so funny. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. and I'll talk to you next time.