My Football Journey

a love of mine is coming to an end

On Saturday February 21, 2026, wide receiver Rondale Moore(photo down below) has passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at ONLY 25 years old.

This led me to have many different emotions. ANGER. SADNESS. RAGE. CONFUSION. NUMBNESS. It even made me go down a rabbit hole of questioning why I was a fan of football in the first place.

It’s been a little over a week since the death of Moore, and my relationship with football has been CHANGED for good. After being super excited for Chargers football for the first weeks of the offseason, I now just feel numb about the game. Indifferent. It just doesn’t feel right to follow football anymore.

In the end, it led me to writing. I wanted to share my experiences and opinions regarding the game of football. I’ll give you both the positives and negatives. related to the game. This won’t be a short or easy read, but it will be meaningful.

What’s a better way to start than how I got introduced to the game?

MY STORY WITH FOOTBALL FANDOM:

I grew up with a family who loved baseball and the Dodgers. Neither of my parents had a football team when I grew up. I remember my mom being a 49ers fan back in the day(she’s from the Bay Area) but her fandom faded over time. During this time, I was hesitant to watch football, as I was aware of the history of the sport related to CTE. Another huge issue was that LA had no football team until 2016.

My first introduction to the sport was in 2016 when I was in 8th grade. One of my closest friends at the time was a Cowboys fan. He taught me a lot about the game and the team’s history. Soon enough, I followed his ways and became a Cowboys fan despite the Rams moving coming in that year. The Cowboys had a great season that year, and I got HOOKED.

However, after the season, I started learning a little more about the team. I knew that Jerry Jones was a bad owner and an even worse person. The fanbase was absolutely hated. I had zero desire to continue being a fan of this team. Therefore, I decided to find a new team…

It was early 2017, and a new team was moving from San Diego to LA. That team was already an enemy of two of my least favorite teams: the Raiders and Broncos. They had a history of sucking, so nobody would give me a hard time for joining that team.

ADAM AMSTER, WELCOME TO BEING THE WORLD’S FIRST BANDWAGON CHARGERS FAN.

During my time at high school, I got a hard time for being a Chargers fan. I got jokes about being a fan of a team with no fans. The team wasn’t very good either minus a fluke playoff run in 2018 despite having 2 franchise quarterbacks in Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert(photo down below)

If that wasn’t big enough, I started picking up fantasy football. I saw my lunch friends enjoying it in 2017 and started playing the year after. I made it to the finals that year and haven’t looked back. I even did dynasty. It was my foundation of my late teen and early adult years, as I spent 7 years involved in the game.

Towards the end of high school, I had to make a huge decision, which was going to college. One of the biggest things to me was going to a school with a high quality D1 sports team to help me with socialization.

After a lot of thought and effort, I became a WASHINGTON HUSKY.

When I hit campus, that instantly changed. I went from knowing nothing about college football(grew up a Bruins basketball fan) to becoming a diehard Huskies football fan. I got involved in group chats with fellow fans. I made predictions before every game.

Unfortunately, the Huskies were AWFUL that year. After being projected as a top 25 team, they FLOUNDERED to a 4-8 record. Their offense was less fun than watching paint dry thanks to John Donovan’s play calling. Quarterback Dylan Morris was AWFUL. Their head coach Jimmy Lake was best known for trying to slap a player in the face. I remember being FRUSTRATED after every single loss, as I stayed till the very end of each game. I even remember Wazzu fans storming our field.(photo above)

In October of freshman year, I met my best friend and future roommate in college. This was because I saw him wearing a chargers jersey. Soon after, we started spending lots of time together, which included talking about how much pain the Huskies and Chargers gave us.

Anyways… back to the Huskies. Their badness DEMANDED change. Jimmy Lake and John Donovan’s days as coach were NUMBERED midway through the season. The true big question was who was going to replace them.

Then, came the offseason. UPGRADES were brought in. BIG TIME UPGRADES. In came Fresno State state head coach Kalen DeBoer, who was KNOWN for being a winner. They got a supremely talented but injury prone QB in Michael Penix Jr. Most of the roster changed.

