Journalist Bob Molinaro has pointed the finger at video games for desensitizing a whole generations reaction to NFL injuries in light of the recent paralysis Kevin Everett suffered following a huge hit. Molinaro argues games such as Madden 08 and NFL Blitz picture cartoon like violence in the NFL with fully blown blood and gore features which make people forget that football is very much real and the injuries that can result are real too. He implies that video games are encouraging extra big hits for amusement and that no one stops to think of the price the athletes will pay in the future because of our expecations from the virtual world.

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This makes me wonder if the catastrophic injury to Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett will make any real impression on the desensitized adolescents and adults raised with the cartoon violence of "Madden '08" or "NFL Blitz," or the absurd blood-and-guts scenarios associated with other Xbox games.

On a human level, there may be no more important or heartbreaking development in the NFL this season than the spinal-cord injury suffered by Everett on Sunday. Yet, I suspect it won't resonate as it should.

The NFL, after all, has a well-programmed audience. The league's crass packaging of its product anesthetizes us to the violence. The men inside those jerseys sacrificing bones and ligaments and risking paralysis aren't really people; they're interchangeable laundry.

Nobody stops to ask what price the athletes pay for our amusement until years later, when former players are hobbling like tables with one leg shorter than the others. Or they suffer brain damage brought about by the very collisions that vicariously thrill us as we sit in our family rooms.

I wonder if any of this hits home with the very large and growing demographic that comes to football through the make-believe violence of video games. In that world, jacked-up players always bounce back, returning as good as new when the game is switched on.

This week, more than many, we're reminded that in real-time, real-life football, the violence and its consequences are all too real.