NFL star quits Pokemon Go, fears it involves mind control

Technically Incorrect: The Detroit Lions' Larry Warford sees everyone around him playing the game and worries that there's something sinister going on.

For some, it's a joy.

It's a way to get out into the world and even commune with thousands of your fellow humans.

For the Detroit Lions guard Larry Warford, however, Pokemon Go has darker intentions.

As the Detroit Free Press reports, he's stopped playing it because he's concerned about its true effects.

"I was walking down Mill Avenue in Tempe, Ariz., pretty much on [Arizona State's] campus," he said. "I was walking down and literally everyone that was on their cell phone walking down that same street was playing Pokemon Go. I was looking at their screens and it was about 30, 40 people."

Well, yes. But what problem could there be with so many enthralled humans wafting around in search of monsters that will make them happy?

Warford sees a mental problem.

"It was a bunch of people playing it," he said, "and I was like, 'I don't like this.' I deleted it because I was like, 'This is some mind-control stuff.' I don't like it."

I contacted Pokemon Go's maker, Niantic Labs, to ask whether there were any mind control parameters to the game. The company didn't immediately respond.

Warford didn't reply when I contacted him to ask whether his mind felt more at ease now that he's stopped playing the game.

Some might also muse that concussions might have more of a mental effect on NFL players than Pokemon Go.

Warford does, though, maintain an almost Trumpesque suspicion about what the game -- Pokemon Go, that is -- is really doing to people.

"Something's not right," he told the Free Press.