There's no disputing that the NFL holds cultural dominion over all other sport in America. While baseball is still most closely connected with the traditional concept of Americana, it's football that maintains a chokehold on our collective consciousness in the present day. Just look to the ratings last year, when nine of the top 10 most watched single telecasts were NFL programs.

The NFL recently renegotiated its television contracts, drawing commitments in the billions of dollars from CBS, NBC and ESPN just for the right to broadcast the NFL. These networks actually lose money on these deals, but gladly accept them as loss leaders for the remainder of their programming.

With such unchecked financial success, who could conceive that the NFL could possibly be on the way out? More than a few, apparently. The liability that the NFL might face with the long-term effects of concussions suffered by players, as well as the mounting concerns of safety from those with young players considering playing football, have some thinkers mulling over the possibility that football could be marginalized to near irrelevance within a generation.

In 2009, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a feature for the New Yorker in which he tried to envision what the end of football might look like. At the time, it seemed like little more than an empty intellectual exercise, not uncommon for Malcolm Gladwell pieces. But the feature proved prescient. Just a year later, the NFL experienced a weekend that was marked by severe injuries caused by what the league described as reckless shots by the defenders who inflicted them.

Professional football has been undergoing something of a philosophical crisis in the time since.

Rules about defenders contacting quarterbacks and receivers were quickly altered, not always in ways that were clearly communicated to players themselves. The NFL moved up the point of kickoff to reduce violent collisions on special teams.

In some ways, this has proved effective in reducing concussions, at the cost of confusing players and fans alike. Penalties, fines and suspensions handed down for excessive hits are usually a contentious matter because a clear standard has yet to emerge, either from the league office or a consistent enforcement from officials on the field.

Some discuss the concussion issue like it's the NFL's version of the global warming crisis, in that it's a danger not readily apparent to the casual viewer but could wreak tremendous danger down the line if not corrected immediately. There are roughly 50 lawsuits from former players filed against the NFL for damages because the NFL didn't do enough to protect its players from the effects of those hits.

The league still struggles with its current players. The culture of football at any level is one that pushes for athletes to play through injury. This makes players as well as coaches culpable for serious injuries not being dealt with, as players try to avoid reporting injuries if it means them staying in games.

Most recently, the NFL has had to confront the matter of teams taking out bounties on opposing players. While most presume this has been a practice for as long as football has been a sport, the NFL has compiled proof on the matter for the first time ever and is ready to punish the offenders.

The league will likely hand down stiff sanctions against those involved, though more than anything the process is about cultivating the image that the NFL is trying to be more outwardly safe than about any real correction to the game itself.

For the most part, the public hasn't been as troubled by the subject of concussions and bounties to the extent that the media has been. Those in the media are quick to note that popular opinions could change and that former NFL players are discouraging their own children from playing football.

At one point, they note, boxing was king in America and is no more.

Maybe the same fate could befall football. Of course, the NFL isn't the only sport to deal with this new reality. The NHL has its own awkwardness with the concussion issue. This hasn't stopped hockey from enjoying its own resurgence in recent years.

Meanwhile, one of the sports most rapidly growing in popularity, MMA fighting, is far from absent from the concussion debate. While it remains possible that the sporting landscape could see dramatic changes in the years to come over concerns of safety, it would have to be a wholesale change, and one that could bury more than just the NFL.