2022 felt like a breath of fresh air after a rough 2021. From the first game I watched, I KNEW this team was gonna do things. And they sure did. They dominated the Pac-12 and won the Alamo Bowl, going 11-2 that year.

That was just the preview. 2023 was the movie. It was a true once-in-a-lifetime experience. You HAD to be there to witness it. College Gameday came to town. The stadium filled up like crazy. EVERY GAME BECAME MUST WATCH TV!!! I even got a photo with a future first round draft pick(look above). The team didn’t lose until the championship game. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

During these years, I became known for my Husky football knowledge. I was consistent with my pre-game day polls. I shared knowledge with tons of people I knew. I brought my ENERGY to every single game!!!

I also have to talk about my Chargers. For their first 7 years of my fandom, they were known as a mediocre-at-best team despite being gifted with 2 high level starters in Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert.

However, December 14, 2023 changed everything. After getting CRUSHED by the Raiders 63-21, the Chargers cleaned house, firing the ever-underperforming duo of head coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco.

In the 2024 offseason, the Chargers went for the kill. They hired a championship winning coach in Jim Harbaugh from Michigan. They got an intelligent new GM in Joe Hortiz from the Ravens. THESE WEREN’T THE SAME OLD CHARGERS THAT YOUR MOM WAS USED TO.

The results have proven this over the last 2 years. ack to back 11-6 seasons and 2 playoff berths. Players have actually WANTED to come to the Chargers. The culture has CHANGED!!! FOR THE BETTER!!!

This offseason has shown how smart the new regime is. Harbaugh fired the INCOMPETENT Greg Roman instead of letting his ego get in the way. He brought in a HUGE UPGRADE with former Miami head coach Mike McDaniel. He didn’t freak out when Jesse Minter left for the Ravens as head coach, bringing back former safeties coach Chris O’Leary to keep the scheme intact. When it came to roster moves, the Chargers re-signed impact DT Teair Tart at a reasonable $12.5M AAV over 3 years.

That was only the beginning. The Chargers should have a true golden age coming. They have a franchise QB, 2 great OT’s, a legit #1 receiver, a young stud at TE a strong RB duo, and a strong, well-rounded defense. They have great coaching at every position and a legit GM. THINGS ARE LOOKING BRIGHT IN LOS ANGELES!!!

They also have the third-most cap space in the NFL this year($84.8M). This will be used for a bunch of things, like extending key defenders(Tuli Tuipilotu, Derwin James, Daiyan Henley), re-signing key players(e.g. Zion Johnson, Odafe Oweh), and improving weak areas on the team(interior offensive line). Now is the time for Hortiz to prove that he’s all in. TIME TO SPEND SOME MONEY!!!

All I’m gonna say is this: WHOSE GOT IT BETTER THAN US??? NO-BODY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next up, let me tell you about my friends experience with football

MY FRIENDS HISTORY WITH FOOTBALL:

Growing up, I was around a lot of people who played football. Two of my friends in my high school lunch group played on the team. So did my roommate who I stayed with at UW. So has someone who I became friends during college due to knowing a lot about Chargers football and the NFL Draft. I am grateful to say that all of these friends are doing very well physically and mentally. Even though there is a lot of negativity around football, I did want to bring you some positives.

Now, time to share my own experiences with contact sports.

MY HISTORY WITH CONTACT SPORTS:

Growing up, I never played football. However, I still have been heavily involved in contact sports for most of my life. When I was 8 years old, I started doing karate to work on my fine motor skills.

That became a central pillar of my life. Over the next 9.5 years, I slowly worked my way to black belt(have a photo of a text up above). It became one of my biggest accomplishments I’ve had in my life. I became super close with the Senseis. I even got my first ever job as an instructor at my local karate studio.

Then came college. It was my first time not doing martial arts since I was a little kid(for some reason). While I enjoyed my first two years at the University of Washington, it felt like there was something that was missing. BIG TIME.

