Soccer season is going well now, but on Sunday night, John Oliver had just one thing to say about it: Maybe it shouldn’t exist at all.
Although Oliver’s main segment for the night was about crime reporting, the late-night host did what he always does, and managed to sneak in additional, somewhat off-topic digs with ease, even. That tied it back to the topic at large. In this particular case, Oliver had called up footage from a 1995 CNN package, wondering whether reporting on crimes so frequently — and so visually — was a good thing.
In the footage, a local police chief argued that it is possible that by paying so much attention to the crimes and graphic scenes, a person wishing to die by suicide could go out of his way to do it publicly. “We’ll have like a TV show called ‘Suicide Today,'” he said.
Oliver joked, “Not to step on that guy’s big moves, there’s already primetime programming where people kill themselves for our entertainment.” “It’s called Monday Night Football.”
Oliver was, of course, referring to the many injuries sustained during football games, specifically in the form of concussions.
“Happy concussion season, football fans! It certainly seems like this sport should not exist,” he said, before proceeding with the clause.
Oliver’s discovery comes after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered multiple injuries in back to back weeks. After a hit during the Dolphins’ September 25 game, Tagovailoa struggled to get off the ground. But he was later cleared to play the following week – where he once again showed signs after taking another hit. The events prompted the NFL, along with the NFL Players Association, to review its concussion protocol and amend it to include another symptom.
The NFL and the NFLPA said in a statement, “The parties concluded that the step-by-step procedure outlined in the Concussion Protocol was followed, but the outcome, in this case, was not the protocol intended to be drafted.”
The statement also noted that, going forward, they would add the term “ataxia”—defined as “passive speech caused by an abnormality of balance/stability, motor coordination, or a neurological problem”—to symptoms. in the list of who will immediately require a player to sit out a game.
You can watch Oliver’s full segment in the video above.
