Head injury could be the end of football

[JBlood]

This whole issue of traumatic brain injury could be the end of football unless drastic action is taken.

Now that head-to-head contact is illegal, the simple penalty would be 1) immediate game disqualification and 2) No return to competition until the head-injured player returns to competition.

This won't eliminate the argument of "clean" hits from "cheap" hits, but would open the possibility of ending a career by delivering such a hit, just as receiving such a hit can end a career.

This won't alter the brain injuries that linemen suffer from collisions at the snap of the ball, but it would be a start.

 

[Dan115]

50 years from now it will be two touch or flag football.

 

[Bensalama21]

50 years from now it will be two touch or flag football.

As long as the Packers are in that league, I'll be watching!

 

[Rocky11]

If the NFL don't change things Mothers will stop letting their kids play football. I think it is a fine line. As fans we love to see hard hits but we never want to see anyone get injured. As in everything else the NFL needs to put some balance in their rules but still have rules to protect players. But they are calling penalties if someone runs past a quarterback and he happens to reach for the quarterback and touch his helmet with his fingers, boom, flag, 15 yards. WOW, really, a penalty? That is just stupid. On the other hand call the real penalties. Just as a side note. Why is it so hard for Aaron Rodgers to get some calls. That poor guy gets the crap beat out of him and you rarely see a flag. Just my observation.

 

[Forget Favre]

This whole issue of traumatic brain injury could be the end of football unless drastic action is taken.

As long as there is money, there will be football.

Comparison: Mike Tyson chewed part of an opponent's ear off and boxers have actually killed other boxers in the ring. Boom Boom Mancini, anyone?
Did those incidents end boxing?
So if boxing will still be around after that, so will football after all the injuries they do to each other.

 

[Rocky11]

I'm not sounding the end of football here. I'm just saying that it is all over the media about these head injuries. It was even the topic of one of the Harry's Law episodes. Dr. Phil had a kid on his show recently who broke his neck playing high school football. I am saying that if the NFL don't do something the quality of football players available will decline and so will football. It all starts with Pee Wee football and the Moms are in control at that point. There is a small town near me that has a huge football following. I went to one of their games about 10 years ago and I thought I was in a service where they were worshiping the football god. Today their biggest problem is that they are losing players to soccer. Just a trend or is it influence by parents? I don't know.

 

[okcpackerfan]

I'm not sounding the end of football here. I'm just saying that it is all over the media about these head injuries. It was even the topic of one of the Harry's Law episodes. Dr. Phil had a kid on his show recently who broke his neck playing high school football. I am saying that if the NFL don't do something the quality of football players available will decline and so will football. It all starts with Pee Wee football and the Moms are in control at that point. There is a small town near me that has a huge football following. I went to one of their games about 10 years ago and I thought I was in a service where they were worshiping the football god. Today their biggest problem is that they are losing players to soccer. Just a trend or is it influence by parents? I don't know.

This is just not true at all. As long as there are billions of dollars being funneled into this sport they are going to get the best athletes on the planet trying to compete for a portion of that money. I don't think you can look at one town out of the entire united states and use that as an example saying football will decline. There might be other underlying factors that people are switching to soccer in that town. More people are playing football today and at younger ages than ever before.

I will put it this way. People know the long-term dangers of smoking and alcohol abuse yet millions of people do it every year and they have to PAY to do this so what makes you think that people will ever...ever give up making millions of dollars for the possibility of brain injury.

 

[Rocky11]

I'm just sayin. That is a possibility. It will take time but it is very possible. That small town is a typical small town and I am sure they are not the only one. The NFL can fight it off with spin or try to do something about it. I looks like they are trying. It is aggravating to some of us fans because we like our football the way it is. Things like this take a long time. Did any of you guys out there who are my age think you would every see people fighting like tooth and nails to take down nativity scenes because they are offensive? Or looking at the polls and seeing that more and more people in this country are in favor of socialism? Big changes in peoples thinking takes time and if things don't change in the NFL there is a good chance that it will decline in talent and popularity. You have to think long tern which I think they are.

 

[okcpackerfan]

I'm just sayin. That is a possibility. It will take time but it is very possible. That small town is a typical small town and I am sure they are not the only one. The NFL can fight it off with spin or try to do something about it. I looks like they are trying. I is aggravating to some of us fans because we like our football the way it is. Things like this take a long time. Did any of you guys out there who are my age think you would every see people fighting like tooth and nails to take down nativity scenes because they are offensive? Or looking at the polls and seeing that more and more people in this country are in favor of socialism? Big changes in peoples thinking takes time and if things don't change in the NFL there is a good chance that it will decline in talent and popularity. You have to think long tern which I think they are.

I am not even really sure what you are trying to say or what your argument is. I think you are saying that football is going to decline because of brain injuries which just isn't true, throughout history people have always done dangerous things for money.

Addressing your point on people fighting to take down nativity scenes, this usually only occurs when they are put up on political property such as a capital building. There is separation of church and state in this country, which is one of the many great things about this country.

There are parts of socialism that work a lot better than capitalism. I believe what you are probably referring to is the fact that younger people are viewing socialism in a better light in recent polls. This is mainly due to the greed and corruption that has been shown in an ever increasing number of corporations lately. Younger people, falsely, believe that governments would be less corrupt if running everything in a socialist state, that is still not to say they want socialism, they just want less corruption.

Big changes in thinking actually doesn't take much time at all. You can stop a person but you cannot stop an idea, that is what has been happening throughout the world, even very recently with the KONY movement.

As long as there is money then the talent pool will not decrease, that is just economics. Could the popularity of the sport decrease? Possibly, with ever decreasing attention spans and other forms of entertainment there is a chance that someday the NFL could see a decline in popularity. It happened with boxing but there are still a lot of boxers that make a ton of money.

