( CNN ) -- As far as I 'm concerned , John Matuszak said everything there is to say about professional football back in 1979 when he was playing the role of a bent lineman in `` North Dallas Forty . '' Matuszak , or `` Tooz '' as players and fans knew him , was something of a renegade individualist in the National Football League and the movie 's script gave him the opportunity to unleash a rebel yell : Embittered by his team 's tough loss , and by an assistant coach 's lame scolding , his character goes off on the coach , shouting at one point , `` Every time I call it a game , you call it a business . Every time I call it a business , you call it a game . '' And it 's that very dichotomy that looms even larger during Super Bowl week . The media keep insisting there 's a game being played Sunday night in New Jersey . But all anybody really cares about is the Business -- as in , the torrents of revenue being raked in from advertising ( have you seen that there are now trailers -- -for the commercials ? ) , the marketing , the gambling and , of course , the partying that goes on not only in New York and New Jersey in the lead-up to the Ultimate Game , but from sea to shining sea Sunday night . Players know it , for sureâ€ ” and it continues to embody my own ambivalence about American tackle football . I get caught up in the game 's drama , its unexpected twists , its ongoing tension between best-laid game plans and the ever-looming potential for their disruptions . I get caught up , too , with the sideline rants , growls , collisions and screw-ups caught at varied speeds by the wizardry of NFL Films . But while football 's orchestrated aggression and violence may entertain me , my family and friends -- and the rest of Living Room Americaâ€ ” we 're all newly alive to the physical and mental risks these players are taking . How does one stay passionate about football in the face of the grim , steadily mounting number of cases involving ex-players undergoing physical and mental injury and anguish over the sport 's long-term effects ? In last Sunday 's New York Times Magazine , author Steve Almond wondered whether it was immoral to watch and enjoy the Super Bowl while knowing full well that playing the game has caused `` catastrophic brain injury ... not as a rare and unintended consequence , but as a routine byproduct of how the game is played . '' I 've expressed similar misgivings here about the flood of disclosures about long-term injury and the manner in which the NFL tried at first to either disregard or demean this peril . It 's not just the dementia , memory loss and other symptoms that cast shadows over the NFL 's gaudy , golden image . This seems the right place to mention that Matuszak , who was so physically imposing as a player that he seemed invincible , died 10 years after `` North Dallas Forty '' was made . He was only 39 years old and his death was attributed to an overdose of prescription pain medication . Gregg Easterbrook , who publishes the weekly Tuesday Morning Quarterback column for ESPN.com , wrote this week that painkiller abuse `` may be pro football 's next scandal . '' Over time , watching these players run into each other at top speed while imagining what their minds and lives will be like 20 years afterward could finish me off as a fan . So could the sheer fatigue of witnessing , year after year , the NFL 's seemingly inexhaustible capacity for inhaling money , which only compounds its overbearing corporate culture . I already have little patience with the game 's ethos as articulated in such bromides as `` Doing Whatever It Takes to Win '' or that deathless line that the late , exalted Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi appropriated from a John Wayne movie , `` Winning is n't everything , but it 's the only thing , '' which even Lombardi , the man for whom the Super Bowl Trophy is named , came to believe was too simplistic . Such platitudes have made tackle football a useable , if not overused metaphor for what it 's like to work , live and , above all , prevail in modern corporate society . But it 's not just a metaphor . Hard-working men such as my father found release , empathy and satisfaction watching the comparably hard work of his beloved New York Giants for decades . It used to be enough for he and millions of fans over the decades of professional football history to watch skilled craftsmen ply their trade , defy the odds , impose their wills , share their joy and passion . It 'd be nice , too , if somewhere in the hype and hysteria , we could all calm down enough to see the Super Bowl in such elemental terms . But as near as I can tell , it 's the Business that now holds an overpowering edge over the Game . And what 's worse : I ca n't tell how much longer the Game itself will hold out . opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gene Seymour .
Mike Seymour : Super ##visor sums up how NFL 's corporate machine mars enjoyment of game . He says that and coverup of players ' long - term injuries make him ambivalent about football . Some question whether it 's moral to support NFL , especially its overbearing corporate culture . Seymour : Can we not simply enjoy football ? Big business has overpowered the game .