I've recently come around to the idea that professional athletes should take drugs. But not performance enhancers. Instead, performance reducers.
Hear me out...
The best part of a game is the end. The true measure of athletic ability is the fourth quarter, the ninth inning, the last few minutes of a game... that's where you really tell who the better player or better team is. It's when the guys are exhausted and it's the training, the physical conditioning, the mental ability to perform and overcome the pain, show who really deserves the win.
You put a champion team up against, say, a team that just missed the playoffs, and I'd bet it'd start close and could go either way, but, nine times out of ten by the end it'll be clearly apparent who the better squad is. And it's the ability to draw on something extra after the body wants to quit that does it.
So, I propose we dope all the players. Give everyone a massive amount of sedatives, keep them up 24 hours before the game, and make them go out and play.
It'll actually give the best measure of the better team. It'll cut down on flukes and random chance. It won't be "any given Sunday" anymore when your team gets bounced by some lucky worse team having some incredible break go their way. In most sports, the better team wins maybe 60% of the time. My proposal would probably bring that up to 90% or higher. We'd see who can really push through the barrier and get the job done.
