How Facebook is not like football

Players who evade their responsibility get benched. Digital executives get rich.

There’s no shirking the job in football. In politics and business, it seems, not so much. (Photo by Muyuan Ma on Unsplash)

Instant replay made football America’s most popular sport. Because of isolated camera shots and stop-action video, even casual fans can now see the teamwork: the offensive lineman who opens a hole for a running back to scoot through, or, in the backfield, a defensive safety who reads a play to make a stop. Professional football isn’t just bone-crunching action; each play is as carefully choreographed as a ballet, every player fulfilling his responsibility to make the play work.

You would think, then, that sports-crazy Americans would appreciate it when people in other fields take responsibility on their own shoulders, and that we would have disdain for those who dodge the responsibility that’s theirs. After all, isn’t sports supposed to be metaphor for life?

But that’s not the case: We let people evade responsibility all the time. I figure that Derrick Henry, the Te…