Then came junior year. I was committed to re-establishing my legacy at UW and therefore decided to do judo(photo above). I wanted to challenge myself and work on my grappling. It gave me a much needed sense of discipline, structure, and community at UW. The group was great, and I was involved with them for 1.5 years.

There started to be some red flags though. When I was doing judo, I was involved in GRUELING 2 hour classes. There was a lot of focus on cutting/bulking, which could potentially lead to eating disorders. I did also have times where I got hit hard in the head during both judo and karate. I am lucky to say that both the I went to prioritized safety, though.

I also think that doing karate and judo affected me psychologically. For better or worse, my intense and competitive personally only became more extreme. I became obsessed with fighting. I became a bit perfectionistic and had issues dealing with mistakes at judo. Eventually, that caused me to need to take a step back from judo mid-way through my senior year.

To be honest, I have zero regrets of doing martial arts. I learned a lot about work ethic, discipline, respect, and community. It helped me with self-confidence and taught me how to defend myself from strangers. I made a ton of connections and am still in touch with my karate studio to this day.

This has perfectly explained how I feel about the current state of football:

THE BEGINNING OF THE END:

I would say that the first time I started questioning the sanctity of sports was a few days after College Gameday. I was looking at things online and saw things about the game beings rigged/compromised. While I continued supporting the team throughout the season, I started questioning why I was so emotionally invested into sports in the first place.

After losing the national championship, UW lost their head coach Kalen DeBoer to Alabama. He did this after prioritizing a culture of loyalty ALL SEASON LONG. It made me realize that the only thing that mattered was the almighty dollar.

If that wasn’t bad enough, UW left the PAC-12 4 months beforehand. At first, I was glad that they weren’t being left behind. But deep down inside, I knew that it was going to be a DISASTER. And it HAS been. All the cool matchups are GONE. The passion is GONE. Our rivalry with Washington State turned to NOTHING. All this super conference era taught me is that it’s profit over everything. What a FUN way to live, right?

The conference transfer was definitely felt during the 2024 season. It was the LEAST excited I felt about a UW football team during my time there. And their play wasn’t much better. They went a middling 6-7, which included losing a middling bowl game by 1 to “Louisville”.

On top of that, I was getting fatigued with how UW fans were acting. Most UW students cared more about drinking or insta photos than the ACTUAL TEAM. Some people even left the games early. These fair-weather fans were TIRING. I had zero desire to watch college football anymore. I was DONE.

Finally, I have to talk about sensory overload at football games. As a neurodivergent person, the constant noise and bright lights became too much. I wanted more periods of rest from all the chaos in college.

In 2025, my fandom only dissipated more. That year was the first time in a while that I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. I moved away from my roommate who was a die-hard Chargers and UW fan. I didn’t watch ANY huskies games on TV. For the first time since 2017, I stopped playing fantasy football. In all honesty, I had much more free time than ever before.

Even though I started following a bit more as the season went on, it was still very light and casual. The passion was no longer there. I didn’t have any desire to watch the games compared to the past. All I needed was a 10 min highlight reel.

By the time the Super Bowl hit, I watched. To be honest, I didn’t care. I’m definitely glad the Seahawks beat the Patriots. But, my emotions around the game faded. It was difficult to watch a game where I was worried about every player’s safety.

While I am grateful for what football has brought me, I am ready to move on. I don’t want to support leagues that promote gambling and ignore player safety. My MORALS are more important than a game.

For the next section of this article, I will move on from my story to focusing on issues relating to the game. I will start with the ELEPHANT in the room: the NFL lying about CTE.

FOOTBALL’S CTE PROBLEM:

Rondale Moore is the second active player in the last 3 months that the NFL has lost to suicide. Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland passed away on November 6th. He is the 3rd high-profile active football player to die by suicide in the last year, as LSU wide receiver Kyren Lacy died on April 12, 2025. All 3 players were 25 or younger, which is so sad to see.

