Rozner: NFL in trouble? Not hardly

The NFL is dead. Long live the NFL.

It's not the first time we've been told the NFL was finished.

Think John Wayne, circa "Big Jake," when he responded to a foe who thought he was long since deceased, saying, "Not hardly."

Back in the early '80s, the conversation had already begun, that the league would never survive challenges from other sports, that there was more money to be made for players in the other pro sports without risking life, limb and literacy.

And here is the NFL in 2015, bigger and badder than ever.

In the middle of March Madness on Monday morning, with spring training winding down and the NHL and NBA sprinting toward a frantic finish, three different national sports networks led their telecasts live from the NFL owners meetings in Phoenix.

One began an hour with the breaking news that the league is pondering a move of the 2-point conversion from two yards out to one.

Yeah, breaking news.

Hour after hour after hour of NFL conversation on live TV Monday … and no real game scheduled for nearly six months.

No, the NFL is not dying. On the contrary, it gets bigger every season, and if the TV contracts were up for negotiation today, networks would be lined up to double the rights fees.

Every game is the equivalent of 10 baseball games and is treated much larger than that, torn apart, dissected and replayed in newspapers and on radio and TV.

Nolo contendere on all three charges.

But it is the narrative of those with an agenda that the league has one foot in the grave and just doesn't know it yet.

Nonsense.

It's not a league with a violence problem. It's not a league with a concussion problem. It's not a league with an injury problem.

Nope, the league has no such problems.

The league doesn't care and it never will. It's in place to make money for rich owners and rich commissioners, and the fans can't get enough of it.

The problem is entirely that of the players, who suffer horribly from the violence, concussions and injuries.

Some will stay and play, like Chris Conte, regardless of the long-term consequences.

Some will leave in heartbreaking fashion, as did Patrick Willis, who recently walked away from $8 million, unable to live with the pain anymore.

"There will not be a day in my career where I don't feel like I gave this game everything I had," Willis said, fighting back the tears. "It's amazing what we see with the eyes instead of what we actually know."

Willis was speaking to a room full of reporters, some of whom had questioned his effort, never understanding fully how difficult it was for Willis - on some days - to even walk.

"If only (you) knew what it took to go out there on Sundays and play this game," Willis said, "some of you would probably take a breath and be thankful that you have something to cover, something that we do with the kind of joy we bring to this game."

Willis leaves at age 30 after eight years and seven Pro Bowls, playing only six games due to injury in 2014, and he's had no second thoughts since the announcement.

"It was like somebody lifted something off my back," Willis told NBCSN a few days later. "It felt like somebody had lifted a million pounds off my back."

Chris Borland also retired a few days after his fellow Niners linebacker, at age 24 and after just one NFL season, fearing for his future health and offering to pay back three-quarters of his signing bonus.

This is the end of the NFL, came the loud and screechy pontificating.

Except, not at all.

For every NFL player who can afford to leave - and even those who can't afford it - will be 50 young men willing to take on the risk for a chance to make a living.

It's a socioeconomic answer for many who would otherwise not have a chance to receive a college education, and for many others it's the only path out from a life of abject poverty.

That is just one of many reasons the league will survive long past any of us are here.

For decades we have heard that the NFL is dying, and yet every year the game grows bigger and more successful economically.

No, the NFL isn't going anywhere.

Not hardly.

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.