Erik Kramer Story
Erik Kramer is a man that has been surrounded by a major tragedy and has himself been majorly tragic. Between the drug-related death of his son and his attempted suicide that may or may not be tied to head trauma induced during his time in the National Football League, Erik Kramer is a man that is obviously very tortured and may not be acting under his own devices. The burning question is whether he is more like Chris Benoit in that his mind and his faculties are leaving him or if there is any hope for Kramer after the tragedy, trauma and pain he has endured for much of his life. He is a hero in the sense in that he is the only man to win an NFL playoff game for the Detroit Lions since the 1950's but so much of the rest of his life has been an unmitigated mess. While some may disagree with the emotional and tragedy-related rhetoric of the story, the methodology used in the story works quite well at evoking an emotional response.
Analysis
One of the major themes of the Detroit Free Press article is whether Mr. Kramer has endured football-related head trauma to the extent that he now suffers, in whole or in part, from behavioral or other mental problems as a direct results of said trauma (USA Today, 2015). This idea is stated when the U.S.A. Today article says "he (Kramer) would be the latest former NFL player to attempt or commit suicide under similar circumstances, including Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, both of whom suffered self-inflicted gunshot wounds" (USA Today, 2015). The rhetoric used here clearly links the Kramer tragedy to that of football players that have endured similar situations in the fairly recent past. The clip misses the chance to cite CTE, which is short for chronic traumatic...
This is important because that is very important to the context of what happened to Seau and Duerson and what is probably happening to Kramer (USA Today, 2015). An ESPN article on the subject references Seau as well and it notes that Seau was confirmed to have the disorder. Even so, the article (which was written in 2013) notes that the study and knowledge of CTE is still in its "infancy" (Fainaru-Wada, Avila & Fainaru, 2013). Even with the missed reference, the Detroit Free Press/USA Today article does make the point it needs to make with the reference. They reference fellow football players that also tried to commit suicide, thus using rhetoric to link the Kramer tragedy to other historical events that are clearly related to Kramer, at least that's the indication they wish to give (USA Today, 2015).
There is also a large amount of content dedicated to the tragic death of Erik's son Griffen, who died of a drug overdose. Perhaps the best quote about that subject is a quote from Marshawn Linville-Kramer (the ex-wife) when she says "We lost a son to murder. Call it what you will because the bottom line he had over four hours to be saved and instead was drug by his feet up a driveway and hid for over 12 hours" (USA Today, 2015). She punctuated her statement by again stating "that's murder" even though she had stated it once before at the onset of the quote used above (USA Today, 2015). This particular stanza of the story is extremely loaded with emotion, passion and grief. Marshawn Linville-Kramer clearly believes that even though her son presumably used drugs of his own volition, the way in which he was handled and dealt with when he was vulnerable due to an overdose was tantamount to murder even if the law…