I am not sure what you mean by thinking long term, who do you mean by they?

All in all I am not really sure if you are really thinking logically on this one, the NFL is a powerhouse, the greatest money making sport that the US has ever seen. They will be fine.

 

[Rocky11]

What I am trying to say is simply that things could change over time if the NFL doesn't find a way to stop these types of injuries. ALL things change with time as does peoples thinking and thought processes. I think you are taking what I am saying too far. It is only a theory. You are crazy to think that the NFL is untouchable. One last thing. The separation of church and state don't mean you can't have a nativity scene on government property. It means that the government cant't tell us that we have to follow a state religion. That was one of the main reasons we separated from England. People who don't know the constitution misquote this all the time. It was not meant to protect us from religion but to protect religion from the government.

 

[Bogart]

The problem changing things is ruins the game.

You can't touch a wide receiver when he's past 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, you can't touch anyone in the head, no helmet to helmet, you can't hit quarterbacks in the knee, you can't get too rough with quarterbacks, so what CAN you do?

5 years from now, every linebacker is going to be scared to death to touch the quarterback cause they may get fined out the *** or suspended.Some of them already are.

It's become ridiculous. The NFL has glorified big hits and heavy defense for decades, and now all of a sudden they want to say they care about safety. They didn't care at all years ago when Steve Young was getting concussions or when Theismann had his leg snapped and ended his career.

I don't agree with any of the new penalties. LET THEM PLAY. If someone hits too hard, tough ****, the best defenses always knocked the living crap out of people.

 

[Forget Favre]

I just hope the end of the NFL will not spell out the end of the Lingerie Football League.
There better not be a domino effect.
I need my ******* and bras every week, dammit!
(Wait. Um. Did that come out strange?)
Well, *ahem* as long as I can get ******** clad ladies running around with balls in their delicate little hands I'm a happy camper!
With chicks doing this stuff, who needs real football!?
http://www.mtv.com/shows/lfl/series.jhtml

 

[Rocky11]

Forget Favre that was an awesome post.

 

[PFanCan]

IMO, the NFL may see a decline in the years to come, but this will mostly come as a result of other industries or sports competing for the same dollars while rising in popularity. The fear that parents will steer their boys away from football due to concerns about health is likely never to be a significant factor.

In fact, I'd even argue the opposite. The fewer big hits/collisions... the less interest from the masses. Didn't NASCAR just learn this lesson?

We aren't that far from the days of the Roman gladiators.

 

[Rocky11]

I agree with you on that one. People do want to see more blood and guts. Take the MMA for example. I have been a boxing fan for a long time. I think the MMA is brutal and don't watch it. You can't deny it's popularity.

 

[realcaliforniacheese]

I'm just sayin. That is a possibility. It will take time but it is very possible. That small town is a typical small town and I am sure they are not the only one. The NFL can fight it off with spin or try to do something about it. I looks like they are trying. It is aggravating to some of us fans because we like our football the way it is. Things like this take a long time. Did any of you guys out there who are my age think you would every see people fighting like tooth and nails to take down nativity scenes because they are offensive? Or looking at the polls and seeing that more and more people in this country are in favor of socialism? Big changes in peoples thinking takes time and if things don't change in the NFL there is a good chance that it will decline in talent and popularity. You have to think long tern which I think they are.

Comrade, I hear what you are saying, head injuies could make football less popular, but then only the die hard masses would be left and maybe the workers could afford to go to a superbowl. Then again, if players were forced to wear proper mouth pieces, cinch thier chin straps tight and wear the most advance helmet designs, concussions would be greatly reduced.

I think technology is going to be one of the solutions along with changing the way the game is played. With Madden and fantasy football being all about scoring and yards I think the NFL is going to gain popularity with the young as us old smash mouth football types die off.

Long live the revolution

 

[Kitten]

I don't think for one second that there will be no football. These medical revelations will simply change the game as we know it. Football, say 20 or 30 years ago has changed dramatically from what it was then to what it is now. Just look at the change in helmet design for starters. The thing it might cost the sport is fans. There are a lot of people who watch the game for those brutal hits and they may not watch the game if it's reduced to a touch or flag football format. The thing that worries me here is if they want to eliminate head to head contact, they might as well eliminate contact in any form in the same stroke. Head to head contact that is intentional is one thing, but what of the head to head contact that occurs accidentally from the nature of football being football. For example, if you tackle somebody at the waist, who is to say they can't get a concussion if their head slams into the ground? This is not going to be an easy thing to resolve, but I think it may be a bit more black and white than any of us are going to like. You are either going to have tackling and severely reduce the parameters of what is legal and what is not while still running the risk of accidental injury or you just eliminate tackling from the game altogether.

 

[PFanCan]

The big difference between today and yester-year in the NFL is the conditioning and strength+speed of the players. These guys have gone from being "good athletes" to "epic super-human beasts".

I once stood next to Bruce Matthews, retired Oilers and Titans OL and Clay's uncle, in a grocery store. He is not even big compared to today's stars, but he could have squashed me with two fingers.

Though the players have gotten dramatically bigger, stronger, and faster (hence they HIT harder), the skeleton of the human body has not changed. The thickness of our skull, the spinal cord design, the brain tissue and surrounding cushion... they all remain the same.

Thus, either the protection has to improve-- either by improving the body armor or by changing the rules (both currently being done), or... the capability of delivering the hits needs to be reduced/capped.

One way to limit this capability is to limit the maximum weight of players. Momentum = mass times velocity. Reduce the mass, and the momentum declines for any given speed.

Players step on scales before each game.

I'd rather have this change to the game than have all these "thou shalt not hit the QB"-type rules being enacted.