We must also talk about former players as well. In the last 4 month, 3 retired NFL players died under 60: Cincinnati Bengals running back Rudi Johnson(photo above), Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Doug Martin, and defensive tackle Kevin Johnson. Rudi Johnson allegedly committed suicide, Martin was involved in an altercation with police, and someone stabbed Kevin Johnson while homeless. All 3 players most likely had CTE from their playing days, which is sad to see.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the NFL has been terrible when it has come to helping out their former players. You hear a TON of stories about retired players having severe physical and mental issues(e.g Antonio Brown). There are even current active players who are showing mental decline(e.g Tua Tagovailoa). The NFL has CONSISTENTLY downplayed CTE despite tons of evidence from neuroscientists.

If you want someone who’s an expert in this area I would recommend looking at Christopher Nowinski. He’s a former NFL player, WWE wrestler, Harvard grad, and neuroscientist. Here’s a video of him speaking:

Here’s another good video supporting my POV:

And here’s a great substack article from Flemlo Raps on this topic:

CTE Is Scarier Than You Think

At some point, this raises a question for us as people. Does the risk of playing football outweigh the benefits people get from it? I will try to answer this the best I can down below:

THE PROS:

The obvious benefits of football come down to physical activity, the ability to gain generational wealth, and community.

For as long as I can remember, football has been a huge part of the American lifestyle. People host parties for Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl. People become friends over liking the same favorite team. Fantasy football has become extremely popular as well. In smaller towns, high school(photo above) and college events are huge weekly events. All of these allow for Americans around the country to unite for something in common, which is important in an increasingly polarized world.

There are also a ton of benefits for people who play. Players tend to get in great shape. They create a brotherhood that people who don’t play sports don’t understand. Football brings in a ton of revenue for both high school and college. The benefits only get better if you go pro, where players are able to give their family generational wealth.

I must also say that there’s a ton of opportunities to work within the game from high school to the pros. Whether it’s as a coach, reporter, broadcaster, or talent evaluator, football has given MILLIONS of people careers that they wouldn’t have. That is not even including the people who volunteer for their local high school or college. Like it or not, football has been a huge boon for the American economy.

THE CONS:

All these benefits sound great, but there are six BIG problems with the football culture.

The first problem comes down to the violence of the game. No matter how much technology advances, players will always get hit hard. With the average size and speed of players increasing, these hits will become more physical and violent. Even with the increase in awareness around concussions and efforts by the NFL, player are still getting hurt. Anybody who plays tackle football is at risk of getting CTE.

The second problem comes down to the sheer size some positions need to play. Some offensive and defensive linemen go well above a healthy BMI to make sure that they can play their position at an optimal level. Even though they are elite athletes, they still have a higher risk of heart disease and other medical problems. This is ESPECIALLY true if they don’t lose the weight after retirement.

The third comes down to the fans. Overly passionate NFL fans are known for getting too emotional when their team isn’t doing well. This is shown when it comes to stuff like smashing TV’s or drinking too many beers. I wouldn’t be surprised if domestic abuse rates are higher in big games as well.

The next problem is with gambling addictions(photo up above). While I know that people have free will and can make their own choices, the way that sports betting is being shoved down our face is DISGUSTING. People are losing their money and relationships due to this addiction. At this point, major college pro sports are more about Vegas winning bets than actually watching a fair game.

After that, I can’t ignore the fact that the NFL has multiple players and owners in the Epstein files. The most notable guy is NY Giants owner Steve Tisch, whose name was mentioned OVER 440 times. So was former Commanders owner Daniel Snyder, who was known for being SUCH an awful person that the NFL forced him to sell the commanders. This trend continues down to NFL players, who get a SLAP ON THE WRIST for domestic violence(e.g. Ray Rice). While I believe in innocent until proven guilty, it’s OBVIOUS that the only thing the NFL cares about is money.

