Let’s face it: the NFL doesn’t care about player safety, and neither do fans. Hits like those on Darius Heyward-Bey and Sean Lee are what keep football fans coming back for more, and only blown calls that directly affect the outcomes of nationally-televised games are enough to turn the replacement refs from a laughingstock into a point of outrage. And because fans don’t care, because the media doesn’t care, the league will never care enough, at least until someone like Heyward-Bey is leaving the field on a stretcher without his thumb in the air.

The NFL and its replacement referees deserve all the scorn they are getting for demeaning the product and making a mockery of the sport. But the real scorn should come from the fact that the league replaced unionized workers with scabs and is jeopardizing the safety of its players to save pennies on the dollar. This is America, though, where we apparently don’t care about our fellow workers or the modern day gladiators who are ruining their lives one hit at a time, as long as the right team wins the football game.