Prototype #TB12NEPQB

Injuries in the NFL have been on a dramatic rise this year. Case and point last night in the Chicago-Washington match-up where both starting quarterbacks were knocked out of the game, one lost for the season. I believe one of the announcers last night mentioned there have been 51 or 52 different starting quarterbacks for the NFL's 32 teams this season, some being replaced due to lack of productivity of course, but most have been due to injury.

With all the steroid issues and the do-whatever-it-takes-to-win mentality that could easily be considered a motto for any professional sports team, the NFL will soon be simply too rough of a sport for human beings to participate in. Instead of counting injuries during a game, it won't be long before we are counting deaths.

If the sport is to continue to grow and prosper as it has over the past few decades, something is going to need to be done about the risks that players are taking just by going out on the field.

It got me thinking. Tom Brady never gets hurt. Tom Brady shows no emotion on the field. Tom Brady never panics. Tom Brady rarely makes a mistake. Tom Brady is as close to perfect as any NFL player has ever been. Seems to me every team in the league would be telling their defense to hurt Tom Brady, get him out of the game. Take out your opponent's general and the war is all but won. You can't tell me, legal or not, spoken aloud or not, that in the NFL, a league full of rich thugs, druggies, and criminals, the idea hasn't occurred to every coach and defense that has faced the Patriots this season. (Disclaimer: I know there are a lot of good guys in the NFL, too. But my previous statement is equally true, as can be proven watching your local news on any given night.)

Yet Tom Brady still stands tall in the back field, calm, cool, emotionless, firing pass after pass, bomb after bomb, shredding defensive back fields of their dignity, making them look like amateurs. Too perfect. It got me thinking.

Maybe the powers behind the NFL had foreseen this trend of the game becoming too tough for the human body to endure. The quarterback we all watch in awe and call Tom Brady could in fact be Prototype #TB12NEPQB, a robotic football scoring machine that can't get hurt, never gets flustered, and won't get arrested for drunk driving or beating his wife after a loss.

Ever wonder how or why Brett Favre is still out there? How is it that after contemplating retirement over the last two or three years as his skills and productivity began to noticeably and rapidly decline, given the worst offensive help he's had in a decade, he suddenly has the best year of his 17-season career?

What if he did retire last year? Prototype #BF4GBPQB could certainly explain a few things.