Chris Olave suffered his fourth concussion in his brief NFL career on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, leading New Orleans Saints fans to question whether it’s worth it to keep playing pro football after sustaining so many dangerous brain injuries.
It’s the opinion of his brother Josh that he shouldn’t, at least not with the Saints. Responding to a fan on social media, Josh Olave wrote that his brother continuing to put his body in harm’s way “Ain’t worth it in NOLA, I’ll tell you that.”
That’s an understandable reaction. He just saw his brother carted off the field on a stretcher and taken to a hospital. The Saints are a two-win football team with all the symptoms of a poorly-coached and poorly-run organization, prone to penalties, missed tackles, and botched assignments. Not to mention the preventable injuries with a series of soft-tissue problems hitting multiple position groups. They’re in a bad way. For players like Olave who came from programs with histories of success, that’s a difficult culture to accept.
So it’s easy to see Josh Olave’s point of view. The question is whether Chris shares it. If he’s going to put his body on the line like this, that decision would be much more justifiable if he were playing for a Super Bowl contender.
