"The Telephone Game"

12-Tme Pro Bowler Junior Seau dead at 43

Remember when you were a kid and you used to play Chinese telephone in class? All the kids would stand in a line and the teacher would whisper into the first kids ear and then that kid would whisper to the next kid the same thing and so on and so forth. By the time the message got to the last kid it was completely different than what the teacher initially whispered. Now I don't know why it was called Chinese telephone because there was nothing Chinese about it. It should have been called "watch the idiot kid mess up this message" game!

As the news spread that 12-time Pro Bowler Junior Seau had died from an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound to the chest social media went crazy. What blew my mind was that all it took was some idiot to say that it was related to football and it was on and poppin'! Then everybody began posting ignorant comments on Twitter and Facebook like, "The NFL has got to do something now! This is getting out of hand!" When in fact no one knows why Junior committed suicide. 

 First of all folks, slow your roll! Just because this guy committed suicide doesn't mean that it was football related. There is no evidence at this point to suggest that Junior was suffering from Concussion Syndrome which is a condition that has been linked to former football players which causes depression and a host of other issues. Former Chicago Bears standout corner Dave Dureson suffered from it and later committed suicide. The medical community only found out for sure that he suffered from it after he died and his brain was examined. 

I wrote a hot joint entitled "Hindsight Is 20/20" a month ago explaining why it's unfair to blame the league for what the medical community has just learned within the last 10 years about concussions. No one was diagnosing concussions when I was playing ball as a youngster so we all could have problems that are just coming to light now that we're getting older. However, that's not anybody's fault and you can't blame the little league, high school, college or NFL for your problems now. Medicine hadn't caught up to the risks until recently bruh because the research is just starting to link the two together. That's like blaming the medical community for the death of a loved one who died of AIDS in 1985 and it's labeled as a chronic condition now that science has caught up with it to some degree.   

So like I mentioned earlier slow down! Just because Seau committed suicide you can't just go around all willy nilly blaming the NFL for his death. That would be irresponsible to do that first or all. Secondly, it's a fallacy to even suggest it with out proof. A fallacy is something that is true but not necessarily true. For example, "People in the projects steal. Pookie lives in the projects therefore he steals!" It's true that people in the projects steal but just because Pookie lives there doesn't mean that HE steals! That's like saying black folks steal! Jay is black therefore he steals! Or to say white folks do methamphetamine's! Tim is white therefore he does them too! That's ignorant to paint with a broad brush! Understand what I'm saying bruh?

Former NFL players have committed suicide before but just because Junior Seau is a former player and committed suicide doesn't mean that they are related to concussions or football in general. We don't know at it this point what the circumstances were surrounding his decision to take his own life. He could have been going through any number of issues that weren't related to football! So it's ignorant to blame the league without proof.  

That's like blaming the Soul Train Line on the suicide of Don Cornelius as soon as he took his own life. It's like blaming the record business or the hit record "The Ghetto" on the death of Donny Hathaway as soon as he dove out of a window at the Essex Hotel in Chicago. It wasn't until later that people found out that Donny was a Paranoid Schizophrenic.

So all I'm saying is that people need to be more responsible with their Facebook and Twitter accounts when posting information because the telephone game is still in full effect and we aren't kids anymore. Have more respect for Junior and his family than that bruh! RIP Junior Seau!

Holla At Ya Boy!
Jay Graves
Follow me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport