Rugby. Soccer. Wrestling. LaCrosse. There are many other sports to test a boy's budding manhood, albeit without the cultural cache that being a Football player will get you (which I think is one of the main reasons it is so stubbornly embedded in our ailing culture).
The demise of football will come from parents like me making the decisions thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of times to NOT let our sons play football.
Unfortunately, Football will become even more of a Plantation Sport of the Poor as boys from disadvantaged backgrounds seek a way out of poverty.
Having hope for a good job gives these boys choices.
The demise of football will come from parents like me making the decisions thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of times to NOT let our sons play football.
Unfortunately, Football will become even more of a Plantation Sport of the Poor as boys from disadvantaged backgrounds seek a way out of poverty.
Having hope for a good job gives these boys choices.
1
Great article! I do not watch boxing or similar MMA fights based on the same logic (I want to believe that we are evolving into a more empathetic species!) that humans are being injured and hurt but more importantly, that the mindset of the participating fighters has to be similar to "I am going to beat the hell out of this guy (or girl)" and that the fans are encouraging this type of brutal entertainment. I simply can't watch two people beating the hell out of each other knowing the probabilities of short and long term damage. to a lesser extent, I find myself feeling hypocritical when I do watch and cheer my college Alma mater and if anyone or anything is in a position help convince me that my thoughts on player safety are legitimate and a priority that commands to be addressed, Wouldn't that be the NFL? Because of this I have a distrust of the NFL with their inability to serve their players, fans, and communities. It is understandable that their short term vision is profit however it would behoove them if they lengthen that vision. Major League Baseball - There is opportunity here to seize!
1
The most surefire way to reduce brain trauma in the NFL is to reduce the amount of protective equipment players wear. While this may seem counter-intuitive, consider the fact that little or nothing of a player's equipment actually protects his brain from concussive impacts. What the equipment does enable players to do, however, is to hit each other with ever-increasing force. It enables a 300-pound man who can outrun a lynx and bench-press a small car to hurl himself full-force into his opponent. Get rid of his shoulderpads and replace his helmet with a leather one (yeah, old-school!) and he'll think twice about the way he should tackle or block. And for those players who will insist on playing the game with the same intensity that they did before, injuries such as broken bones and dislocated joints will mitigate the brain damage that they would otherwise accumulate over time while forcing them to adapt to a new play-style.
Will this slow the game down and make it less exciting to watch? Absolutely. Yet it's still better than the alternatives. Weight limits on players are discriminatory and hence will never work. And increasing fines/penalties on players will do little to stop the dozens and dozens of sub-concussive hits that players battling over the line of scrimmage (linemen, linebackers, running backs) experience during every game.
Will this slow the game down and make it less exciting to watch? Absolutely. Yet it's still better than the alternatives. Weight limits on players are discriminatory and hence will never work. And increasing fines/penalties on players will do little to stop the dozens and dozens of sub-concussive hits that players battling over the line of scrimmage (linemen, linebackers, running backs) experience during every game.
6
Anybody know the incidence of cte in non-football players? How many concussions does it take to cause cte? Is one enough or ten? Could it be a problem that extends far beyond football? Could excessive training and weight lifting damage brains too? Is it possible that anyone involved in strenuous athletic activity is at risk? Should we ban all sports?
2
There is an alternative. Go back to the game's real roots and join the rest of the world in celebrating Rugby Union. Rugby Football offers all of the appeal of the American game -- and more. And (as a quick look at any of the comparative sports medicine studies will show) it is a much safer game.
1
Dramatically reducing, or even eliminating, the violence that causes brain damage will be extremely difficult. One radical suggestion is to play without helmets. Sounds nuts? The character of the game would change completely, as players would act out of simple self-preservation. Of course, many rules would have to be adjusted. But it's because helmets appear to offer such protection that players today are able to play with the absolute abandon that brings excitement to the game.
1
Excellent column but I doubt that pugilistica dementia has had much to do with the demise of boxing. That sport went downhill because of corrupt governing bodies (and Ring Magazine) that rigged rankings for payment and a glut of weight classes, each with multiple world champions. Boxing also became bypassed in entertainment sparkle by professional wrestling and MMA, where anything goes. Also, the end of the line for American heavyweight champions drastically reduced interest in the U.S.
1
Why are the Romans still going to the Colosseum? Is it because THEY have brain damage?
1
The NFL is a perfect target for today's know-it-all's who want to solve the world's problems, but can't see the big picture.
More people die in car accidents a year then people who have died from CTE since the inception of football.
Thousands of Americans can't provide a balanced diet to their children's developing brains, but until we have dramatic stories about these children, we'll continue getting riled up the big bad game of football.
More people die in car accidents a year then people who have died from CTE since the inception of football.
Thousands of Americans can't provide a balanced diet to their children's developing brains, but until we have dramatic stories about these children, we'll continue getting riled up the big bad game of football.
1
Cockfighting and dog fighting are illegal (ask Michael Vick) because they consist of pitting animals against each other for human entertainment. Boxing and NFL/school football (Friday Night Brain Trauma) are very similar, except that they involve human beings and the short-term mortality rate is better.
4
Sorry charley. The mechanism of the injury in football is the same as in boxing. Every one in Neurology and Neurosurgery has known about it forever.
The sport cannot be made safe without changing it to two hand touch. The problem has been worked on at a number of universities (Michigan during the
Schembechler years) from the standpoint of absorbing the energy of impact by materials in the helmet itself to protect both the brain and the spinal cord and no solution could be found. No one is impervious to these injuries with perhaps the exception of Frank Ryan who qb'd Cleveland and worked for a Ph.d in math at the same time. Let's face it. Greed and the vicarious pleasure of watching some one else get his brains bashed in has "trumped" good sense with regard to this. Cigarette companies are still allowed to sell
products that kill if used at the recommended dose. So why worry about a few football players' heads. They are adults, aware of the risks and make the decision to play the game. The game is just a forme fruste of gladiator's combat. It's been going on forever in one form or another. It is an inherent part of our nature.
The sport cannot be made safe without changing it to two hand touch. The problem has been worked on at a number of universities (Michigan during the
Schembechler years) from the standpoint of absorbing the energy of impact by materials in the helmet itself to protect both the brain and the spinal cord and no solution could be found. No one is impervious to these injuries with perhaps the exception of Frank Ryan who qb'd Cleveland and worked for a Ph.d in math at the same time. Let's face it. Greed and the vicarious pleasure of watching some one else get his brains bashed in has "trumped" good sense with regard to this. Cigarette companies are still allowed to sell
products that kill if used at the recommended dose. So why worry about a few football players' heads. They are adults, aware of the risks and make the decision to play the game. The game is just a forme fruste of gladiator's combat. It's been going on forever in one form or another. It is an inherent part of our nature.
2
Football will survive or not based on its own merit and whether or not people want to play or watch it. There have been implications in the comments below about some level of immorality in allowing the sport to exist. This is patently ridiculous, especially in a society in which we don't disallow smoking and other harmful behaviors - and in fact are pushing to enable marijuana usage. Educate people on the risks and benefits and allow them to decide.
2
Dr. Lundberg:
I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1970's---the golden era of Steelers football---and was a a die-hard NFL fan ever since. But two years ago I quit. The overall brutality, and in particular damage from concussions, exceeded my threshold. I turned off the NFL, and even wrote to my college Alma Mater urging them to cancel the sport.
Time for you to catch up.
I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1970's---the golden era of Steelers football---and was a a die-hard NFL fan ever since. But two years ago I quit. The overall brutality, and in particular damage from concussions, exceeded my threshold. I turned off the NFL, and even wrote to my college Alma Mater urging them to cancel the sport.
Time for you to catch up.
4
This comes down to a money issue, the league will cease to exist in 25-30 years if it's not addressed
1
I think some of the recent concern over violence in football is due to high definition television.
I gave up my TV in the '00s, and hadn't watched much football for a couple of decades. But I watched the recent Steeler-Bengal playoff game on my sister's big screen HDTV. It was a very different viewing experience -- with cameras everywhere now, zooming intimately on specific players and tackles, and in slow motion, each hit and the reaction to it was plain and clear, as the players heads snap back when tackled or when they hit the ground. I don't recall seeing anything like that when I watched on a regular old television.
Concussions are up, but football has always been a brutal game. But now that brutality is sharper and clearer than ever.
I gave up my TV in the '00s, and hadn't watched much football for a couple of decades. But I watched the recent Steeler-Bengal playoff game on my sister's big screen HDTV. It was a very different viewing experience -- with cameras everywhere now, zooming intimately on specific players and tackles, and in slow motion, each hit and the reaction to it was plain and clear, as the players heads snap back when tackled or when they hit the ground. I don't recall seeing anything like that when I watched on a regular old television.
Concussions are up, but football has always been a brutal game. But now that brutality is sharper and clearer than ever.
5
We may end up watching soccer,like the rest of the world.Pretty depressing,if that happens.
Yes, the object of boxing is to injure your opponent and the object of football is only to score. But intent is not the point. Both these admittedly exciting sports produce unacceptably large numbers of brain-injured participants. I doubt there's much that can be done to make either sport reasonably safe. As for MMA, the action speaks for itself. That's too bad, but humans can find other sources of action-packed sport and entertainment.
2
How about we let the adult players decide for themselves if it is worth the risk. You cannot regulate the game to stop all potentially damaging contact.
NFL players are free to retire at anytime. Life is dangerous, many jobs are dangerous and are done for a lot longer than a football career. These old players complaining now are the ones who didn’t play ahead and now want payback..all about the $$$ and all about the lawyers.
NFL players are free to retire at anytime. Life is dangerous, many jobs are dangerous and are done for a lot longer than a football career. These old players complaining now are the ones who didn’t play ahead and now want payback..all about the $$$ and all about the lawyers.
2
Restructure the game to reward smaller players with more endurance. A return to two-way football in other words.
Making smaller, slower players play both offense and defense will see the typical player selected more for endurance rather than strength. Speed will remain to provide the excitement.
The NFL will go the way of the dinosaurs if the retain their addiction to saurian sized players !
Making smaller, slower players play both offense and defense will see the typical player selected more for endurance rather than strength. Speed will remain to provide the excitement.
The NFL will go the way of the dinosaurs if the retain their addiction to saurian sized players !
4
The NFL consists of adults who have the right to sell there health and lives for money, it is done all the time in other professions. The real problem is the high school and college athletes who are not compensated, and do not have the legal right to sacrifice their future health. Head blows are bad, in any amount of intensity, and impact all athletes that play football.(or soccer and diving for that matter). Football will end when high schools begin to be sued for brain damage that this sport causes. As brain imaging improves, this damage will be easier to show.
1
There is absolutely no way to make a collision sport safe.
Every parent should know that football is a serious danger to their child's mental acuity as they age.
To pretend otherwise is irresponsible.
Every parent should know that football is a serious danger to their child's mental acuity as they age.
To pretend otherwise is irresponsible.
3
An outstanding analysis of brain damage from someone who knows the subject well. The brain damage from football and boxing would result in criminal penalties if caused by a drunk driver or other miscreant.
I once enjoyed watching football, but no longer do so.
I once enjoyed watching football, but no longer do so.
1
Nearly 26 years I sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a MVA in which the impact was such the back of the seat broke and my head reportedly took out the rear window of the car. Waking up 3+ weeks later, there wasn't a cut on me. Yet, I was broken - not the same person.
Rod and I had some time in the Twilight Zone yet, since my injuries and scars were invisible others thought I was just crazy. My friends before the injury kept on saying "Phil, you used to do this and that." While some of it was familiar, it just wasn't "me" any longer.
Repetitive concussions, mild (mTBI), is much like picking at a scab continuously so as to delay the healing process to the point where permanent damage is done. Yet, because of this silent suffering, the sudden outbursts of rage, forgetfulness, alcoholism, abusing painkillers, etc., has been misdiagnosed for so long its about time brain injury gets the attention of the public it so justly deserves.
No one can control their thoughts; with a brain injury they are much more discombobulated as no two are alike.
Rod and I had some time in the Twilight Zone yet, since my injuries and scars were invisible others thought I was just crazy. My friends before the injury kept on saying "Phil, you used to do this and that." While some of it was familiar, it just wasn't "me" any longer.
Repetitive concussions, mild (mTBI), is much like picking at a scab continuously so as to delay the healing process to the point where permanent damage is done. Yet, because of this silent suffering, the sudden outbursts of rage, forgetfulness, alcoholism, abusing painkillers, etc., has been misdiagnosed for so long its about time brain injury gets the attention of the public it so justly deserves.
No one can control their thoughts; with a brain injury they are much more discombobulated as no two are alike.
8
Football will have to be played differently. Head blows of any kind should be disallowed. Linemen will have use some type of hand-to-hand combat instead of head butts to make blocks. Tacklers will have to learn to avoid head contact entirely. It may also be necessary to eliminate contact football for kids under the age of 16 and reduce the number of games played in high school and college and maybe in the pros. I know I don't want to watch any sport in which the players are sustaining permanent physical or mental damage.
1
You could—as the Olympics version does—make hockey less brutal and still have an exciting sport. The same cannot be said of football. Vince Lombardi famously said that "Football is not a contact sport. It's a collision sport." The fundamentals of the game are blocking and tackling, both of which pit one player's force and mass against another's. With players continually getting bigger and faster, the damage only gets worse. I used to watch as much college and pro football as I could get my hands on, but I reached a point where I could no longer accept the fact that people were destroying their brains and bodies for my entertainment. And don't tell that the players are out there because they want to be, because they're well paid, and because they know the risks. They're barely in their twenties—hardly a time when most people (especially guys) are equipped to make the most reasoned and logical choices.
18
It's all about the money period. The owners and certainly Roger Goddel don't care who gets injured, there will always be a replacement ready to take the injured's place. Fans don't go to games to watch these guys play flag football, they want players to bang into each other with force, ditto car racing, hockey, soccer, etc. The worse the tragedy, the better they like it and the more money they'll pay. Players get their millions and take the risk because where else are they going to make that kind of money?
1
This article overlooks the forest for the trees. As long as any violent physical contact is part of the game, brain trauma will be present to some extent. To say nothing of other physical traumas which later become degenerative problems earlier than they would normally appear. The ultimate question is, violence or not? Would fans watch touch football and be as rabid fans as they are now?
1
A sport that leaves so many seriously injured in the longterm is inherently flawed and needs to be banned in this form. But of course money trumps everything in the US of A.
2
A Society that revels in "Mixed Martial Arts" matches where men and women beat each other bloody in televised street fights is not going to stop football.
The Players in the NFL know what they are getting into, the fact that profession football cripples it's players has been known for a long time and if the players are willing to except a life of pain and disability for a few years in the NFL, so what. It's their decision.
The Players in the NFL know what they are getting into, the fact that profession football cripples it's players has been known for a long time and if the players are willing to except a life of pain and disability for a few years in the NFL, so what. It's their decision.
1
Or, life following art (or at least the movies), we could develop a sport called rollerball and spell out all the logic of football.
The author fails to note an interesting historic note regarding the comparative health effects of football vs. boxing.
At the beginning of the 20th century there was a great push to ban professional boxing due to the injuries related to it (New York State even did so for awhile).
The defenders of boxing pointed out that there were far more fatalities associated with football than with their sport and if these were to be the basis of banning then football should be the first to go.
At the beginning of the 20th century there was a great push to ban professional boxing due to the injuries related to it (New York State even did so for awhile).
The defenders of boxing pointed out that there were far more fatalities associated with football than with their sport and if these were to be the basis of banning then football should be the first to go.
2
For the very small numbers of players who ever achieve real wealth, and a not very much larger percentage who make a decent living out of the game off the field, it simply isn't worth the damage done to many thousands who eventually go on to other things in life. And once free of the spectacles, hundreds of millions of tax dollars may have more reasonable uses than the subsidy of obscenely wealthy team owners, who regularly shake down the teams' home communities for more grandiose stadia, albeit with the not too occasional moves to greener pastures in the middle of the night. It's certainly an entertaining game, but no more than others with lower body counts. Time to end it and stop the harm it does to the aspiring youngsters who would be better off hitting the books.
1
You are wrong that boxing has gone away. Didn't I just read that the Olympics is no longer going to require helmets? West Point still requires all cadets to participate in brain bashing. It doesn't sound like the government has got your message.
I hope football rules change to minimize injury, whatever it takes, in part because other sports will be required to change, too. Boxing is one example but hockey is another sport whose rules could change from the mite level on up to minimize injury. Nothing is 100% safe but all team sports could minimize player weights and have larger fields/ice to open things up. Real penalties need to be put in place for rule breakers, and coaching needs to really change, too. What is not said in this article is that many coaches, even at the professional level, sometimes encourage the hits and borderline illegal (and certainly intimidating) moves. Coaching styles definitely need to change all across the board. Look, we are stone age creatures and football is a great outlet and a physical challenge, and we humans evolved with this and it's been taken out of modern life in so many ways. But we also move forward and can change the rules for lifelong, health participation based upon what we now know about these devastating injuries.
I've never enjoyed watching a football games long grind of large athletes repeatedly slamming into one another to move the ball downfield. Each hit would make me winch and think, "That's gotta hurt." The strategy of gameplay is one of violence, brute force with the occasional field long run by one player while other players throw each other to the ground to clear the way.
Football is a blood sport, and blood sports are American as apple pie. This effort to "save" football is really a money grab. You want to save football. lose all the protective gear and play rugby.
Football is a blood sport, and blood sports are American as apple pie. This effort to "save" football is really a money grab. You want to save football. lose all the protective gear and play rugby.
This pointy-ball sport is NEVER going to go away unless we bring back gladiator sports. Testosterone makes boys and men want to either smash into people over and over or watch others doing it. Like pulling wings off flies: brutal, cruel, stupid, artless and here to stay.
1
My son loved football and has a great throwing arm. By 8th grade, kids were 2x his size. After three games in a row with players sped off in an ambulances (broken hand, concussions, dislocated shoulder add *lacerated liver* - think about that last one for a minute) he told me he was nauseated before each game. Not fun. Switched to basketball & tennis.
I love football but I love my son more.
I love football but I love my son more.
2
I remember reading Dr. Lundberg's op-ed in 1983, and realizing he was right. It took me a while to wean myself away from football to Italian soccer, but now that I have done so, there is no going back.
American football has simply become a blood sport with no redeeming social value. The interviews with surviving veteran players (I'm thinking especially of Jim McMahon.) are awful and anger-provoking. It is apparent that today's players are simply too big, too strong, and too fast for any current safety gear to protect.
The game as we know it and as it is currently played must be made much safer or abolished. If we don't do this - and immediately - then we are a country without a conscience.
American football has simply become a blood sport with no redeeming social value. The interviews with surviving veteran players (I'm thinking especially of Jim McMahon.) are awful and anger-provoking. It is apparent that today's players are simply too big, too strong, and too fast for any current safety gear to protect.
The game as we know it and as it is currently played must be made much safer or abolished. If we don't do this - and immediately - then we are a country without a conscience.
1
Perhaps the penalty should be that if a penalty results in a player leaving the game for medical reasons, the offending player is suspended until the injured player is cleared to play. There is potential for abuse (goons such as in hockey could aim for superstars, but they can do that now), but it would inflict a penalty better than 15 yards.
1
Recognition of CTE is not only an NFL issue, it should be a concern across all sports where there is regular ''assault'' against the unprotected brain as it sits like a potatoes in a jar of water.
Consider yesterday's tragic loss of BMX/X-Games champion Dave Muirra.
Suicide at age 41.
You only have to cruise through YouTube searching for video of his adolescent days and as an adult to see crash after crash after crash.
Tell me head trauma throughout one's life doesn't result in CTE and I will think I am talking to Vladimir Putin.
Consider yesterday's tragic loss of BMX/X-Games champion Dave Muirra.
Suicide at age 41.
You only have to cruise through YouTube searching for video of his adolescent days and as an adult to see crash after crash after crash.
Tell me head trauma throughout one's life doesn't result in CTE and I will think I am talking to Vladimir Putin.
1
There is no mention in the article of betting and its effects. Didn't Romans bet on gladiators? Are you in some kind of Super Bowl pool? Until the public loses interest in betting on games, directly by point spreads, or indirectly by fantasy teams, the league will want to continue delivering the violent product the fans seem to love.
And I concur with some posters here that getting rid of helmets might help reduce cumulative head impacts - but I never expect that will happen.
And I concur with some posters here that getting rid of helmets might help reduce cumulative head impacts - but I never expect that will happen.
1
Perhaps colleges could go back to doing what they were established to do -- teach. Football has taken over so many campuses with athletic directors salaries exceeding that of college presidents. Rediculous, really.
3
The NFL will follow similar path that the Tobacco industry has--denial, modification, denial, modification. At the end of the day, we now all admit smoking will kill you and eventually, we will all admit that playing football will kill you. In the meantime we all do a dance around "safe tackling," better helmets, new rules, please, the sport is inherently dangerous, and, sorry to say, that is what NFL fans are paying for --- that great hit that sends a player to the hospital and eventually to an assisted living facility.
2
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)
Not out to destroy lives in just boxing and the NFL....
It's greatest victim - Dave Mirra .... One of the greatest X-Games champions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxQ_RTRUNbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HOzy6cNb6c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__QHnfBHtNs
Not out to destroy lives in just boxing and the NFL....
It's greatest victim - Dave Mirra .... One of the greatest X-Games champions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxQ_RTRUNbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HOzy6cNb6c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__QHnfBHtNs
Is Johnny Football the latest victim? Concussions lead to unstable behavior, depression, drug and alcohol abuse. Does this story sound familiar. Personal responsibility or brain injury. If Johnny has suffered enough concussions to compromise his mental health, is it his fault or those trying to keep this grand tradition alive? Is it worth the glory?
Man the responses to this article...
You're 6'6'' 300lbs in High School. You, your parents, and everyone that has to walk around you in the hallway knows what you might be good at and how much money you can make.
That kid knows that the best thing he might ever be might involve a little brain injury. It's also the most exhilarating experience of his life.
You tell him not to play. More importantly, you tell him, after he's participated in the rush of playing in a football game--others in the extremes of physical conditioning smashing into each other to attain a little glory--that he might get a lasting brain injury after he's played at that level and had that chance to make that kind of green, using his body in the most obvious way it should be, to crush heads.
Good Luck on that.
You're 6'6'' 300lbs in High School. You, your parents, and everyone that has to walk around you in the hallway knows what you might be good at and how much money you can make.
That kid knows that the best thing he might ever be might involve a little brain injury. It's also the most exhilarating experience of his life.
You tell him not to play. More importantly, you tell him, after he's participated in the rush of playing in a football game--others in the extremes of physical conditioning smashing into each other to attain a little glory--that he might get a lasting brain injury after he's played at that level and had that chance to make that kind of green, using his body in the most obvious way it should be, to crush heads.
Good Luck on that.
The vikings are building a new stadium. It will be the last built there for the football game we know today. When todays players don't want their children to play the game, and understandably so, the end is on the horizon. Perhaps technology will be the answer, ala something like the movie Avatar.
2
At least make the game a little safer: no blow to the head tolerated--you're out of the game, and a thirty-yard penalty. If the hit was ruled intentionally: suspended for the next 2 games.
Defensive players may not leave their feet to tackle; offensive players may not leave theirs to block.
No kick-offs or punts allowed (after each score, the opposition starts from their own 30-and since there's no punting you get 5 downs to make 10 yards for a first down.)
Shorten the game to 4 12-minute quarters.
Defensive players may not leave their feet to tackle; offensive players may not leave theirs to block.
No kick-offs or punts allowed (after each score, the opposition starts from their own 30-and since there's no punting you get 5 downs to make 10 yards for a first down.)
Shorten the game to 4 12-minute quarters.
I grew up with Lombardi's Packers, and have been a fan since the 1962 NFL title game. I will likely watch my last Super Bowl on Sunday. The PBS documentary "League of Denial" is essential viewing for all football fans. Seeing Mike Webster on the autopsy table was a watershed moment for me. The playoffs this year have been painful to watch, and I now see these players not as rich and glorious stars, but as men trapped in an extremely violent work place which is always a momentary but serious threat to their long term health. I now cringe with every hit. The NFL will fade.
4
One glaring omission from the discussion about football and head trauma is that there is a very clear, documented correlation between traumatic brain injury and violent behavior - other than the violent behavior that resulted in the TBI. In a series of headline grabbing incidents over the last several years - Ray Rice, Adrien Peterson - the NFL has not only bungled the consequences levied on the offending players but largely escaped scrutiny on the frightening possibility that it is football itself that leads to criminal behavior. Study after study has indicated that head injuries are a major factor leading to violent behavior and incarceration. Why would NFL football be excluded from that equation? If a player is "fortunate" enough to be playing in the NFL it is likely that he's endured years of the kind of head trauma that would have resulted in jail time if inflicted by a parent or teacher instead of a coach. The problem is bad but also far worse and all encompassing than we've learned thus far.
6
Basketball, not Boxing, is the more appropriate analogy, because in a generation or two the NFL will consist almost exclusively of inner-city African Americans who see the NFL as their only way out. Better the risk of CTE than lifelong poverty. The QBs and Kickers will remain mostly white, because the parents of kids with options will still see a favorable risk vs. reward. And the owners will of course remain exclusively white billionaires.
2
Address it? How can they address it? There is no solution as the game exists.
Have to change it to flag football.
Have to change it to flag football.
3
Completely agree with Pat. Call it the NFFL - National Flag Football League. Full contact blocking but no tackling. Still a tough game, especially among highly skilled athletes.
The commissioner is spending his time on more important things, like how much air is in the footballs.
3
Eliminate the helmets and see how quickly the game becomes both safer and more strategic instead of relying on sheer bulk and sideline commands (earphone play calls go away as well).
2
TRICKLE DOWN Is what we need to happen. Pro football players are getting millions in compensation for the brain injuries they sustained during their careers. What about those on college teams? Or children playing tackle on community teams? Studies have shown that their brains show the same sort of injuries that the pros' brains showed. Long and short of it? We'd better outlaw tackle football and change to touch football. That's a game that brains can survive. For those who object there's always mud wrestling, jello wrestling or car mashups.
2
Evidence for brain damage from football has become overwhelming.
Federal and state funds should not go to any public school that fields a football team. Taxpayer funds should support education not brain damage.
Federal funds should not go to any public school that allows a private or non-profit enterprise to use their fields for football.
I would like my alma mater to give up football too: Harvard.
Federal and state funds should not go to any public school that fields a football team. Taxpayer funds should support education not brain damage.
Federal funds should not go to any public school that allows a private or non-profit enterprise to use their fields for football.
I would like my alma mater to give up football too: Harvard.
5
It is telling when many of the NFL greats say that they would not allow their own sons to play football.
7
Yesterday, former BMX pro Dave Mirra apparently took his own life. He was only 41. Makes one wonder if he also suffered from CTE as a result of repeatedly hitting his head during his active action sports career. Would be interesting to see a study that examines the brains of aging skateboarders, BMX/FMX riders, freestyle snowboarders and skiers. Of course their sports are minor compared to Football, but still...
3
The allure of football is something found nowhere outside the United States. Look at an NFL playbook. It´s very nearly the size of a major metropolitan telephone directory. Football is a game of endless complexity; it is both tactically and strategically intricate in ways that cannot be match by any other game. But that is only half the story. What makes it irresistible is the way it combines intricacy with mayhem. It is that perfect synthesis that grabs us time and time again. Remove the mayhem and you have an entirely different game, one that cannot win the allegiance of nearly all of America. It is exactly that repulsive, neither more nor less.
2
Large numbers of current players who are not already super rich could well become so through a class action suit. A short cut to riches for them while this savage "sport" fades away. Perhaps the class action lawyers are already at work.
3
During my playing years from ten to eighteen in the game of rugby union (continued in a regional business seven-a-side tournament in my late twenties) I was one of the best school boy tacklers in England. I couldn't kick with either foot to save my life, my passing was pathetic, as was my ball catching ability. But, boy, could I tackle.
Rugby union is played without any padding or protection whatsoever. I was smaller than other players and fairly lightly built. Over the decade (and during my last tournament), I received regularly some tremendous blows to my head – knees; boots; elbows; fists.
These days, my eyesight is dimming. I misread things. I can't recall the names of people, places, and objects when I speak. (Writing is easier). I never gave it much thought until now but I'm starting to think that perhaps all those years of hard knocks may have caused my brain more damage than I thought.
Rugby union is played without any padding or protection whatsoever. I was smaller than other players and fairly lightly built. Over the decade (and during my last tournament), I received regularly some tremendous blows to my head – knees; boots; elbows; fists.
These days, my eyesight is dimming. I misread things. I can't recall the names of people, places, and objects when I speak. (Writing is easier). I never gave it much thought until now but I'm starting to think that perhaps all those years of hard knocks may have caused my brain more damage than I thought.
27
Peyton Manning could die in the middle of the second quarter from a dirty hit and the NFL will go on as ever, getting stronger every year. The league is so much bigger than one man's life, so addictive, it will never face the abyss. From ancient Rome to present-day San Francisco, people ('sports' fans) haven't changed one whit.
7
While boxing may have diminished in stature over the years the author neglects to mention the dramatic rise of MMA fighting.
2
Can we just agree that Sunday is the occasion of the Brain Trauma Bowl? Sponsored by the National Fraud League, which extorts millions upon millions from taxpayers to subsidize its hugely profitable "private sector" business? What a travesty this saddest of "professional sports" has become. Let the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) take over. At least it's more honest. And safer.
2
If I had it to do over again, I absolutely would not allow my son to play football. He loved it, but the concussion risk is too high. He's had two that I'm aware of. One he received in High School. The other happened during the only Rugby game I've watched him play at college. He took a big hit and then disappeared from play. He later told me he asked the trainer to examine him out of my line of sight, so that I would not see it and "freak out". It was a valid concern on his part. I'm not a fan of anything that threatens his brain. He is still playing Rugby in college and I'm still worried for him. He's an adult now, making his own choices - but the culture propels young men like him into games that both entertain and harm. The worst concussion outcome I've witnessed was a high school girl - who was injured twice - less than a week apart - playing soccer. She missed her senior year of high school and had to delay college - because she could not focus or handle stimuli. Girls might even be at greater risk, because there is less attention paid to their injuries, until it is too late.
3
Convert to flag football. Let the fans who want blood and violence switch to hockey and cock fights.
2
I have made this comment before and I am making it again. We are witnessing the beginning of a very slow demise of football.
Sadly too late for those young men caught up in the glory of this ultimately brutal game.
Sadly too late for those young men caught up in the glory of this ultimately brutal game.
3
I don't disagree with the ultimate verdict on football. It's just hard to see it going with anything less than a knock-down-drag-out fight. It's going to be a lot more like "Celebrity Rehab", or a very nasty public divorce. And then there will be the question of who gets custody of Sunday Afternoons.
1
Perhaps the NFL should stop players wearing pads and helmets. No such equipment is using in Rugby and there are far fewer concussions. Players must tackle using their arms so there are no legitimate shoulder hits.
1
Two legal questions beg attention: When will we see the first lawsuit against parents who gave "consent" for their now CTE-injured child to play football? And when will we see municipalities that fund stadiums sued as accomplices by players with CTE?
2
There is no way to protect the brain with some magic helmet; it is physiologically impossible ( basic anatomy will demonstrate why.) Why would anyone think it is OK to hit your head repeatedly and expect no damage to your brain? That is so stupid as to be amazing. Stop supporting a game (honest not really important to life or the world) that causes brain damage. It is bread a circus just like Rome.
16
I had a concussion from an auto accident16 years ago. There was brain damage, I did vestibular rehab along with PT for back and shoulder muscle and ligament damage. Every doctor , every PT person cautioned me that another concussion could build on this initial damage, especially the brain damage. We have known this for years, yet football continues. Parents, just say no.
2
Former players will start suing high schools and colleges. School districts and colleges will do the math and determine they can't afford the risks and costs. That will be the end of football.
22
One good use for plaintiff lawyers...
Thanks for elevating the debate on this very serious issue. But good luck.
Football is so engrained in the fabric of the daily lives of families across our land: daily trips to practice fields and the center of social life on Friday evenings at the local high school stadium. Boxing never had that.
Then it's off to the alma mater on Saturday for parking lot barbecue and beer, multi-generational families carrying on the traditions of the Trojans, Crimson Tide, Wolverines and Nittany Lions.
And the sport has expanded exponentially in ever direction in the last two decades:
- Inward with expanded schedules / playoff seasons in both the NFL and NCAA.
- Outward to the UK, Australia, Mexico and many other lands.
- Downward beyond high school to middle school and peewee play.
- Onwards with more intensive aggression at all levels of play.
- Virtually, with more channels on TV, and not just games but microanalysis shows about ever nook and cranny of the game. It has crowed out all other sports.
Try finding skiing, college wresting, figure skating or gymnastics on any of the major channels on any evening or Saturday or Sunday. It's all football, all the time.
Big, real big, gargantuan bucks, with supply chains and distribution channels all happy for the expansion to go forth forever.
More life-threatening concussions, mental disease and anguish, domestic violence and heartache will be the parallel stories as this relentless money-fueled expansion continues.
Football is so engrained in the fabric of the daily lives of families across our land: daily trips to practice fields and the center of social life on Friday evenings at the local high school stadium. Boxing never had that.
Then it's off to the alma mater on Saturday for parking lot barbecue and beer, multi-generational families carrying on the traditions of the Trojans, Crimson Tide, Wolverines and Nittany Lions.
And the sport has expanded exponentially in ever direction in the last two decades:
- Inward with expanded schedules / playoff seasons in both the NFL and NCAA.
- Outward to the UK, Australia, Mexico and many other lands.
- Downward beyond high school to middle school and peewee play.
- Onwards with more intensive aggression at all levels of play.
- Virtually, with more channels on TV, and not just games but microanalysis shows about ever nook and cranny of the game. It has crowed out all other sports.
Try finding skiing, college wresting, figure skating or gymnastics on any of the major channels on any evening or Saturday or Sunday. It's all football, all the time.
Big, real big, gargantuan bucks, with supply chains and distribution channels all happy for the expansion to go forth forever.
More life-threatening concussions, mental disease and anguish, domestic violence and heartache will be the parallel stories as this relentless money-fueled expansion continues.
2
Football, like Boxing before it, is about to join the category of the morally indefensible. Boxing earned its place in August, 1962, when Emile Griffith literally beat Benny Paret into unconsciousness in March 1962, leading directly to his death in August. Boxing puts two very fit men into a space totaling 400 sq. ft. to deliberately inflict serious bodily injury on each other; Football puts 22 men onto a field 100 by 50 yds., with exactly the same purpose in mind. Scoring points is merely incidental; the object of the game is for one team to beat the other into submission.
There have been numerous attempts at making the game safer, but at the end, this is a lost cause. Helmets can be padded to keep the bean from banging around the inside, but there is no way to keep the brain from bouncing around inside the skull.
Dick Butkus characterized the game with the comment: "I like to hear the bones crunch."
QED
There have been numerous attempts at making the game safer, but at the end, this is a lost cause. Helmets can be padded to keep the bean from banging around the inside, but there is no way to keep the brain from bouncing around inside the skull.
Dick Butkus characterized the game with the comment: "I like to hear the bones crunch."
QED
14
It is scary and chilling to hear about the sport I love to watch, being dangerous for the players long term health and mental well being. I believe LOTS of research should be done, so that recommendations by competent doctors/researchers are adhered to. This also goes deeper, into the impact for both high school and college players who will not play into the pros. Finally, I can imagine the anguish of parents seeing their kids get decked from a "big hit". Yet, I know there's some archetypical need for a society to see gladiators fight as a spectator. So, I agree with the author that football not be banned, but let us greatly reduce brain injuries and know when a player has had enough.
1
Seems to me that once a candidate has reached the age of informed consent, he can choose to play professional football, knowing the risks associated with it; The NFL could publish the names of all players, age at death, and their years of active play. From that information, and the millions of feet of NFL film footage showing how the longest living survivors played, a safer sport might be gleaned.
Reading the headline, I thought for a minute it was going to be a piece about the NFL's plan to address brain injuries suffered by players' wives when they are knocked senseless by the players during 'domestic conversations.' Michael Vick got a two-year suspension for dog-fighting and many of his abused dogs were taken in by animal rights groups and adopted out to loving homes. I understood that the NFL was going to announce a similar re-homing plan for battered wives.
2
Since the damage from blows to the head is cumulative, like radiation exposure, it would be helpful to have something equivalent to a radiation badge. Perhaps a sensor in the helmet? There's really no safe level, but it might provide a sense of what is happening over time to the player's head.
Even so, since there is no safe level, I'd like to see tackle football limited to the pro level. Certainly, no parent should be able to sign away their minor kid's cognitive future on some boilerplate release.
It still gives me a pang to think about Junior Seau and his poignant last moment -- putting the gun to his chest instead of his head before firing, so his brain could be examined for CTE. Even in such a damaged mind, this was his last thought. I hope the world hears it.
Even so, since there is no safe level, I'd like to see tackle football limited to the pro level. Certainly, no parent should be able to sign away their minor kid's cognitive future on some boilerplate release.
It still gives me a pang to think about Junior Seau and his poignant last moment -- putting the gun to his chest instead of his head before firing, so his brain could be examined for CTE. Even in such a damaged mind, this was his last thought. I hope the world hears it.
9
Since we know that there is NO helmet that can prevent the brain slamming into the interior of the skull, how about going back to the leather helmets - without the deceptive headgear players might be less likely to use the head as a battering ram anyway.
4
As editor of a medical journal, and presumably, a physician, does the author believe that self-selected subjects found to have suffered brain damage, absent any control group, constitutes any kind of nexus? If so, anything published in this journal should not be believed.
Journalism should not be played in a casino. The NYT is going out on a limb with its coverage of this issue.
Journalism should not be played in a casino. The NYT is going out on a limb with its coverage of this issue.
4
The hate-on the times has for football is clear when you have to page down twice to find a story actually dealing with the Super Bowl. And then it's about racism.
The way to which the times' leftist agenda has infiltrated even the sports, business, and theatre sections is appalling.
The way to which the times' leftist agenda has infiltrated even the sports, business, and theatre sections is appalling.
first off howard cosell totally ruined the fight for anyone watching
second when they did brain scans on a ton of fighters tex cobb show absolutely no evidence of brain damage
third off people dont care about boxers getting brain damage and they wont care about brain damage in football players, nfl is not goion to fade away
second when they did brain scans on a ton of fighters tex cobb show absolutely no evidence of brain damage
third off people dont care about boxers getting brain damage and they wont care about brain damage in football players, nfl is not goion to fade away
2
Hockey still allows there to be brutal fights and equally brutal hits. It is well past the time that all of these "sports" need to balance their checkbooks -- and their souls.
2
You know who is an unmentioned co-conspirator in the escalation of violence in football? Sportscenter, with its lionization of big hits. "He really blew him up!"
And size is a huge problem. The 22 starters on the Super Bowl III winning Jets had three players at 250 lbs. or more. They had two outside linebackers playing at 205, and a defensive tackle at 220.
Ben Roethlisberger would have been the third heaviest player on that team. F=m x a. Increase markedly the mass AND the ability for big men to accelerate and the forces involved are huge.
And size is a huge problem. The 22 starters on the Super Bowl III winning Jets had three players at 250 lbs. or more. They had two outside linebackers playing at 205, and a defensive tackle at 220.
Ben Roethlisberger would have been the third heaviest player on that team. F=m x a. Increase markedly the mass AND the ability for big men to accelerate and the forces involved are huge.
3
V-E F=2 & Pi = c/d & Tragedy Time = Comedy. As Bruce Springsteen sang in Rosalita (Come Out Tonight): "Someday we'll look back at this and it will all seem funny." Football is a tragedy, and one day it'll be a joke. But until then, let's just enjoy Sunday's game, with all of it's life-changing hits to the head and over-hyped Television Advertisements that are meant to be funny, but rarely are, grab a handful of greasy buffalo wings and a cold one, high five our pals and their wives and their fat kids, put a smile on our faces, and know that in 20 years you won't see football on regular TV. It'll just be a fringe Pay-Per-View sport, kinda like Bikini Mud Wrestling is today.
If Republicans can successfully ignore climate change, then the NFL can ignore brain trauma.
6
For football, the helmet is THE problem. It is a weapon. Lawrence Taylor has said he was taught to lead with his head at the QB's chest. Well, if one is leading with one's head, one can't see that instead of a chest, one is going to hit the opponent's head. For the tackler, even, if he does manage to hit the torso of his target, he is going to suffer some brain damage when his brain slams into his skull. He won't feel it, because the helmet has cushioned the shock to the skull, and the brain doesn't have the sensors to register pain commensurate with the damage. Rugby, my native sport, does have concussions, but not anywhere near what we see in football. That is because rugby players tackle 'head-on' by leading with the shoulder. Why won't the medicaal establishment admit that their is no way to cushion the brain if, while the whole body is moving forward, the skull suddenly comes to a full stop?
2
Weight restrictions would be one of the most obvious and easy to impose. A person carrying the ball with two defensive linemen coming at him now has more than six hundred pounds of heavy human flesh about to take him down. The huge weight of the defensive linemen has also served to dull the game itself at the professional level: ball carriers know it is too dangerous to run in the open field, so they are happy to follow orders and, play after play, dive headlong into a mass of players. The era of the brilliant runner is, for the most part, over.
Years ago, the Washington Redskins had an offensive player named Joe Washington. He was smaller, as suits a runner who could dodge and weave up and down the field. In one game in the 1980s when the team was a contender almost every year for the SuperBowl (they went to three and won two), Washington was running in the open field, no protection. A defensive player came running toward him at full speed, mowing him down like a child on a playground. That one hit alone was enough to make me forever question football. I will never forget its brutality.
Why aren't more players expelled from games? That would send the message that certain things are just not allowed. On any week, in any game, you can see cringe inducing brutality.
Long ago, I had a friend who played for the Dallas Cowboys who retired earlier than expected. I asked him why he quit. He said he got tired of getting beaten up every weekend.
Years ago, the Washington Redskins had an offensive player named Joe Washington. He was smaller, as suits a runner who could dodge and weave up and down the field. In one game in the 1980s when the team was a contender almost every year for the SuperBowl (they went to three and won two), Washington was running in the open field, no protection. A defensive player came running toward him at full speed, mowing him down like a child on a playground. That one hit alone was enough to make me forever question football. I will never forget its brutality.
Why aren't more players expelled from games? That would send the message that certain things are just not allowed. On any week, in any game, you can see cringe inducing brutality.
Long ago, I had a friend who played for the Dallas Cowboys who retired earlier than expected. I asked him why he quit. He said he got tired of getting beaten up every weekend.
3
When the Neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, MD, who first identified CTE in 2005, and reported his findings in the medical journal "Neurosurgery", the NFL reportedly demanded a retraction by Dr. Omalu. Reports at the time cited that NFL officials criticized Omalu, a Nigerian, stating he was practicing voodoo medicine and not science.
Clearly in denial in 2005, some officials in the NFL apparently are still resisting scientific evidence that repeated hits to the head as well as multiple concussions cause Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
I have followed this issue closely since Chicago Bear, Dave Duerson, committed suicide in February of 2011, by a self inflicted gunshot wound to his abdomen- leaving his brain intact and requesting it be studied to prove the violence of football and other sports does in fact cause severe medical issues.
I'm also the aunt of two young men who have played hockey for 25 and 15 years, respectively and find their games to be as violent if not more so than college and pro football games. My younger nephew just suffered his second concussion and I'm personally and genuinely concerned for all these young players.
What is the NHL's position on this debilitating condition?
Thanks for any information.
Clearly in denial in 2005, some officials in the NFL apparently are still resisting scientific evidence that repeated hits to the head as well as multiple concussions cause Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
I have followed this issue closely since Chicago Bear, Dave Duerson, committed suicide in February of 2011, by a self inflicted gunshot wound to his abdomen- leaving his brain intact and requesting it be studied to prove the violence of football and other sports does in fact cause severe medical issues.
I'm also the aunt of two young men who have played hockey for 25 and 15 years, respectively and find their games to be as violent if not more so than college and pro football games. My younger nephew just suffered his second concussion and I'm personally and genuinely concerned for all these young players.
What is the NHL's position on this debilitating condition?
Thanks for any information.
1
While I cannot answer your NHL question, your NFL observations are spot-on. And I will personally confirm the awe-inspiring antics and trickery of the Billionaire boys club when it comes to football (specifically what they used to call getting your "bell rung" or "dinged") causing chronic neurodegenerative disease. The lying jaw flapping Tagliabots and Goodellbots have been saying emphatically until 2009 that football doesn't cause brain injury. No way. No link. Listen and laugh as their brain trauma studies guru and resident egomaniac Dr Ira Casson (who replaced the, um , rheumatologist who was originally their go-to guy) smugly DENIES a link. In 2009. Yet My retired offensive lineman husband , who played from 74-81 and was a friend of the great Mike Webster, was awarded T and P disability from the NFL. In 2005. For orthopedic and COGNITIVE injuries resulting FROM playing in the NFL. Specifically, he has frontal lobe dementia. And The NFL admitted the link waaay back in 99 when they granted disability to Webster. And there have been others. So, looks like Richie Rich Goodell and the Goodellbots...just got....JACKED UP.
2
I was 17 in March, 1962, when Emile Griffith beat Benny "Kid " Paret to death in their middleweight title fight at Madison Square Garden. I'll not soon forget Paret's unresisting body, his face a mass of bloody pulp, slowly descending to the canvas, Griffith still punishing his foe without surcease. The referee (I don't recall his name now) finally waved Griffith off. Fight over. Paret, days later, life over. A football helmet is a weapon. It can main and, under the right (or wrong) circumstances kill. This Patriots fan suggests that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell give up on Tom Brady and get after the real menace to his game and do something, anything, to protect his players. Too much to ask, I guess. When the players are done playing, their owners don't care. When a star player is killed on the field, on live TV, maybe he'll do something for the good of the game he's paid handsomely to sell.
2
“I believe that violence is a byproduct of football”.
Sorry, violence is integral to the game. I love the game, but I know it can’t survive if all costs are properly priced in. Congress should mandate the NFL to take out a full, life-time insurance for every player. The policy should cover all future medical expenses, care, and compensation for disability; and it should include a sizable life insurance. Right now the NFL makes society (and families of players) pay the costs; I suspect the bottom line would look very red if this free ride ended.
Sorry, violence is integral to the game. I love the game, but I know it can’t survive if all costs are properly priced in. Congress should mandate the NFL to take out a full, life-time insurance for every player. The policy should cover all future medical expenses, care, and compensation for disability; and it should include a sizable life insurance. Right now the NFL makes society (and families of players) pay the costs; I suspect the bottom line would look very red if this free ride ended.
12
What is troubling about this situation is, where are the officials, e.g., OSHA or the Department of Labor? Do you think this type of exposure to traumatic injury would be tolerated in other industries? There would be investigations, prosecutions and demands for changes to protect the rights and lives of those affected. What does it say about our society if we allow this to continue?
5
Even without that pesky problem with concussions, crippling injuries and future lawsuits, American football is a ridiculous sport. College football teams have 125 players on average, including 85 scholarship players, to play a game that allows them to put only 11 players on the field at a time. Most college players never play on Saturday; they are just on the squad to give the first- and second-team offenses and defenses someone to scrimmage against in practice. Professional football teams get by with 53-man rosters because they can bring in new players to replace injured players. According to a study conducted by the Wall Street Journal, the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game for about 11 minutes, which means an offensive or defense starter sees about five minutes and 30 seconds of action per game. American football has evolved into a game that cannot be played by players of average size. NFL linemen average 300 pounds and have to wear knee braces so they can waddle onto the field. (The top U.S. soccer player, Landon Donovan, is 5 feet, 8 inches and weighs 158 pounds.) No one plays American football for fun. When people play football for fun, they play touch football. But people play soccer for fun. If the United States dropped football in favor of soccer, Americans would quickly become as enthusiastic about soccer as they are now about football.
4
"pro football players, many of them multimillionaires,"
eliminate this, and you will eliminate brain injuries, assuming that they have one. This is no different from the warning on cigarettes, clearly written for everyone to understand, and only by ignoring its consequences do people suffer from them. Greed for millions of dollars, notoriety and a certain social status makes this combat sport into what it is.
the media could start the ball rolling by NOT making combat sports into something special--leave the last column on the last page of the paper for sports. Soon enough it will go away unless one is such a diehard as to actually have to go to a game and see it live. Given the couch-potato status of too many people, the game will simply vanish if it doesn't get talked about or shown on visual sources.
eliminate this, and you will eliminate brain injuries, assuming that they have one. This is no different from the warning on cigarettes, clearly written for everyone to understand, and only by ignoring its consequences do people suffer from them. Greed for millions of dollars, notoriety and a certain social status makes this combat sport into what it is.
the media could start the ball rolling by NOT making combat sports into something special--leave the last column on the last page of the paper for sports. Soon enough it will go away unless one is such a diehard as to actually have to go to a game and see it live. Given the couch-potato status of too many people, the game will simply vanish if it doesn't get talked about or shown on visual sources.
Wish granted. I see eight or ten stories and videos by the times with a hate attitude towards football, before you actually get to a story about the Super Bowl. It says something about how popular football is that the haters have to ride the publicity wagon of the Super Bowl to get any ink.
The NFL doesn't give a rip about harm done to its players … it is too profitable to care and it is about the 'Benjamins' and as they say in a big (profit) organization a few losses are easily sustainable … after all they are just football players.
2
Not persuasive enough in my view. Football HAS to change how they play the game. They have done so for quarterbacks....why not for all players?
It is a simple change. No more hitting or tackling above the waist. Period. Violations of this new fundamental tenet to be punished/suspended...zero tolerance. I realize that the natural physicality of the game shall still render severe leg injuries. I still envisage that the athleticism and skills which make this game so enjoyable will for the most part not be lost. The brutality however shall be in the most sensitive area.
It is a simple change. No more hitting or tackling above the waist. Period. Violations of this new fundamental tenet to be punished/suspended...zero tolerance. I realize that the natural physicality of the game shall still render severe leg injuries. I still envisage that the athleticism and skills which make this game so enjoyable will for the most part not be lost. The brutality however shall be in the most sensitive area.
1
One of the problems is that when you are hit at speed and you fall your brain is still going to impact the skull. It seems that the accumulation of these impacts itself does damage. This happens even if you are tackled below the waist. I have had my bell rung when I landed from a hip toss the wrong way w/o my head hitting the ground.
1
They can't address the issue--if they discuss the brain damage that is caused by constant concussions, it would terrify the public. Football is a billion dollar industry. How many mothers would want their children to participate in a game that damages their brain.
1
Sorry to disagree Dr. Lundberg, but you were right about boxing, and given the overwhelming evidence from professional football, it, too, should be banned in this hopefully "civilized" country. As a psychologist, I believe men seem still to have that need for "mortal combat" that's part of evolutionary DNA. But, it's now time that we move on from the vicarious need for death-dealing gladiatorial combat to valuing human life rather than relishing its destruction. The is the healing thing to do and we, as healers, are bound to honor that principle.
1
Unless the NFL changes, the lawyers will eat them alive.
1
It's a bit like the Hunger Games, no?
We know what the outcome will be for many of America's football-playing children - especially the underserved - but with increasingly poor job prospects, are we not dooming our children either way?
We know what the outcome will be for many of America's football-playing children - especially the underserved - but with increasingly poor job prospects, are we not dooming our children either way?
5
Exactly right. And perhaps the main issue in preventing head trauma and its sequelae is to do away with the hard helmet, the main instrument being used to harm an opponent.Unless violence is condoned by this society of ours, and its consequences be damned, a remedy must be considered. If preventing traumatic encephalopathy, with premature dementia and death, will harm the bottom line, so be it. It would be the right thing to do.
1
Want to solve the problem? Remove all equipment ... and the helmet. And then watch the real football game develop.
2
Yeah! there would still be injuries but not of the severity we have now. Also remove artificial turf, which catches on cleats and does not let go, thus torn ACLs
With the death of Ken Stabler, the Times has published several CTE-related articles and editorials. While it is impossible to know, it appears likely that these pieces were written sometime ago to be published upon a major development. If that is true, this is an example not of reporting the news as it occurs, but engaging in what is known as advocacy journalism. The Times has been credited with CTE-related disclosures and it appears to be continually banging the drums. I'm not sure that I feel comfortable with a newspaper preaching from a pedestal. I'd rather have them reporting the news and trusting readers to think for themselves.
1
It's Super Bowl fever opportunism. Every front page and sports page is doing it - but most are just focusing on the game.
I see nothing wrong with a paper publicizing articles which are timed to capture the national attention.
They would do the same around any major event/ day, be it the State of the Union or Christmas. (The Super Bowl competes with those two for top billing).
I see nothing wrong with a paper publicizing articles which are timed to capture the national attention.
They would do the same around any major event/ day, be it the State of the Union or Christmas. (The Super Bowl competes with those two for top billing).
2
Presumably the claimed results of Stabler's tests have been available for some time but have been sat on for weeks or months pending the Super Bowl. Opportunists. Hs BU ever tested a brain of a football player and NOT diagnosed CTE? Where is the control, and is it double-blind?
There is a bottom line here. This spot is hurting people. It is time to rise up and refuse to support this carnage. We are America. We are better than this not-too-subtle form of Roman gladiator murder to please the masses. Do not go gentle into that good night, just go away.
2
The sure way to reduce helmet to helmet hits , or to lead with the head as a running back, is to abolish helmets or at the very least, remove the face mask. Problem solved.
2
If chronic brain damage turned boxing to the sporting margin, i cannot see how football can be saved. I love football, too, but it is inherently violent, whether or not violence is the primary objective of the game or secondary to it. If it's an unavoidable offshoot, violence is still violent.
It damages all parts of the body. Before his concussed brain disabled him, Ken Stabler was virtually immobilized by repeated trauma from the neck down. Peyton Manning can anticipate a similar fate, perhaps above and below the neck.
Tom Brady says he wants to play for several more years. Bad advice Tom even if it's your own, if last week's 26 slams from the Denver game failed to convince you.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
It damages all parts of the body. Before his concussed brain disabled him, Ken Stabler was virtually immobilized by repeated trauma from the neck down. Peyton Manning can anticipate a similar fate, perhaps above and below the neck.
Tom Brady says he wants to play for several more years. Bad advice Tom even if it's your own, if last week's 26 slams from the Denver game failed to convince you.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
5
watching the latest games I have observed many illegal hits where players were hurt and yet the refs did nothing. I learned unlike baseball, the refs are not professionals. They are friends or associates of those in the game. Isn't it time the NFL made the refs professionals and upped the professionalism of the game? At least call penalties on illegal hits!
2
First of all, Howard Cosell's quote (he personified boxing in his career before MNF), is chilling. And when it comes to boxing, when Howard Cosell speaks, we should listen.
Growing up in Philadelphia - Joe Frazier was my all time hero - boxing was in the blood and I was a big fan, listening to every boxing match on the radio (those were the days). I believed, and still do, that boxing was the purest form of sport. I hated Roberto Duran for his savagery but the more I saw of him the more I saw that he embodied that purity and came to be a big admirer (don't bother mentioning "no mas." It's the smartest thing he ever did.)
But somewhere along the line that poor Korean guy, whose name I never get right, was killed in the ring. That bothered me immensely and I couldn't dismiss it from the overall picture I had of the sport. I came to the conclusion long ago that boxing should be banned and have had no reason to reevaluate.
Then the loathsome Don King came along and corrupted the whole thing, turning a pure though violent sport into elite, extravagant cock-fighting. The NFL is going the same way.
No mas.
Growing up in Philadelphia - Joe Frazier was my all time hero - boxing was in the blood and I was a big fan, listening to every boxing match on the radio (those were the days). I believed, and still do, that boxing was the purest form of sport. I hated Roberto Duran for his savagery but the more I saw of him the more I saw that he embodied that purity and came to be a big admirer (don't bother mentioning "no mas." It's the smartest thing he ever did.)
But somewhere along the line that poor Korean guy, whose name I never get right, was killed in the ring. That bothered me immensely and I couldn't dismiss it from the overall picture I had of the sport. I came to the conclusion long ago that boxing should be banned and have had no reason to reevaluate.
Then the loathsome Don King came along and corrupted the whole thing, turning a pure though violent sport into elite, extravagant cock-fighting. The NFL is going the same way.
No mas.
2
Football has so much going against it, that I am astonished at its popularity.
1. violence. It is so totally violent.
2. football owners enjoy tax free status. Yes. That's right. All you people that are paying higher taxes for that new stadium? You are paying and the team owner gets off scot free.
3. The game goes on forever. A 1 hour game with a 15 min. half time now probably averages about 4 hours. Ridiculous.
4. the brain injury problem. The NFL stonewalled it. Now they are buying goodwill without having to do much of anything other than writing a 30m check. Chump changes to these guys. In the meantime, the head crashing continues.
5. Children are allowed to play tackle football. At a minimum, it should be outlawed.
I am going to a Super Bowl party but I will not watch the game. Far more interesting to gab with friends. Maybe take in a commercial.
1. violence. It is so totally violent.
2. football owners enjoy tax free status. Yes. That's right. All you people that are paying higher taxes for that new stadium? You are paying and the team owner gets off scot free.
3. The game goes on forever. A 1 hour game with a 15 min. half time now probably averages about 4 hours. Ridiculous.
4. the brain injury problem. The NFL stonewalled it. Now they are buying goodwill without having to do much of anything other than writing a 30m check. Chump changes to these guys. In the meantime, the head crashing continues.
5. Children are allowed to play tackle football. At a minimum, it should be outlawed.
I am going to a Super Bowl party but I will not watch the game. Far more interesting to gab with friends. Maybe take in a commercial.
5
Horrified by Boxing ? well how about MMA UFC the biggest sport next to Football
but there it is brutal Knuckle fighting anything goes once down jump and pound away try and break an arm /leg to submission boxing is tame compared to UFC and the" move to" is showing that trend we are moving to a more savage society , we are all Brain Damaged by now
but there it is brutal Knuckle fighting anything goes once down jump and pound away try and break an arm /leg to submission boxing is tame compared to UFC and the" move to" is showing that trend we are moving to a more savage society , we are all Brain Damaged by now
2
The science behind concussions and the impact on athletes is not limited to the NFL or football. What we are finding is that concussions - the impact of the brain violently shifting within the cranium and the damage it causes - can be found in many sports.
For example, women's soccer on the collegiate level has the second highest level of concussions ... behind college wrestling. College football is next.
College wrestlers hit heads often and have what can be described as micro concussions. Or they are "thrown" and or hit the "mat" head first and have a concussion. However, the sport does not endorse this type of activity. It is a secondary result and coaches are looking to make it safer.
Women's soccer and concussions is the result of "heading the ball." Heading is the key aspect of soccer. The issue here is physiology - the neck muscles of the female athletes are not strong enough minimize the "whiplash" associated with a header.
We can slow the game of football down, make the players smaller. We can change the rules. But we also need to acknowledge that our human bodies are fragile and not matter what the sport brain trauma is a risk.
For example, women's soccer on the collegiate level has the second highest level of concussions ... behind college wrestling. College football is next.
College wrestlers hit heads often and have what can be described as micro concussions. Or they are "thrown" and or hit the "mat" head first and have a concussion. However, the sport does not endorse this type of activity. It is a secondary result and coaches are looking to make it safer.
Women's soccer and concussions is the result of "heading the ball." Heading is the key aspect of soccer. The issue here is physiology - the neck muscles of the female athletes are not strong enough minimize the "whiplash" associated with a header.
We can slow the game of football down, make the players smaller. We can change the rules. But we also need to acknowledge that our human bodies are fragile and not matter what the sport brain trauma is a risk.
2
As a physician who treats children and teens with brain injury, I am simply DONE with football. Concussions are one serious part of the problem. The steady stream of crippling ligamentous injuries is another. After caring for one devastated young high school player this year, and reading of another in our state who died before making it to the trauma center, I have had enough. Football is a gladiator sport. I will no longer watch it. My son doesn't play football and I hope others' sons, all of these beautiful talented athletes, will apply themselves in other sports for which there is a longer injury-free trajectory.
5
The answer to the problem is to outlaw tackling , & in place of the tackle the defensive player will use lassos to bring down the offensive player, there would be a 20 yard penalty if you lasso around the neck.
Seriously, they want to make a buck & it's their brain thats at risk , but I guess there wasn't not much brains to begin with.
Seriously, they want to make a buck & it's their brain thats at risk , but I guess there wasn't not much brains to begin with.
1
"The failure of the league to take effective actions to protect the brains of current players puts it into willful-negligence territory. Other than increasing some on-field penalties, the league has done almost nothing to protect players now or in the future."
Almost nothing? There are mandatory independent doctors who evaluate players and sometimes do not let them return to games. This seems a bit biased.
Almost nothing? There are mandatory independent doctors who evaluate players and sometimes do not let them return to games. This seems a bit biased.
I've always disliked boxing, knowing it to be a violent sport. I now feel the same about football, reading about the damage it does to players which is often not known for many years. Kudos to the parents who recognize the risks and will not allow their children to play. The NFL donated $30 million to CTE research? Wow! Peyton Manning signed a 2-year contract with the Broncos for $34 million. So the NFL's donation is less than two years of Manning's salary. And that's just one player. The NFL needs to address this problem and now, before any more players are irreparably damaged.
10
The NFL could learn an awful lot from the administration of Rugby Union where players are removed from the field following a bang on the head or suspect concusion by the touchline medical team. The player is substituted (not so many subs in Rugby as American Football), and is not allowed to return to play until he has been thoroughly checked. The medical team have the final word and a player cannot be allowed back on the field if they do not give the say-so. Recent rules changes have also turned dangerous tackling into a major infringement. In many respects these changes have made a wonderful game even better.
3
Most ancient Rome gladiators died in the Coliseum. Why should the modern world respect lives of boxers, football players, etc. Our civilisation is not that different from the ancient Rome civilization. Look at wars we gladly entertain.
8
We should respect the lives of every human being. It was only a few hundred years ago that public executions were carried out for entertainment in European nations. It was less than a hundred years ago that black people were hung and then burned by white people who were convinced that the black person has committed a "crime" but looking at or talking to a white woman. (Hundreds died, often by hanging, in the "Red Summer" of 1919.) We have progressed away from such dark practices and it is absurd to use the example of ancient Rome as any sort of guide now.
1
As someone who has experienced several concussions and knows first-hand the pain, frustration, and emotional harm they inflict, I would not wish them on anyone, not for a jersey in the Hall of Fame, not for five million dollars a year. Brain damage is terrifying because our minds are so key to how we live.
In addition to changing how we play, we need to drastically and quickly step up our investment in brain research. Given how many people suffer from dementia, CTE, and other neurodegenerative diseases we need to be talking about billions.
In addition to changing how we play, we need to drastically and quickly step up our investment in brain research. Given how many people suffer from dementia, CTE, and other neurodegenerative diseases we need to be talking about billions.
59
Despite all possible and presented evidence--including his own!-- this particular doctor just can't summon up enough moral courage to call for its abolition. How greasy.
I would likewise say that by placing his personal feelings (i luv football!) ahead of objective medical science, he's thereby compromised the integrety of his profession. Per oath, doing no harm presupposes how one must, categorically, act with respect to the state of one's knowledge.
I would likewise say that by placing his personal feelings (i luv football!) ahead of objective medical science, he's thereby compromised the integrety of his profession. Per oath, doing no harm presupposes how one must, categorically, act with respect to the state of one's knowledge.
6
Well he might not be calling for its abolition because some people would be more skeptical of his ideas.
I thought it was called writing effectively versus writing self-righteously. Author did a fantastic job drawing in both the true believers and denialists among us.
4
Has it ever occurred to anyone that the hard helmet may actually be the problem rather than the solution? The hard helmet not only gives players a false sense that their heads are protected but allows, even encourages players to use their heads as weapons. I maintain that even a 1/2 inch coating of a foam rubber like substance on the outside surface of the present day helmet would significantly reduce the impact of head to head collisions. Perhaps it wouldn't look as nice. But I can't help but think that the development of a soft helmet of a strong, flexible material with a layer of padding consisting of compressed air or liquid would still protect the head but also eliminate the urge to use the head in dangerous ways. Football is a wonderful game. A solution needs to be found to ensure its survival without its disturbing casualties.
3
" the development of a soft helmet of a strong, flexible material with a layer of padding"
You do realize that the NFL discarded the leather helmet for a reason ...
You do realize that the NFL discarded the leather helmet for a reason ...
No helmet improvement could possibly remedy this problem because the brain continues to move inside the skull when the player is stopped suddenly (even when the player is standing still, but is thrown to the ground). The brain smashes up against the opposite wall of the skull and then bounces back and forth until it loses the energy of its momentum. Only a non-contact version of football could avoid this (flag football for example).
So, the question is whether the average American us grown up enough to accept a change to a gentler version of the sport.
So, the question is whether the average American us grown up enough to accept a change to a gentler version of the sport.
1
I was head cheerleader for my high school football team a number of years ago. The final game of each season was the Thanksgiving game. Toward the end of my senior year game, a player on the opposing team fell and was carried off the field. After the game we were told he was dead.
A few years later I attended a benefit for a 10 year-old boy that was paralyzed from the neck down in a Midget football game.
I have two sons. One played soccer, was on the swim team and played baseball and the other son played baseball. I would never allow them to play football.
A few years later I attended a benefit for a 10 year-old boy that was paralyzed from the neck down in a Midget football game.
I have two sons. One played soccer, was on the swim team and played baseball and the other son played baseball. I would never allow them to play football.
38
I'm sorry, either of the incidents you mention would, if real, have created huge publicity. Can we have links?
Agreed that support of football in its present form cannot be sustained.
But what about it's function as a substitute for the deep-seated need to engage in tribal warfare? As an outlet for our feelings of aggression in a festival festooned with military, patriotic and even religious symbols? What about the team entries through clouds of smoke and columns of fire? What about the scantily clad priestesses? The arms-bearing honor guards? The flags as big as Omaha? The touching patriotic hymns?
The answer is obvious.
Create an adaptation of the video games available today which allow the participants to generate unbounded mayhem before their eyes.
Simply generate three-dimensional versions and put them on the field to smash one another up! Robots! Teams of robots!
Combine the strategies of football, as presently practiced, with the skills of Demolition Derby to produce a competition of smoke and fire... flying metal and domination. Hits to the head and chop blocks restored. Spectator pleasure enhanced.
Imagine a national college championship between MIT and Caltech! An NFL trophy in the middle of Silicon Valley. The league commissioner could be a Nobel prize-winning physicist.
No doubt, with the money available from such an enterprise new spinoff technologies for medicine and the military would be created. And those Eusocial needs as described by E.O. Wilson when he speaks about football would still be met.
And no brain damage. Au contraire!
But what about it's function as a substitute for the deep-seated need to engage in tribal warfare? As an outlet for our feelings of aggression in a festival festooned with military, patriotic and even religious symbols? What about the team entries through clouds of smoke and columns of fire? What about the scantily clad priestesses? The arms-bearing honor guards? The flags as big as Omaha? The touching patriotic hymns?
The answer is obvious.
Create an adaptation of the video games available today which allow the participants to generate unbounded mayhem before their eyes.
Simply generate three-dimensional versions and put them on the field to smash one another up! Robots! Teams of robots!
Combine the strategies of football, as presently practiced, with the skills of Demolition Derby to produce a competition of smoke and fire... flying metal and domination. Hits to the head and chop blocks restored. Spectator pleasure enhanced.
Imagine a national college championship between MIT and Caltech! An NFL trophy in the middle of Silicon Valley. The league commissioner could be a Nobel prize-winning physicist.
No doubt, with the money available from such an enterprise new spinoff technologies for medicine and the military would be created. And those Eusocial needs as described by E.O. Wilson when he speaks about football would still be met.
And no brain damage. Au contraire!
4
"But what about it's function as a substitute for the deep-seated need to engage in tribal warfare? As an outlet for our feelings of aggression in a festival festooned with military, patriotic and even religious symbols? "
And as a result of this sanctioned outlet, American society is getting less violent, less militaristic, right?
And as a result of this sanctioned outlet, American society is getting less violent, less militaristic, right?
If not the rest of your vision, at least we'll have the part about the NFL trophy in the middle of Silicon Valley happening this Sunday.
I'll take my tongue out of my cheek and say...."youur observation is correct!"
We need more stories like this, and stories like the tragedy of Ken Stabler. Too many people do not know or understand. Football is worshiped at my son's school. When I told him that I will not let him play next year, I broke his heart and broke his circle of friends. As a parent, I had no choice. If we have more attention from the media to stories like Stabler and less stories glorifying football, all caring parents will do the same.
8
Football could go back a little towards its common roots with Rugby football.
Rugby players know how to tackle safely and generally avoid injury.
In addition to reducing injury, it would improve the quality of tackling at college level. How many times have we seen college players running almost parallel with a ball carrier rather than taking an intersecting line and enveloping the knees?
Perhaps a rule change of using the head alone to hit someone would get the message across. Another rugby rule that would slow down pure violence would be the sin bin thus reducing the number of players on the field. Coaches would eventually figure out that the violence isn't worth losing a player for.
Perhaps NFL leaders should watch some rugby to get a feel for a violent game played with some restraint and a set of rules that punish violence.
Wales lost a close semi-final match in the 2011 world cup v. France after their captain was sent off for a dangerous and illegal tackle and left them one man short. And for some great excitement, watch the Rugby Sevens in the 2016 Olympics. The US is the defending Rugby Gold medalist.
We can learn from others without feeling un-American!
Rugby players know how to tackle safely and generally avoid injury.
In addition to reducing injury, it would improve the quality of tackling at college level. How many times have we seen college players running almost parallel with a ball carrier rather than taking an intersecting line and enveloping the knees?
Perhaps a rule change of using the head alone to hit someone would get the message across. Another rugby rule that would slow down pure violence would be the sin bin thus reducing the number of players on the field. Coaches would eventually figure out that the violence isn't worth losing a player for.
Perhaps NFL leaders should watch some rugby to get a feel for a violent game played with some restraint and a set of rules that punish violence.
Wales lost a close semi-final match in the 2011 world cup v. France after their captain was sent off for a dangerous and illegal tackle and left them one man short. And for some great excitement, watch the Rugby Sevens in the 2016 Olympics. The US is the defending Rugby Gold medalist.
We can learn from others without feeling un-American!
1
Yes, but you'll be *accused* of being un-American!
You make a good point about penalties. A flagrant penalty should result in the loss of a player for the entire game, like a red card in soccer. THAT would stop a lot of cheap shots, more than fines or suspensions, because there would be peer pressure to keep all 11 men on the field.
PS New Zealand holds the Rugby World Cup, second time in a row.
You make a good point about penalties. A flagrant penalty should result in the loss of a player for the entire game, like a red card in soccer. THAT would stop a lot of cheap shots, more than fines or suspensions, because there would be peer pressure to keep all 11 men on the field.
PS New Zealand holds the Rugby World Cup, second time in a row.
The only thing that prevents the abolition of football is $$$$ (and the opiate of the masses). The masses love to see gladiators at the coliseum.
2
Dr. Lundberg's Op-Ed is truly excellent. With all of the big money behind the NFL--billionaire owners, equipment providers, advertisers, etc--Congress is not going to force anything. They can't even get their Washington Team to change its name. But, if the media--also shills to an extent--can keep it in the public focus, at least a free keep their children out (hockey, soccer, and others too), as Dr. Lundberg suggests, maybe the talent pool will dry-up a bit. Lastly, stop buying products that the NFL advertisers sell. And, ben sure to Email them why!
2
Just in one day only I have read more sickening stories about Football that it was easy to conclude to stop this ball throwing insanity. What is wrong with this country.
1
One of the great roadblocks to removing head injury sports (soccer, football, hockey and boxing) from our society is the question it raises to the consumer of such a sporting event: What will I do with my precious life time now instead? Will I concentrate on reading? learning a new skill? Downsizing half or more of the clothes currently owned to Goodwill? etc. Those and other questions are unpleasant because they force someone to face head on the question: Is watching such a sport really the way I want to use this precious time?
8
such nonsense. sub-concussive impacts, as dr. lundberg surely knows, are the real enemy of a football player, and they have nothing to do with "big hits." they are, simply put, the core of playing a sport where one has a helmet.
rugby players, and soccer players, both get concussions, and both have had (extremely) limited signs of CTE in a small number of players. but because there is no helmet, the number of sub-concussive hits are radically smaller, and players are therefore far less likely to end up with mental impairment.
everyone knows this by now. any time anyone (especially the NFL and the feckless incompetent Goodell) talks about concussions, know they are gulling you into not noticing that the issue--the basic every down play--is the problem, and there is simply no solution short of not playing.
stop watching. stop giving them your money. enjoy another sport. go for a walk. anything is better than this primitive nightmare.
rugby players, and soccer players, both get concussions, and both have had (extremely) limited signs of CTE in a small number of players. but because there is no helmet, the number of sub-concussive hits are radically smaller, and players are therefore far less likely to end up with mental impairment.
everyone knows this by now. any time anyone (especially the NFL and the feckless incompetent Goodell) talks about concussions, know they are gulling you into not noticing that the issue--the basic every down play--is the problem, and there is simply no solution short of not playing.
stop watching. stop giving them your money. enjoy another sport. go for a walk. anything is better than this primitive nightmare.
3
That doesn't seem to be grounds to dismiss the entire article as nonsense. You haven't stated your own qualifications as a neurosurgeon, but I suppose if "everybody knows" this stuff, it isn't necessary to have qualifications.
My husband came up with a much safer helmet for football players. Mostly thinking of kids and college students. When we approached the Green Bay Packers management about it they said "they were not interested". So we gave up. It costs too much in this country with out system to bring to market a good idea so we cannot do this without backup. Nobody's investing right now I guess. Unless the NFL can come up with safer helmets and rules it will fade away. By the way, soccer players also display CTE in brain studies. Read the article about Stabler.
2
If your husband's idea proved defective, who would pay the lawsuits? The Packers are community-owned (I bought two shares in them myself) and there are no billionaires involved. They are not rendered evil by a failure to buy the latest Doc Brown device.
1
Again, no helmet ever devised can stop the brain from sloshing around violently within the skull. THAT'S what causes traumatic brain injury.
2
"some have argued that boxing has a redeeming social value in that it allows a few disadvantaged or minority individuals an opportunity to rise to spectacular wealth and fame." So, as middle-class parents begin to realize the real dangers of football, and ban their kids from it, many of the poor will see their talented child as the only way out of grinding poverty. Even with the odds heavily tilted against an NFL contract, it's like the lottery: a pipe dream. Another reason to compensate college players, who risk injury bad enough to affect a possible NFL career. They, basically, play for free while everybody else makes millions.
3
May football go the way of boxing, as quickly as possible. Brutality is its calling card, and that is why the fans watch. The owners understand this: were they to turn it into something civilized and survivable, the crowds would turn to mixed martial arts, bull fighting or some altogether new blood sport. And if it does not die quickly? Ban it.
2
I have been saying for years that I foresee a day when the NFL will evolve into a game resembling Rollerball — a movie filmed in 1975. It was considered a dystopian science fiction movie at the time since the movie was about a violent sport in 2018. The intent of the “game” was to kill or severely injure the opposing players by any method. Players were owned by giant corporations and were paid according to the number of deaths they caused and injuries imposed. Does this sound familiar?
Everyone who watches an NFL game today — either in person or on television — is complicit in the death of any player who will die in the not too distant future due to head trauma. Yes, that means you.
Everyone who watches an NFL game today — either in person or on television — is complicit in the death of any player who will die in the not too distant future due to head trauma. Yes, that means you.
5
Sorry, don't agree. Without football, many of the players would have lived their lives in the projects. And undoubtedly become injured or killed in gang violence.
Even more so for the NHL. They have perverted a beautiful sport. Maybe the perverts like it, but that's no excuse.
1
At any given time there are maybe 2000 active professional football players.
Don't we have bigger fish to fry?
Don't we have bigger fish to fry?
2
You haven't understood. We do indeed have bigger fish to fry : the small fry. The real problem is not what happens to the pros (who, after all, are adults), but what happens to the little kids playing Pop Warner football and then through middle-school and into high school. That number, Daedalus, is a lot bigger than 2,000.
1
it is all those high school kids that need protection. Just like the kids practicing boxing in local gyms.
I never went to a foot ball game. My husband went to one in high school and on that day a young star player was jumped on by multiple players of the other team, and ended up with a broken neck. He was in a wheelchair after that.
None of our sons played football. Frankly, the money spent on showy sports in public schools could be better spent otherwise.
I never went to a foot ball game. My husband went to one in high school and on that day a young star player was jumped on by multiple players of the other team, and ended up with a broken neck. He was in a wheelchair after that.
None of our sons played football. Frankly, the money spent on showy sports in public schools could be better spent otherwise.
3
We have 100,000s young people playing football from 7 years old on up ... and other sports that have situations that result in concussions. The research on CTE is young. The long term effects of brain trauma have yet to be determined.
1
Boxing died because of corrupt promoters and the birth of cable television, which segmented the market and meant the most high profile fights were only seen by those fans willing to pay $40-75 for a few rounds of action. The sport of MMA has now capitalized on boxing's self-inflicted wounds (and is America's fastest growing sport). To say boxing died in America because American parents became increasingly wary of brain damage as science revealed its risks is a bit simplistic, and as such misleading.
4
You're right about fan base segmentation; but what it did was dry up the talent pool in this country. Boxing is now truly a global sport with some very good Americans in every weight class, but nowhere near the monopolistic dominance it once enjoyed. Ironically, many would-be boxers, terrific and tough athletes usually from harder economic climes, gravitated towards football.
2
Can anyone explain the absence of criticism of Mixed Martial Arts. MMA seems to have started and expanded since we recognized the dangers of boxing. Nobody seems to object, for example, to Ronda Rousey being knocked unconscious. I do not recall the NYT even mentioning the risks of brain damage in MMA. What gives?
3
Good point.
2
Thank you for this timely article!!
It's up to us Baby Boomers to make a decision on this sport. We have the numbers, and the economic clout!
I hope there are many grandparents reading this and will wonder about their grandsons carrying on the tradition, despite the risk of brain trauma over the years.
"A 15 year study found In general, brain and nervous system disorders were more than 3 times higher • among players; 17 players died with Alzheimer’s, ALS, or Parkinson’s compared to 5 men in the U.S."
Google:
Brain and nervous system disorders among NFL Players
It's up to us Baby Boomers to make a decision on this sport. We have the numbers, and the economic clout!
I hope there are many grandparents reading this and will wonder about their grandsons carrying on the tradition, despite the risk of brain trauma over the years.
"A 15 year study found In general, brain and nervous system disorders were more than 3 times higher • among players; 17 players died with Alzheimer’s, ALS, or Parkinson’s compared to 5 men in the U.S."
Google:
Brain and nervous system disorders among NFL Players
1
The author suggests a restriction on players'weight as a possible safety measure. But John Mackey played at a time when a big defensive tackle weighed 275 lbs, yet he suffered from CTE.
A return to comparable weights would not likely have the desired effect. Rather, it may be the speed of the game and the use of the head, protected by the modern headgear, as a weapon.
In any case, he's injuries must be taken more seriously.
A return to comparable weights would not likely have the desired effect. Rather, it may be the speed of the game and the use of the head, protected by the modern headgear, as a weapon.
In any case, he's injuries must be taken more seriously.
I hate all the boxing on HBO. Time for a write-in campaign.
2
Has all the publicity as well as the movie Concussion really made one bit of a difference? NO. Fans will still pay thousands of dollars per year for season tickets, hundreds of millions of dollars per year in purchasing football paraphernalia, and tens of millions will still sit glued to their television sets or internet devices every Sunday, waiting to be entertained. The supermarkets will be filled with customers this weekend purchasing food for themselves or for Super Bowl parties they are having.
Do the American people rarely care one iota about the players who are sustaining injuries that can debilitate them for life and lead to a premature death? NO. Far, far more people were interested in seeing the new Star Wars movie than in watching Concussion.
If I sound cynical it's because I observe the reality that exists in our country. The NFL is a multi-billion dollar business, and the public spends billions of dollars a year supporting it, and anything that can help to seriously decrease the severity of injuries to the players will make the game less interesting to too many people so all the NFL is doing now is the very minimum it can to address the problem.
When it comes to big business, whether it's the NFL, or Corporate America, it's always the same and will remain the same. Profits come before people. Dollars come before the health and safety of our citizens. Nothing will change and all the NFL is doing is more for public relations than for player safety.
Do the American people rarely care one iota about the players who are sustaining injuries that can debilitate them for life and lead to a premature death? NO. Far, far more people were interested in seeing the new Star Wars movie than in watching Concussion.
If I sound cynical it's because I observe the reality that exists in our country. The NFL is a multi-billion dollar business, and the public spends billions of dollars a year supporting it, and anything that can help to seriously decrease the severity of injuries to the players will make the game less interesting to too many people so all the NFL is doing now is the very minimum it can to address the problem.
When it comes to big business, whether it's the NFL, or Corporate America, it's always the same and will remain the same. Profits come before people. Dollars come before the health and safety of our citizens. Nothing will change and all the NFL is doing is more for public relations than for player safety.
2
Most people do not care to watch propaganda flicks. The purpose for which Concussion was released was very well known, and, to make a long story short, it did not appeal to people.
1
You accurately describe the situation as it is. But one of the immutable laws of the universe is change and we are ALL subject to it -- including the NFL and its fans.
1
It has made a difference, but it will take a number of years to play out. As Dr. Lundberg notes, parents are pulling kids out of football, or not letting them play to begin with, in huge numbers. Our local house league is falling apart and I hear the same from other areas. That means fewer players in high school, then college and ultimately a huge hit (no pun intended) on the numbers and quality of players in the pro game. There are a lot more alternative sports for boys to play now then decades ago and as boys turn away from football, I really do think the sport will decline, even if it takes another decade to see.
1
Look at it this way; if someone came into a school board meeting and announced that he wanted to introduce a new sport to the community, one that involved the kids being required to wear armor plating, that involved kids running into each other at full speed, that featured the relatively high prospect of debilitating physical and neurological injury or even death... just how many school board members would be willing to approve such a thing?
How many have noticed that the NFL is suddenly running ads, incessantly, telling us all what a great, healthy, family activity football is. They know what is becoming increasingly apparent; parents are just saying no to putting their son's brain on the line for the glory of the high school or middle school football program.
In my state, a number of high schools have dropped football due to insufficient turnout. It has begun, and the NFL has actually already seen the writing on the wall.
How many have noticed that the NFL is suddenly running ads, incessantly, telling us all what a great, healthy, family activity football is. They know what is becoming increasingly apparent; parents are just saying no to putting their son's brain on the line for the glory of the high school or middle school football program.
In my state, a number of high schools have dropped football due to insufficient turnout. It has begun, and the NFL has actually already seen the writing on the wall.
6
The 15-year old son of a friend suffered a concussion playing soccer this past fall, and it took over 2 months for him to fully recover. This incident set me to wondering: given the current rate of violence in football, if teams were to honestly safeguard the brain health of their players, how many of them could field a complete squad by the end of a brutal season? How drastically must the game change to bring the level of brain trauma in line with a game like soccer, or even better, basketball?
I believe the game would have to evolve into a version of flag football: no shoulder pads or helmets, smaller fields, fewer players (seven-on-seven), no kick-off or punt returns, and a strict ban on tackling. Incentives would also have to be created that place a priority on minimizing dangerous contact.
Imagine how much safer the game would become if, for example, players had to wear sensors that detect high impact collisions and require them to leave the field for the duration of the contest. Players who can't finish games due to excessive contact don't get paid. It's pretty extreme, but the history of pro football tells us that we can't trust players to choose safety when the money and the glory goes to those who perform as though they are unbreakable.
I believe the game would have to evolve into a version of flag football: no shoulder pads or helmets, smaller fields, fewer players (seven-on-seven), no kick-off or punt returns, and a strict ban on tackling. Incentives would also have to be created that place a priority on minimizing dangerous contact.
Imagine how much safer the game would become if, for example, players had to wear sensors that detect high impact collisions and require them to leave the field for the duration of the contest. Players who can't finish games due to excessive contact don't get paid. It's pretty extreme, but the history of pro football tells us that we can't trust players to choose safety when the money and the glory goes to those who perform as though they are unbreakable.
2
Possibly the best way to reduce - not eliminate, reduce - head trauma in football is to not allow them to wear helmets.
Also, force the player to pay all medical costs out of their own pocket instead of insurance companies.
Also, force the player to pay all medical costs out of their own pocket instead of insurance companies.
Can the children of parents who encourage their children to play football, sue them one day for ruining their lives?
1
I am heartened to read that many current NFL players prohibit their sons from playing tackle football. At the NFL level, the objective of the game is far too similar to the objective of boxing: Hit your opponent as hard as you can. The NFL provides a smokescreen of caring for its players by claiming it is earnestly seeking the best protective methods and equipment for its players but ask any physician trained in brain and spine trauma and they will tell you there is no equipment currently or whatever is developed that can offset the collisions between players that the NFL endorses so long as they are "legal" hits. Problem is, "legal" can also ultimately be "lethal". With all the money made by the NFL, its owners and commissioner have one objective that supersedes all others: "Don't mess with our livelihood"
2
OSHA, where are you when we need you? Stop tackle football and do it now.
3
Stop the violence, please.
There is a simple rule change that would essentially fix this. Early on in the game of rugby the " off side rule " was adopted. It prevents the sort of head on collision that causes brain damage. It was adopted for this reason. Soccer has it too.
But heaven forbid that we should ever learn from other cultures!
But heaven forbid that we should ever learn from other cultures!
1
As long as people enjoy watching men slam into each other, football will continue. Remember the gladiators of ancient Rome? The vast salaries paid to NFL players guarantee, no matter what we know about brain and body damage, men will continue to sign up.
1
Presumably, the attempts to spread the sport to other jurisdictions (e.g. the games being played in London, England) represent an insurance policy against major restrictions in the USA.
There's two problems to the issue of traumatic brain injury. One is this country's inane lust for watching individuals deal out increasing amount of damage to each other. The other is an industry that is heavily subsidized by tax payers, on top of profiting immensely from these damaged players.
Long before CTE was even a blip on the radar, there was already concern about how damaging football had become (aging players were complaining about the high cost of medical care or lack thereof). There was talk of simple solutions to reduce many of these injuries, much of it revolved around removing the "head" from the game, returning football to something akin to rugby. But, those ideas didn't appeal to owners or league because it wasn't red-blooded American. Football was a proxy for the nation, hulking steroid bloated Titans who waged war, using the lingo of the battlefield to stoke the mythology. Unfortunately much like our veterans, we tend to forget about them when they're done waging battles and they're left to endure the rest of their lives in crippling pain and diminished mental capabilities.
Perhaps it is time that the NFL fades and we invest in more global sports like soccer. The only drawback is American Football is the only sport where we can chant "we're #1", because no other civilized nation participates.
Long before CTE was even a blip on the radar, there was already concern about how damaging football had become (aging players were complaining about the high cost of medical care or lack thereof). There was talk of simple solutions to reduce many of these injuries, much of it revolved around removing the "head" from the game, returning football to something akin to rugby. But, those ideas didn't appeal to owners or league because it wasn't red-blooded American. Football was a proxy for the nation, hulking steroid bloated Titans who waged war, using the lingo of the battlefield to stoke the mythology. Unfortunately much like our veterans, we tend to forget about them when they're done waging battles and they're left to endure the rest of their lives in crippling pain and diminished mental capabilities.
Perhaps it is time that the NFL fades and we invest in more global sports like soccer. The only drawback is American Football is the only sport where we can chant "we're #1", because no other civilized nation participates.
58
Not soccer, help rugby become truly global.
Before making the overgeneralizing implication that Americans aren't civilized, perhaps you ought to do some more research.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy has been diagnosed in soccer players too. Heading is an essential component of the game and is done repeatedly in practices and competition.
So, why exactly should we invest more money into this sport? And what makes it so much more civilized than football?
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy has been diagnosed in soccer players too. Heading is an essential component of the game and is done repeatedly in practices and competition.
So, why exactly should we invest more money into this sport? And what makes it so much more civilized than football?
Well-stated!
However, heading the ball in soccer causes traumatic brain injury, albeit less dramatically from a viewer's standpoint. Playing the sport on the college and professional level is almost as dangerous as football.
However, heading the ball in soccer causes traumatic brain injury, albeit less dramatically from a viewer's standpoint. Playing the sport on the college and professional level is almost as dangerous as football.
It's not to the point when you say, "why are you ignoring all these other more serious problems?". Nothing is being ignored - in this case one particular topic, namely the NFL's issues with brain damage, is being discussed. As well it should be, and at length. Reform always proceeds at a pace to no one's liking (too slow for those outraged and too fast for those forced to change.) If the problem of dangerous sports is widespread, so are the causes. You won't get rid of young people willing to take the risks - ultimately they cannot be mothered or paternalized into submission. They don't have to be tempted with millions of bucks to risks their lives over a competitive game - they will take the risks for the pure thrill of it. The best option is to let them play in a controlled environment and for heaven's sake, set rules that keep it wild enough to be fun, but safe enough to keep the damage done within reasonable limits.
2
The biggest problem the NFL has is now to stop players from delivering these hits to the head and also the accidental hits from rolling blocks. They could take a lesson from both soccer and rugby. First of all, illegal hits need to be punished by both ejections and suspensions, not fines. Fines are seen as a cost of doing business, suspensions hurt both the player (no pay) and the team (no player). Repeated infractions should draw increasingly long suspensions. Use the yellow/red card system, personal fouls draw a yellow card, a second yellow leads to an ejection. Egregious personal fouls lead to a straight red card. Teaching our young players to tackle properly without the use of the head, no rolling blocks (see rugby union), accompanied by serious discipline for rule breakers will eventually lead to a safer game.
2
As part of my work as a TA at ASU in Geology, I got to know a former NFL player quite well. His body was in poor shape and caused him difficulty loading and unloading the rafts on our Geology of the Grand Canyon river trips through the Grand Canyon. He was sensitive about his inability to be part of the duffle line wherein the rafters all pass baggage hand to hand in a line from the river bank to the rafts after each stop along the way. He didn't appear to have cognitive problems, in fact was an excellent grad student. His body suffered from the game but he seems to have escaped the brain damage which may be the fate of many players.
The human skull is effective at protecting the brain, witness our survival over the eons of the evolutionary time line, but the unique injury to the brain caused by the rapid rotational acceleration of the brain relative to the inside of the skull, shows a risk which the evolution of our form didn't have the time enough or the opportunity to prepare us for a dangerous activity of rough sports like tackle football. Life is sometimes a risky endeavor. Knowledge of risks enables intelligent choices to be made. The long term and other risks to the brain require evaluation on an individual basis it seems
The human skull is effective at protecting the brain, witness our survival over the eons of the evolutionary time line, but the unique injury to the brain caused by the rapid rotational acceleration of the brain relative to the inside of the skull, shows a risk which the evolution of our form didn't have the time enough or the opportunity to prepare us for a dangerous activity of rough sports like tackle football. Life is sometimes a risky endeavor. Knowledge of risks enables intelligent choices to be made. The long term and other risks to the brain require evaluation on an individual basis it seems
6
If you happen to be a Baby Boomer, ask your friends with Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers or ALS if they played football.
1
"intelligent choices" and nfl in the same sentence is certainly oxymoronic
I have trouble believing the popularity of pro boxing has diminished. Its making more money now, than it ever has.
1
Yes, but it's got a much smaller audience -- at least in this country. Pay-per-view has limited its reach while fattening the pay days. Back in the fifties, say, it was on TV all the time and was a major part of the culture. No longer.
Football is a gladiator sport, one that intentionally inflicts life shortening injury to the delight of the roaring crowds. The fact that colleges make money on the carnage is a major strike against the perspective that college is a needed and civilizing influence.
Here in Eugene Oregon, I have argued for the padlocking of Autzen Stadium, where the Ducks play. I am certain that will not happen, as the billions that is being made by gamblers, rich sports media figures, and the gladiators themselves, weighs against the change.
Still, it is immoral for adults to roar their approval at a gladiator event, as young men are battered and destroyed.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene
Here in Eugene Oregon, I have argued for the padlocking of Autzen Stadium, where the Ducks play. I am certain that will not happen, as the billions that is being made by gamblers, rich sports media figures, and the gladiators themselves, weighs against the change.
Still, it is immoral for adults to roar their approval at a gladiator event, as young men are battered and destroyed.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene
3
We're seeing the beginning of the end of football as we know it. The long-term effects of concussions have caused former players to sue, promising rookies to retire and parents to discourage their children from playing the sport. A recent Time cover story about the death of a high school football player titled “Is Football Worth It?” makes me wonder how long we, as a society, will put up with it.
I've thought a lot about the future of football while writing a sci-fi novel about the sport. And I'm convinced that in the decades to come concerns about football safety will combine with relentless advances in technology to profoundly change the game. If there’s a Super Bowl 100, and it's a big if, it'll probably be played by robots.
You can read more about the future of football on my blog www.UltraBowlBook.com
I've thought a lot about the future of football while writing a sci-fi novel about the sport. And I'm convinced that in the decades to come concerns about football safety will combine with relentless advances in technology to profoundly change the game. If there’s a Super Bowl 100, and it's a big if, it'll probably be played by robots.
You can read more about the future of football on my blog www.UltraBowlBook.com
1
It will take a generation to get rid of football completely.
The fans in the Jerry Springer/Roman Coliseum nation we've become, love violence and will always support college and NFL football regardless of the consequences to the players.
Football's demise will come from parents not wanting their kids subjected to the long term sequelae of repeated hits to the head. The trend is starting now and will increase as more interactive photos of the damaged brains of our NFL heroes appear on the front page of the internet Times.
The fans in the Jerry Springer/Roman Coliseum nation we've become, love violence and will always support college and NFL football regardless of the consequences to the players.
Football's demise will come from parents not wanting their kids subjected to the long term sequelae of repeated hits to the head. The trend is starting now and will increase as more interactive photos of the damaged brains of our NFL heroes appear on the front page of the internet Times.
1
Football as we know it is done. What parent will give a kid permission to play football in middle school or high school?
I personally will have nothing to do with this barbarity. If I derive entertainment or amusement by attending or watching football I am complicit in the injuries which result.
Bullfighting and cock fighting are banned because they are bad for the animals but when it comes to humans this is OK?
I personally will have nothing to do with this barbarity. If I derive entertainment or amusement by attending or watching football I am complicit in the injuries which result.
Bullfighting and cock fighting are banned because they are bad for the animals but when it comes to humans this is OK?
49
You know the NFL is fine upstanding representation of all that is good about America. Where God in Her infinite wisdom raises young men out of poverty into the world of the rich and famous.
I know Peyton Manning and John Elway are fine Christian gentlemen and would never think of bending or breaking the rules but somehow the story of Peyton's wife receiving her fertility drug at the same time she is having twins....
Somehow Edward Gibbon's most famous book is brought to mind when I think of the USA and the NFL.
My heroes are men like my father who took the bus into work for 40 years to make sure we had great food on the table, a roof over our heads and as good an education as our money would allow.
I know Peyton Manning and John Elway are fine Christian gentlemen and would never think of bending or breaking the rules but somehow the story of Peyton's wife receiving her fertility drug at the same time she is having twins....
Somehow Edward Gibbon's most famous book is brought to mind when I think of the USA and the NFL.
My heroes are men like my father who took the bus into work for 40 years to make sure we had great food on the table, a roof over our heads and as good an education as our money would allow.
3
It may be true that boxing was unable to be rescued in the U.S., but that sport's popularity has been eclipsed by mixed martial arts (MMA), which would seem to be no less dangerous to participants.
I've been a fan of football for many years and once played it, but my stomach for the game has diminished as the game's violence has increased. Still, it has never been more popular, and because there is nothing like MMA rising in popularity to challenge the NFL, I am not sanguine that public disgust with the game's violence -- by itself -- will bring change driven by the threat of diminishing popularity.
I've been a fan of football for many years and once played it, but my stomach for the game has diminished as the game's violence has increased. Still, it has never been more popular, and because there is nothing like MMA rising in popularity to challenge the NFL, I am not sanguine that public disgust with the game's violence -- by itself -- will bring change driven by the threat of diminishing popularity.
8
Thanks for making it unnecessary for me to comment about MMA. They fight in cages, right? What does that say about the intent of the combatants?
To say MMA has passed boxing in popularity is simply not true. Pay-per-view buys for Boxing for championship fights are in the $100ms a fight ... MMA is not even close. Rhonda Rousey may be a "household" name but MMA is a baby. It may be a fast growing sport, but anything that starts from zero is fast growing. That said, CTE is an issue. An unlike Boxing or the NFL, the UFC (the leading promoter) is an active partner with major CTE research medical facilities and gives considerably more on scale than the paltry $30m of the NFL
"the game's violence has increased."
this is really what it is all about--the violence.
Make it like tennis and oops there goes another viewer. It appeals to the Neanderthal in some of us, the same set that may like the 2nd amendment, join the military, hunt defenseless animals with high powered guns and produce road-kill in the number that they do.
this is really what it is all about--the violence.
Make it like tennis and oops there goes another viewer. It appeals to the Neanderthal in some of us, the same set that may like the 2nd amendment, join the military, hunt defenseless animals with high powered guns and produce road-kill in the number that they do.
Dr. Lundberg notes that fines seem to have little impact on play because so many of the players are already multimillionaires. He might have added that so many of the teams are billionaires -- average team worth being about $2-billion with teams like the Cowboys up at $4-billion. Until not only the offending player, but the team as well, takes a financial hit with every brain blow, I don't see the NFL in deep trouble yet.
I wonder how many neurologists allow their children to play football. Other parents should take note.
2
In boxing, you very quickly overcome your reflex to blink or retreat when a man is throwing a punch at your head. The value of this carries over into other areas of life, and it’s a small price to pay afterward to be only intermittently lucid and to jump when the kitchen timer rings.
1
"....I admit, because of my own bias toward football, but also because I believe that violence is a byproduct of football — one that can be reduced — not the intended result, as was the case for boxing."
Sorry, doc. There's too much "dough, re, mi" involved. Besides, Americans love violence, and Roger Goodell is owned lock, stock, and barrel, by the team owners, who care nothing about the health of their players.
Sorry, doc. There's too much "dough, re, mi" involved. Besides, Americans love violence, and Roger Goodell is owned lock, stock, and barrel, by the team owners, who care nothing about the health of their players.
1
I have a four year old son. For two reasons I will not let him ever play football. First, the risk of injuries, including to his brain. The second is a little less tangible, but it comes from the violence embedded in the game, and that the NFL can't bring itself to reject. I don't want my son involved in an activity that is just plain vicious. I know there are some redeeming features to the sport (learning to play on a team, friendships, physical fitness, etc.) but none of those are unique to football.
1
You don't really think that the critics of the profitable American football jaugernaut will really be able to meaningfully constrain each individual's "God-given" right to play the sport "....to its fullest," do you?
I was a rabid football fan until about 15 years ago, when double-digit IQ ex-jock announcers, the salary cap, spoiled athletes, and bling turned it into a cheap "smash-mouth" experience that was little more entertaining than pro-wrestling.
With the knowledge that this sport is dangerous to one's health, it will fade away. There is simply no way that the "smash-mouth" culture that the NFL feeds on can survive. how do you prevent concussions with two fast, 240lb. men running into each other, even if it's *not* head first. For pro football, it's "game over". It will take a while, but this sport will die or be so marginalized that it will no longer be a factor in sport.
Smart owners will leverage the heck out of their teams,w/o making investments. (Look at the York family, in San Francisco, as a prime example). Sell high!
With the knowledge that this sport is dangerous to one's health, it will fade away. There is simply no way that the "smash-mouth" culture that the NFL feeds on can survive. how do you prevent concussions with two fast, 240lb. men running into each other, even if it's *not* head first. For pro football, it's "game over". It will take a while, but this sport will die or be so marginalized that it will no longer be a factor in sport.
Smart owners will leverage the heck out of their teams,w/o making investments. (Look at the York family, in San Francisco, as a prime example). Sell high!
Americans are so addicted to violence (what 300 million guns?) that football will never go away. It has displaced baseball as the national pastime.
Makes you wonder when the NFL Shield logo will come with a smoking/lung cancer type disclaimer.
Warning: Playing this game can result in Chronic Traumatic Ebcephalopathy a severe irevocable form of brain damage that can cause suicidal tendencies and other serious cognitive and memory related issues.
Warning: Playing this game can result in Chronic Traumatic Ebcephalopathy a severe irevocable form of brain damage that can cause suicidal tendencies and other serious cognitive and memory related issues.
2
Thank you Dr. Lundberg. The Steelers/Bengals game was a turning point for me, too. I confess I did watch my Patriots finish out their season. But that's it for me. No Super Bowl, no 2016 season, no more fantasy football.
I will really miss it, but maybe our small actions will have some impact on the money machine that is the modern NFL.
I will really miss it, but maybe our small actions will have some impact on the money machine that is the modern NFL.
When money interests are threatened, the response of society is to rationalize or look the other way. Sports medicine itself wouldn't exist without the injuries resulting from contact sports.
1
The Romans made a bigger fuss about the treatment of their highly paid gladiators 2,000 years ago.
2
Anyone who supports football by watching it or playing it is tacitly condoning brain damage. That seems weird to me.
There are other ways to spend your Sundays. Read a book, plant a tree, play with your dog, hold hands with your lover, breathe in the air Nature provides us.
Watching grown men, many of them pumped full of chemicals, smash each other and destroy their bodies and brains, that seems, um, bad?
We are the most belligerent nation in the world. Six of the top ten weapons manufacturers in the world are US companies. We are the largest exporter of weapons in the world and we have the largest most vicious military.
Perhaps football is merely a reflection of our childish, bully-on-the-playground puerility.
Time to grow up, America.
Let's go bowling, Dude.
There are other ways to spend your Sundays. Read a book, plant a tree, play with your dog, hold hands with your lover, breathe in the air Nature provides us.
Watching grown men, many of them pumped full of chemicals, smash each other and destroy their bodies and brains, that seems, um, bad?
We are the most belligerent nation in the world. Six of the top ten weapons manufacturers in the world are US companies. We are the largest exporter of weapons in the world and we have the largest most vicious military.
Perhaps football is merely a reflection of our childish, bully-on-the-playground puerility.
Time to grow up, America.
Let's go bowling, Dude.
5
Dr. Lundgren,
Mr. Cosell never called another professional bout again.
He quit, after the Holmes-Cobb fight.
As 'Sports Illustrated' said, 'Cosell put his money where his mouth is.'
By quitting covering a sport he once loved, he lost a great deal of work, and a great deal of money. But he did it, anyway.
He testified before Congress several times, in favor of federal regulation of the sport, in favor of mandatory headgear, and other safeguards.
He was the voice of Monday Night Football from its debut in 1970 until 1983.
And he began to abhor the violence in football.
He would compare it to boxing and point out the following: that boxing was a sport with two evenly matched participants (weight, height, reach) with no equipment but gloves and mouth guards, while football was a sport with multiple players, wrapped in heavy equipment, not necessarily evenly matched in size and weight, and a sport where one lone player could be hit on three sides at once by the opposition. Which sport, then, is 'more' violent, he would ask.
You might want to ask yourself the same question.
I'm no defender of either sport.
But if boxing deserves to be banned, so does football.
Remember Daryl Stingley, as well as all the victims of CTE.
Mr. Cosell never called another professional bout again.
He quit, after the Holmes-Cobb fight.
As 'Sports Illustrated' said, 'Cosell put his money where his mouth is.'
By quitting covering a sport he once loved, he lost a great deal of work, and a great deal of money. But he did it, anyway.
He testified before Congress several times, in favor of federal regulation of the sport, in favor of mandatory headgear, and other safeguards.
He was the voice of Monday Night Football from its debut in 1970 until 1983.
And he began to abhor the violence in football.
He would compare it to boxing and point out the following: that boxing was a sport with two evenly matched participants (weight, height, reach) with no equipment but gloves and mouth guards, while football was a sport with multiple players, wrapped in heavy equipment, not necessarily evenly matched in size and weight, and a sport where one lone player could be hit on three sides at once by the opposition. Which sport, then, is 'more' violent, he would ask.
You might want to ask yourself the same question.
I'm no defender of either sport.
But if boxing deserves to be banned, so does football.
Remember Daryl Stingley, as well as all the victims of CTE.
9
I'm happy to see soccer come into play here in the States. Fields of lithe bodies in colorful tunics excite me more than Hulks. Same goals: darting and aiming, one a fleet footed dance, and the other a slam dance.
2
Unfortunately the sport of Association Football (soccer), despite being based on using feet to kick the ball has some concussion issues e.g. from heading the ball.
Great opinion piece by Dr. Lundberg. Each new reported case of NFL players suffering disability or death from CTE related conditions must be like a ringing sound in the head of NFL leadership that just keeps getting louder. Unfortunately, as long as their cash registers keep ringing, I don't think they'll deal seriously with it. The existential threat to the NFL brand is that parents are starting to take it seriously...
Reduce or eliminate the number of down linemen. Allow contact only with arms and hands--make it more like basketball. No contact to heads whatsoever. Use flags instead of tackling.
All of these things would make the game quicker and open it up for spectators. All of the strategical thinking and spectacular athletics would remain.
Let's start with kids and socialize it up through the ranks. No minor should be allowed to play football in its current form. And no parent should be allowed to consent to that level of violence being perpetrated on his/her child.
All of these things would make the game quicker and open it up for spectators. All of the strategical thinking and spectacular athletics would remain.
Let's start with kids and socialize it up through the ranks. No minor should be allowed to play football in its current form. And no parent should be allowed to consent to that level of violence being perpetrated on his/her child.
53
See this excellent article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/magazine/roger-goodells-unstoppable-fo...?
Roger Goodall ($40 million/year compensation) has time to snow shovel and see the movie, The Intern, but has not bothered to see the movie, Concussion.
Even for people only peripherally involved in the neurological sciences, the tragic decline of Muhammad Ali coupled with equally tragic stories chronicled throughout the 20th, but just plain common sense made it clear that repeated collisions, blows to the head caused brain damage.
But the NFL hierarchy knew this, they had all the archives as well, decades of complaints, but nothing must interfere with the bottom line. So, they thrashed the messengers.
Then, they hire neurology hacks without any advanced competence in the relevant sciences who thrash the scientific evidence.
No one holds the doctors ethnically responsible, the NFL hierarchy is thriving but various forms of brain injury, neurodevelopment delay for a younger generation, cognitive decline, memory impairment, behavior disturbance, CTE - there is reason to fear a tidal wave of problems in coming decades.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/magazine/roger-goodells-unstoppable-fo...?
Roger Goodall ($40 million/year compensation) has time to snow shovel and see the movie, The Intern, but has not bothered to see the movie, Concussion.
Even for people only peripherally involved in the neurological sciences, the tragic decline of Muhammad Ali coupled with equally tragic stories chronicled throughout the 20th, but just plain common sense made it clear that repeated collisions, blows to the head caused brain damage.
But the NFL hierarchy knew this, they had all the archives as well, decades of complaints, but nothing must interfere with the bottom line. So, they thrashed the messengers.
Then, they hire neurology hacks without any advanced competence in the relevant sciences who thrash the scientific evidence.
No one holds the doctors ethnically responsible, the NFL hierarchy is thriving but various forms of brain injury, neurodevelopment delay for a younger generation, cognitive decline, memory impairment, behavior disturbance, CTE - there is reason to fear a tidal wave of problems in coming decades.
1
THE NFL/CORP IS FAR TOO POWERFUL . . .
...but, my hope is that it will fade away anyway and be replaced by the former pastoral national pastime . . . .
BASEBALL!
Should wise parents steer away from allowing their children to play this dangerous game ... where will the new college and NFLers come from? And like hockey without ultra violence, both games cannot draw fans.
...but, my hope is that it will fade away anyway and be replaced by the former pastoral national pastime . . . .
BASEBALL!
Should wise parents steer away from allowing their children to play this dangerous game ... where will the new college and NFLers come from? And like hockey without ultra violence, both games cannot draw fans.
2
When I hear someone argue for the continuance of football, it's often an emotional appeal--that playing on a team, learning to fight through pain, etc., were all vital parts of making said person who they are today. I'm one of few millenials who can still say they grew up fighting--and rarer still, I'm a girl. I took my first punch to the face from a 9 year old with 20 pounds on me when I was 7 years old. After that, my parents made me fight in a helmet with a full face mask (which I hated, because none of the other kids wore one) and everyone trained me incessantly to keep my guard up. I got so, so much out of the sport growing up--from a sense of control and purpose over my awkward adolescent body to a feeling of safety and confidence in my ability to protect myself that's paid dividends my entire adult life. Martial arts and boxing has already made this adjustment--there are many children all over the world signed up for neutered, safety-first versions of the training I got. If some of them choose, as adults, to develop their training in the direction of MMA, that's their choice, but despite the rise in its popularity, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone teaching it to children. We have a responsibility to focus on making sure that those life lessons are imparted to our children in ways that don't leave them permanently damaged.
There is just no way around this. The NFL can survive, but kick-offs and punts will have to be severely modified- perhaps eliminated altogether. Players will be forced to sign health waivers regarding future neurologic problems that might stem from the contact. As for the kids- no more contact football for anyone under 18. Even if approved by the parents, legally it would be a form of child abuse. Even if over 18, there will be problems legally- can anyone be considered competent to sign a contract when future physical disabilities are virtually guaranteed?
Almost reminds me of an old sci-fi short story I read. In a future world, the US Congress signed into law the "Voluntary Suicide Act" - people were free to put there lives in jeopardy on a voluntary basis even if death might be an outcome. The game shows ran with this right away, as you can imagine...
Almost reminds me of an old sci-fi short story I read. In a future world, the US Congress signed into law the "Voluntary Suicide Act" - people were free to put there lives in jeopardy on a voluntary basis even if death might be an outcome. The game shows ran with this right away, as you can imagine...
1
Watch Rugby instead - no pads, no helmets, no concussions.
1
Hey some of the NFL players are already displaying mental illness.
They beat their wives, get caught and then deny it.
They beat their wives, get caught and then deny it.
2
The Willie Wood article published today in the Times doesn't have a comments section, so I'm commenting here.
A bit more than 50 years ago I spent an evening with Willie Wood, having been invited to go out drinking with him and some other NFL and college players who were in Palo Alto for (I think) the Pro Bowl.
I can't quote him exactly, but I clearly remember his saying that Green Bay "owned him," and that when he eventually destroyed his body in the team's service they would cast him aside.
He went on to say that people like me (a non-athlete) and most of the NFL fans had no idea at all how difficult and dangerous being a professional football player was. But, he said, that's what he knew how to do best, so he'd keep on doing it. He said he took pride in what he did, but had no illusions about what would eventually happen to him.
I feel certain he wasn't talking about brain trauma, but he certainly was talking about general body trauma. It made a great impression on me; although I continued to follow football, I never thought about it in quite the same way again.
A bit more than 50 years ago I spent an evening with Willie Wood, having been invited to go out drinking with him and some other NFL and college players who were in Palo Alto for (I think) the Pro Bowl.
I can't quote him exactly, but I clearly remember his saying that Green Bay "owned him," and that when he eventually destroyed his body in the team's service they would cast him aside.
He went on to say that people like me (a non-athlete) and most of the NFL fans had no idea at all how difficult and dangerous being a professional football player was. But, he said, that's what he knew how to do best, so he'd keep on doing it. He said he took pride in what he did, but had no illusions about what would eventually happen to him.
I feel certain he wasn't talking about brain trauma, but he certainly was talking about general body trauma. It made a great impression on me; although I continued to follow football, I never thought about it in quite the same way again.
2
Actually, the real tragedy in the NFL is that some equipment manager in Foxboro may have used a needle to deflate some footballs. According to the NFL and the Commissioner, this matter strikes at the heart of the integrity of the game, and is worth millions in legal fees to keep pursuing.
As for the matter of brain injury, hey, its all part of the game.
As for the matter of brain injury, hey, its all part of the game.
4
George makes the classic progressive mistake here: assuming everyone has bought into his scare story.
There are multiple reasons this handful of men have been found to have acquired pathologies within their central nervous system. Even the way athletes are mis-taught to exercise with weights may be explaining these processes as simply as the head-bashing theory.
For a newspaper reporter to think that a multi-billion-dollar industry central to our culture and economy is going to be destroyed by this medical and legal situation makes the writer sound like those harpies who preached at us never to flouridate the water supply.
There are multiple reasons this handful of men have been found to have acquired pathologies within their central nervous system. Even the way athletes are mis-taught to exercise with weights may be explaining these processes as simply as the head-bashing theory.
For a newspaper reporter to think that a multi-billion-dollar industry central to our culture and economy is going to be destroyed by this medical and legal situation makes the writer sound like those harpies who preached at us never to flouridate the water supply.
The game won't end because of pressure on the top end. It will end because parents like me won't let our sons participate.
The culture of the game (to win here and in life, you have to be a macho jerk) and the relatively high danger of his permanent disability or even death have meant the he has grown up playing the beautiful game instead.
The culture of the game (to win here and in life, you have to be a macho jerk) and the relatively high danger of his permanent disability or even death have meant the he has grown up playing the beautiful game instead.
2
Heaven forbid that a billion dollar business should be destroyed just because it leaves a group of employees permanently maimed!
Sorry, L'Osservator, the science is getting definitive on this. But I'll stop there, because you don't believe in any science that contradicts your worldview.
Sorry, L'Osservator, the science is getting definitive on this. But I'll stop there, because you don't believe in any science that contradicts your worldview.
1
boxing will always exist. It is a virtually unregulated sport of the underclass. In boxing first we had great Jewish fighters, then great Irish fighters, then Italians. Now it mostly Black, Hispanic, and eastern Europeans. It is the ultimate watch out for you self endeavor.
Football is supported by institutions of higher learning then the corrupt NFL. I hope to live long enough to see the NFL and it's mouth breathing, drooling rapid fans go away.
Football is supported by institutions of higher learning then the corrupt NFL. I hope to live long enough to see the NFL and it's mouth breathing, drooling rapid fans go away.
Mean Joe Green, the biggest and baddest defensive lineman of the 1970's, was 6' 4" and 275 pounds. Today he would be considered a lightweight. And on average, players are faster today than they were in the 1970's.
Unfortunately, you cannot get around Newton's Law, force = mass x acceleration, no matter how hard you try.
The outlawing of deliberate head-to-head contact is a start. But there is absolutely no reason for today's Mean Joe Green to weigh 325 lbs. And it seems very unlikely that those 50 additional pounds just came from weight training. So there needs to be some sort of weight limit, and much better testing on artificial substances.
The game would be just as good with linemen who weighed 275 lbs. instead of 325 lbs.
Unfortunately, you cannot get around Newton's Law, force = mass x acceleration, no matter how hard you try.
The outlawing of deliberate head-to-head contact is a start. But there is absolutely no reason for today's Mean Joe Green to weigh 325 lbs. And it seems very unlikely that those 50 additional pounds just came from weight training. So there needs to be some sort of weight limit, and much better testing on artificial substances.
The game would be just as good with linemen who weighed 275 lbs. instead of 325 lbs.
2
Treat it like other health-damaging vices: tobacco, alcohol, strip joints. You must be over 18 to participate as a player or as a spectator. We're adults here. Inform yourself. Make your own choices. But don't inflict this on our kids.
2
I don't think you can compare boxing to football.
First, boxing has always been a sport that attracted more poor and working class participants than participants from the middle class. As such, no matter how popular boxing was it was not an institution in middle class homes and society. Football is. Millions kids across social classes play football from pee wee, to high school, to college, to the NFL. Kids grow up rooting for their high school and college teams and hoping to make the team when they are old enough. And, those dreams are supported by their parents. Football is a part of our culture -- what what we do on Friday nights, what we watch and obsess over on Saturday and Sunday. Its a part of how we identify ourselves and our cities. Boxing never permeated our culture in that way.
Second, boxing hasn't gone away, and to the degree it has diminished in importance, its decline has more to do with expensive pay-per-view events, than worries about violence. If health issues caused the decline of boxing, then we wouldn't be witnessing the rise of MMA/UFC fighting. Fewer middle class kids may play because of health concerns, but the sport will not diminish.
While the NFL should address the issue of brain injuries in a substantive way, I dont think it is in as much trouble as the good doctor, for all his good intentions, thinks.
First, boxing has always been a sport that attracted more poor and working class participants than participants from the middle class. As such, no matter how popular boxing was it was not an institution in middle class homes and society. Football is. Millions kids across social classes play football from pee wee, to high school, to college, to the NFL. Kids grow up rooting for their high school and college teams and hoping to make the team when they are old enough. And, those dreams are supported by their parents. Football is a part of our culture -- what what we do on Friday nights, what we watch and obsess over on Saturday and Sunday. Its a part of how we identify ourselves and our cities. Boxing never permeated our culture in that way.
Second, boxing hasn't gone away, and to the degree it has diminished in importance, its decline has more to do with expensive pay-per-view events, than worries about violence. If health issues caused the decline of boxing, then we wouldn't be witnessing the rise of MMA/UFC fighting. Fewer middle class kids may play because of health concerns, but the sport will not diminish.
While the NFL should address the issue of brain injuries in a substantive way, I dont think it is in as much trouble as the good doctor, for all his good intentions, thinks.
More must be done to address the problem earlier. Like many hard-hitting American lads in high school and college, I had my share of head bangs in football (not to mention lacrosse) and almost always went back in the game or practice minutes later if not immediately. I can remember at least 3-4 real concussions and I'm sure there were many moderate and light ones, possibly during every game. I'm sure I suffered some damage.
There are better protocols in youth sports now, but it must be universal that anyone under 18 who suffers a head blow (and I don't mean just the knockouts but basically any moderate hit) sits out for the game plus a week, at least.
Humans are not meant to act like bighorn rams. Without a helmet, you would never attack an opponent head first; with a helmet, the head becomes a very versatile weapon in a contact sport. Here are some ideas for reducing the violence:
-- Teach rugby-style tackling. Runners will easily gain extra yards, but you could alter the rules so that a runner is "down" once he is "wrapped up," i.e., a tackle is imminent. It changes the game, of course, but may be worth exploring.
-- Don't allow tacklers, linemen, OR runners to lean into hits with their helmets. This only encourages tacklers/blockers to hit harder and to use their own helmets to counter the force, i.e., it guarantees repeated blows to the head. Instead, they use their arms and shoulders, and head contact should all be incidental.