Last but not least comes down to the stadium funding. Taxpayers are responsible for new billion dollar stadium that team owners could easily pay for. With the average American struggling to make ends meet, this type of behavior is absolutely unfair. Most of these owners are billionaires, so they HATE us regular peeps.

Now let me talk about the future of football .

FOOTBALL’S FUTURE:

I want to talk about the future of American football. If you aren’t aware, more and more parents are refusing to put their kids in Pop Warner tackle leagues at a young age because of CTE. I will assume that these attendance numbers will keep declining if nothing changes.

At the BARE MINIMUM, I highly recommend to have people wait to play tackle football until high school. That would help lower the amount of hits players get while still giving them potential big-time opportunities. I also don’t think it would hurt development that much. Most skill positions can learn early skills from flag football. Most linemen generally don’t start playing until later anyways. With 2% of college athletes going pro, it would be smart to not damage your brain at such a young age.

I must also talk about how CTE can only be diagnosed postmortem, as you have to slice open the brains to get the knowledge about it. That will always make it difficult to know if a former player has CTE or not. Therefore, the best way to avoid CTE entirely is to not play tackle football.

With this has come a rise in flag football. It’s obvious that people still love the sport but don’t want the brain damage coming with it. Flag football has become popular enough to become part of the 2028 Olympics. Will this potentially change the future of football for good?

One thing that has been talked about a lot recently is the recent introduction of Guardian caps in an effort to reduce concussions. In some ways, it has, as the NFL argues that concussion rates have dropped by over 50%. However, the guardian cap won’t solve the impact of sub-concussive hits, which is a major cause of CTE. It is also important that the NFL could be jacking up those numbers to protect their product. I think it will help to an extent, but won’t be the savior most people think it is.

I feel like a lot of the discussion around the guardian cap(and other safety measures) are being treated very similar to how home plate collisions and runner at second rule was in baseball. Many old heads will rebel against anything modern because it is “soft.” This type of advice will ONLY lead to more preventable injuries.

Despite all the evidence promoting that American football is dangerous, I don’t think it gets banned here due to cultural ties. Like it or not, American football has been a key part of our culture over the last 100 years. Americans are KNOWN for sticking to traditions long past their expiration date. As long as people get to see their favorite team win, player safety is secondary.

Time to get to my final opinion:

MY FINAL VERDICT:

I personally think that the only way to see change is to boycott the league. That might be controversial to some, but I know that the NFL is a business. The ONLY way they will change things is if their profits get hurt. END OF STORY.

This is what an NFL/football boycott will look to me.

1. No more going to any more college/pro football games in person

2. No more buying merchandise

3. No more fantasy football

4. No more gambling on the nfl(I highly recommend quitting in general)

5. Pirate games if you want to watch them

6. If you’re gonna watch highlights, support a small YouTuber instead of watching the NFL’s channel

7. No more promoting any football-related content on(or any social media app) here for me

I don’t plan on giving up following the NFL entirely(the chargers might be too good to not loosely follow), but I will keep my interactions minimal and private. I already know that I spend too much time on sports, so I believe that stepping back is currently the right decision for me.

To be honest, I’m okay with contact sports. I’ve done them myself. They hold their purpose in life. What I’m NOT okay with is LYING about CTE and other severe injuries. Do you feel the same way that I do?

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?:

At the end of the day, I believe that everyone has free will and should come up to their own conclusion on whether they think it’s ethical to watch the NFL. Some people will keep supporting their favorite teams. Others will start being more hesitant. All I’m asking for you to do is to think critically. Don’t just keep blindly watching pro/college football because it’s what it’s what you’re used to doing. It’s better to be aligned to your morals than do something because it’s popular.

Final announcement:

I want to send my thoughts and prayers to Rondale Moore’s family. Words don’t understand how much they are suffering right now.

DISCLAIMER:

I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I DO NOT AND WILL NEVER USE AI.

WE ONLY SUPPORT REAL WRITERS HERE

NO ROBOT HAS THE AURA THAT I DO

Like always, thank you to everyone who made it to the end.