Roger Goodell warns fans about risks of watching the Super Bowl

At NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s pre-Super Bowl press conference Friday, a reporter asked him about the dangers of playing football. This was his response:

Okay, so the first result for “couch injury” is about Tim Couch, who got injured because he was a professional football player and he got injured because he was playing football and playing football is dangerous as crap. But surely we can find other stuff.

Ohio man hurt carrying burning sofa Robert Oxier, 47, was attempting to remove burning furniture from the building at the southeast corner of East Main and Parkview Avenue when he suffered burns over 40 percent of his body, according to Lebanon Fire Chief Perry Gerome.

Okay, technically he wasn’t SITTING in a sofa. Looking for more.

Pedestrian seriously injured by sofa falling 130 feet from London hotelThe pedestrian, who is in his 20s, was walking past the W hotel on Wardour Street, near Leicester Square, just before 9am on Friday when a metal-framed outdoor sofa fell 130ft to the ground.

Police said the man was taken by air ambulance to Royal London hospital in Whitechapel and was in a critical but stable condition. A Met police spokesman said: “At this early stage it is believed he was injured by a piece of furniture which fell from scaffolding.”

Okay, that guy DEFINITELY wasn’t sitting in a sofa. But clearly, sofas are dangerous. Let’s search YouTube and Vine for some couch injuries:

Okay, it seems like the No. 1 danger posed by couches is that small children and dogs might stupidly hurl their faces into couches, because small children and dogs are stupid.

But does sitting on the couch pose any risk at all? We asked our staff.

I was sitting on a couch, legs extended onto the coffee table, and my asshole cat was laying on my legs like a hammock. He rolled, fell off, and caught himself with his claws on my fleshy thighs, pulling himself up like an inspirational poster. I bled for an hour. -- SB Nation baseball writer Grant Brisbee.I had a spring pop in a couch in college and had to get three stitches on the back of my leg. -- SB Nation editor Sam Eggleston

I ate a pop tart I found in a couch once. I was fine. -- SB Nation NFL editor Ryan Van Bibber

So there you have it, folks: Couches can either wound you, cause cats to wound you or provide you with free delicious Pop Tarts! Wow!

I guess we couldn’t find any concrete evidence that it’s risky to sit on your couch. But you know what? Let’s take Goodell’s word for it.

Goodell says couches and football are roughly the same amount of dangerous. Jesus! Football players get injured in brutal ways every game, even if, like Goodell, you dispute the growing mountains of both statistical and anecdotal evidence that football causes debilitating brain injuries. My goodness! Couches are horrifying!

And while Goodell offers no evidence to convince us about the couches, he also hasn’t offered any convincing scientific evidence to convince us football is safe. He’s mainly offered his word, delivered calmly, with a smile and in an immaculate suit.

So if we’re going to believe Goodell’s word about the concussion thing, I guess we also have to believe his word about couches. So, listen to Roger Goodell.

Were you planning on watching the Super Bowl or any other NFL game from a couch? Don’t! It’s simply too precarious. If that means you can’t watch football at all, fine. Goodell insists you’re doing the right thing. Better to never watch a football game again than suffer a tragic sofa accident.

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