There are better protocols in youth sports now, but it must be universal that anyone under 18 who suffers a head blow (and I don't mean just the knockouts but basically any moderate hit) sits out for the game plus a week, at least.
Humans are not meant to act like bighorn rams. Without a helmet, you would never attack an opponent head first; with a helmet, the head becomes a very versatile weapon in a contact sport. Here are some ideas for reducing the violence:
-- Teach rugby-style tackling. Runners will easily gain extra yards, but you could alter the rules so that a runner is "down" once he is "wrapped up," i.e., a tackle is imminent. It changes the game, of course, but may be worth exploring.
-- Don't allow tacklers, linemen, OR runners to lean into hits with their helmets. This only encourages tacklers/blockers to hit harder and to use their own helmets to counter the force, i.e., it guarantees repeated blows to the head. Instead, they use their arms and shoulders, and head contact should all be incidental.
1
Remember the 1975 film, "Rollerball?" During the final game, where all of the rules are suspended and the players are literally killing each other, one of the coaches says, "I don't want another man on that track. Houston, what are you trying to do? Nobody's gonna win this game!"
And his counterpart on the other team replies, "Game? This was never meant to be a game."
And his counterpart on the other team replies, "Game? This was never meant to be a game."
1
Stop all play at all levels until a rigorous study can be done (not by the NFL) to determine the cause here. If the game as it is played is determined to be the cause, change the manner of play to eliminate the injury. It is that simple and that hard. Enormous economic pressure will likely keep this from occurring.
2
It's sad to realize that something you love may be poisonous, and you may have to turn away from it. One of the things my father and I shared as I grew up was our enjoyment of watching the Philadelphia Eagles games and discussing them during and afterwards. I still follow the team, but my Dad has turned away, unable to watch because of the brain damage that's being caused. His conscience just won't let him keep enjoying the sport. And I can already tell that I'm heading in that same direction. If I had a son, I would not let him play. This season, I've begun to feel pretty guilty about watching. My Dad and I have already found other things to talk about.
1
What happened to soccer and soccer moms? All my three kids played soccer and cross-country run during their middle and high school days. Running has stayed with them for rest of their lives. Football will never stay as a fitness exercise for anyone! It has no value in life for 99.99% of the kids.
2
It will fade away, just like NASCAR and Formula One and bungee jumping and skydiving. Boxing was already a dying sport, which is why is has been largely replaced by Ultimate Fighting, which, as we know, is much safer.
The NFL will combat this by having players sign legal waivers. Players will be told in writing that there is a possibility that they could get CTE in the near future, but that is the price, sign on the dotted line, here is your fat paycheck. They will also adjust the rules each season to "protect" players but keep the pace of the game. NASCAR doesn't get sued if a driver dies--drivers know the risks. And the NFL will ensure that players will know these new facts. And pay them. And have them sign their lives away. The real question will be the fans--will they buy this; or will they become disturbed and disgusted when hero after hero falls victim to dementia, suicide, depression, isolation. Maybe that will make the 10 dollar beer taste sour.
2
While it's certainly the right thing to do, it's hard to imagine the NFL making any drastic changes to its money machine of a system. My gut tells me that most fans might agree that something needs to change so that players are not left with life-changing and/or life-threatening injuries - but that means nothing if the league is not on board in this thinking.
The game has changed. It's not the same game it was in the '60s, '70s, '80s or '90s. And even that doesn't matter, because players from those eras have now been revealed to have suffered injuries directly connected to this violent game.
I was a 40-year NJ Jet fan. I gave up on the game. This was a major reason. I want to enjoy sporting events, but not when the possibility of a young person's life being permanently ruined - or ended - exists.
Step up, NFL. Do.The.Right.Thing.
The game has changed. It's not the same game it was in the '60s, '70s, '80s or '90s. And even that doesn't matter, because players from those eras have now been revealed to have suffered injuries directly connected to this violent game.
I was a 40-year NJ Jet fan. I gave up on the game. This was a major reason. I want to enjoy sporting events, but not when the possibility of a young person's life being permanently ruined - or ended - exists.
Step up, NFL. Do.The.Right.Thing.
2
In calling for the elimination of football, few consider the effects on all the millions who watch the game. It stands to reason that other sports will gain in popularity. But other top forms of entertainment will surely benefit, The leading non-sports pastimes in the US -- according to toptentop.com -- are playing video games, logging onto the internet, and watching non-sports TV. Cheap restaurants and bars may also benefit. More exercise, more attention to the arts, and charitable work are long shots. And criminals like football, too. So its elimination may lead to more crime. Football is a multi-billion dollar industry and some of the consequences of its elimination will be negative. I suspect that, without football Sundays in Green Bay, local psychiatrists will make billions.
As more and more parents prohibit their children from playing football, the pool of available players will, over time, decrease to the point of making fielding college teams more and more difficult. America's love affair with the sport will also wane, as it has with virtually all other pastimes.
I envision a slow, multi-year decline of the sport resulting in fewer schools offering it, fewer agreeing to its consequences and fewer deciding to support it.
I envision a slow, multi-year decline of the sport resulting in fewer schools offering it, fewer agreeing to its consequences and fewer deciding to support it.
1
The halftime at the Superbowl should be dedicated to all the pro players, alive and dead, who have suffered brain injury from this so-called "sport." Forget Beyonce et al.
1
Dr Lundberg:
Great article with good perspective about how difficult it is to convince the NFL to take serious action. I have the same biases as you (I am a football addict) but I believe the media are the main culprits to progress on this issue. They have had tons of opportunities to sound off about the dangers to human health but have totally dropped the ball (as have the NFL).
I only hope that your article is the first of many courageous shouts for reform, starting with the criminal NFL. Bravo for your courage.
Great article with good perspective about how difficult it is to convince the NFL to take serious action. I have the same biases as you (I am a football addict) but I believe the media are the main culprits to progress on this issue. They have had tons of opportunities to sound off about the dangers to human health but have totally dropped the ball (as have the NFL).
I only hope that your article is the first of many courageous shouts for reform, starting with the criminal NFL. Bravo for your courage.
Young players' health needs to be monitored and studied. The studies could be done immediately - there are many generations of players to draw from. States should be required to track this information. For example, Texas University Interscholastic League (UIL) should establish a monitoring and reporting bureau for the boys playing for public schools. There is a duty to the children who are sacrificing their long-term health for the entertainment and profit of adults.
Wring some of the rules distortions out of the game. 1. Make all offensive players pass receiver eligible. This will stem the all out pass rush. 2. Use the college rule for pass receptions at the margin: one foot in. This will effectively widen the field of play. 3. Allow pass defenders to have physical contact with receivers during the pass routes. This will cause defenders to play more man to man and less zone, which results in catastrophic hits to vulnerable receivers. 4. Require that receivers touch the ball down to complete a play. This will enhance hand play for the ball as opposed to big hits, along the lines of outlawing the closeline hit, which used to be legal. And finally -- by all means -- banish those who violate the spirit of the game by leading with the head. For their safety and for the safety of their opponents.
I don't know that football is a sport that demands youth involvement, any more than adolescent gladiators were necessary for skilled combat in the Colosseum. There are lots of examples of gifted NFL athletes that didn't play as children. Superb athletes, upon completion of college, don't take much time to develop the skills necessary to perform at the NFL level.
I call for elimination of all organized non-professional football - including college football.
The NFL teams can groom athletes for professional football with minor leagues, just like baseball. There could be a rookie league where potential players would get a single season to develop football skills, and a minor league where a 70 man roster of rookie league graduates could be groomed for promotion to the NFL team for up to 3 years. If a player doesn't make it up to the NFL after using up his 4 years of minor league eligibility, he's out - for his own good.
Also, the game would be safer if the fielder were wider, as a wide field rewards speed and agility at the expense of size and strength.
I call for elimination of all organized non-professional football - including college football.
The NFL teams can groom athletes for professional football with minor leagues, just like baseball. There could be a rookie league where potential players would get a single season to develop football skills, and a minor league where a 70 man roster of rookie league graduates could be groomed for promotion to the NFL team for up to 3 years. If a player doesn't make it up to the NFL after using up his 4 years of minor league eligibility, he's out - for his own good.
Also, the game would be safer if the fielder were wider, as a wide field rewards speed and agility at the expense of size and strength.
2
Exactly. And totally different from baseball, where if you don't start fairly young it's probably to late to develop into a superb hitter or pitcher.
1
Perhaps the simplest solution is call in the lawyers. Individuals should not be allowed to sign consent forms for themselves or others involving sports which have proven to cause serious injury at a significant rate. Who wants to argue that parents should be legally allowed to hurt their children?
Intentionally injuring your child is a criminal act. This should be enforced whether the injury was a parent's fist or by repeatedly exposing him to an opposing player's helmet.
Once a parent is barred from placing their child in harm's way the schools will have to accept the risk for dangerous sports at a cost that few can afford. If they can only afford liability insurance for sports like track, golf, wrestling or swimming perhaps we will be better off?
Intentionally injuring your child is a criminal act. This should be enforced whether the injury was a parent's fist or by repeatedly exposing him to an opposing player's helmet.
Once a parent is barred from placing their child in harm's way the schools will have to accept the risk for dangerous sports at a cost that few can afford. If they can only afford liability insurance for sports like track, golf, wrestling or swimming perhaps we will be better off?
1
I played in high school and in college, though sparingly as I was mostly a backup. The force of the hitting increases exponentially with each level. Therefore the risk of long term damage does as well. The amount of force that the pros inflict on each other is astounding. Some players have long careers and enjoy good health into old age, while others become completely disabled or even die of secondary effects of brain trauma at a shockingly young age. But studies have shown that the longer one plays, the greater the chances of sustaining debilitating and chronic long term disability. A case could be made for "term limits" for NFL players, setting a limit on the number of years they can play. It's a drastic measure but if it saves the game from disappearing it's something to consider.
1
Dock the pay and suspend players and officials. Officials do not seem to be getting the message as we saw in the game between Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals.
The NFL needs to allow players to use Medical Marijuana in states where its legal. The President needs to get Marijuana taken off of Schedule 1 so that Physicians in all 50 states can prescribe it. Medical Marijuana shows tremendous promise a preventative and treatment for CTE. Google Medical Marijuana CTE.
I was a life-long football fan until I began learning about TBI. Now I can't stand to watch a game.
1
What does the author think about soccer? I suspect the heading of the ball in soccer could cause brain damage. Thus, changing to that game as a national sport may be better, but not entirely risk free.
I think the problem is that Pop Warner/NFL haven't been honest about the risk, they've tried to divert and change the subject as much as possible. I heard a PW Coach on NPR the other day talking about how few concussions he's seen, ignoring the evidence that it's the sub concussive hits that are the core problem.
I won't be watching the Super Bowl, for the first time I can remember. I doubt this will register on any scale, but at least I'm taking a step in the destruction of this league.
I won't be watching the Super Bowl, for the first time I can remember. I doubt this will register on any scale, but at least I'm taking a step in the destruction of this league.
1
I am a physician. I confess to having enjoyed watching football for many years. That said, I now know that the game must change drastically, into something resembling Rugby Union; or that it will fade away. If its leaders are proactive, it can remain viable in a different form. Otherwise, the carnage will continue for a time but football will become too dangerous for liability coverage and too much identified with people at the bottom of our class/race ladder. We are not a totally racist and classist nation, and eventually our national conscience will even respond to the misfortune of its disadvantaged victims.
26
I, as a high school rugby player in S.A., kind of made the same suggestion. I also played college rugby in the US in the '60s. I never weighed more than 160 lbs, while playing hooker. Nowadays, hookers can play as 'props', the guys who support the hookers.
To furrther your point, isn't it also a little disturbing that the ownership tends to be white, male and extremely wealthy? It brings to mind Rome with its gladiator contests and blood lust. Granted, we're not deciding life and death during the game. But whether death occurs on the sands of the arena or the slow descent of brain trauma, either way, a life is lost too soon.
1
The answer to why America loves football despite the clear medical evidence suggesting it should be marginalized is available in Norman Mailer's 1960 Esquire piece about JFK, titled Superman Comes to the Supermarket. He wrote that American history flowed on two rivers, including an invisible one consisting of "that concentration of ecstasy and violence which is the dream life of the nation." Football is America's dream life. And it flows on.
Perhaps we have not turned the corner on football, but as this 2015-2016 Season finally comes to an end, after arguably the worst PR Season the NFL has ever endured, perhaps we are at least headed down the off ramp to abolition.
If such an exhibition must exist, use 21st Century High Technology and let the "Players" stand on the sidelines with radio controls to control their own personal robot mechanical, digital avatar on the field. As I understand it, we already have something called robot wars or contests.
In movies we see creatures like those in the "Star Wars" franchise are in the shape and form of humans but are not. (The creatures dressed in those white uniforms.) If such a game must be played to satisfy the bloodlust of America, some entity should use the technology we have and let humans remain safely on the sidelines (at much smaller salaries) and let their mechanical avatars shed parts on the field of carnage. the game would move faster, not have to be constantly stopped, no huddles, time-outs, and or other timewasters would be needed. A new hi-tech, mechanical or digital league could be created known as the AFL: Avatar Football League. This is a viable way to drive the NFL out of existence once and for all. Everything else in America and the world is using digital to get smaller, reduce cost, save on healthcare, etc. This "game" of football should be no different. The Silicon Valley geeks and nerds would still continue to inherit the earth.
If such an exhibition must exist, use 21st Century High Technology and let the "Players" stand on the sidelines with radio controls to control their own personal robot mechanical, digital avatar on the field. As I understand it, we already have something called robot wars or contests.
In movies we see creatures like those in the "Star Wars" franchise are in the shape and form of humans but are not. (The creatures dressed in those white uniforms.) If such a game must be played to satisfy the bloodlust of America, some entity should use the technology we have and let humans remain safely on the sidelines (at much smaller salaries) and let their mechanical avatars shed parts on the field of carnage. the game would move faster, not have to be constantly stopped, no huddles, time-outs, and or other timewasters would be needed. A new hi-tech, mechanical or digital league could be created known as the AFL: Avatar Football League. This is a viable way to drive the NFL out of existence once and for all. Everything else in America and the world is using digital to get smaller, reduce cost, save on healthcare, etc. This "game" of football should be no different. The Silicon Valley geeks and nerds would still continue to inherit the earth.
3
Our social morality is falling apart along all the seams.
The cities have equated their social identity with their football teams.
God forbid if the NFL team left the town and relocated somewhere else. The loss to the city image would be unfathomable.
That’s why when the team owners demand a new football stadium for their private team, the city leaders cash out up to one billion dollars without any questions asked or any objection.
Who has here the traumatic brain injuries, the football players or the city leaders?
Can’t they recongize the blackmail any longer?
Don’t they have any shame or character?
If you have built up your city image upon the modern equivalent of the ancient gladiator games, you are set up for the harsh awakening…
Have you noticed that our media have been endlessly talking about the Super Bowl for a couple of weeks now?
Of course, nobody has the time to talk about the colossal national debt, the chronic trade deficits, the incompetent leaders in charge of the country and the corrupted electoral system…
The cities have equated their social identity with their football teams.
God forbid if the NFL team left the town and relocated somewhere else. The loss to the city image would be unfathomable.
That’s why when the team owners demand a new football stadium for their private team, the city leaders cash out up to one billion dollars without any questions asked or any objection.
Who has here the traumatic brain injuries, the football players or the city leaders?
Can’t they recongize the blackmail any longer?
Don’t they have any shame or character?
If you have built up your city image upon the modern equivalent of the ancient gladiator games, you are set up for the harsh awakening…
Have you noticed that our media have been endlessly talking about the Super Bowl for a couple of weeks now?
Of course, nobody has the time to talk about the colossal national debt, the chronic trade deficits, the incompetent leaders in charge of the country and the corrupted electoral system…
1
Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?
The surge in popularity of ultimate fighting indicates that Americans are just as bloodthirsty as they've ever been.
Instead of fines and suspensions for players only, sizeable fines ought to be levied against the offending team, as well. If the fines are steep enough, owners will quickly weed out the headhunters.
Football is a modern incarnation of the Gladiator games of ancient Rome, albeit without the immediate bloodshed of the latter. There is big money in it and the crowds love the "spectacle."
Boxing didn't loose favor because of the violence. There was more money and opportunity in Football, so all the guys that would have boxed went into the NFL.
As long as there is money in Football and the NFL bigwigs make money, the injuries will continue. The NFL, much as the Wall Street, looks at fines etc as "Just a part of doing business."
Boxing didn't loose favor because of the violence. There was more money and opportunity in Football, so all the guys that would have boxed went into the NFL.
As long as there is money in Football and the NFL bigwigs make money, the injuries will continue. The NFL, much as the Wall Street, looks at fines etc as "Just a part of doing business."
1
The NFL has donated $30 million to CTE research. The donation has, at times, been criticized as self-serving. And it is a small fraction of what the NFL earns. But $30 million of research could well reveal information that would lead to further CTE research costing much, much more, ultimately revealing what needs to be known. The NFL's expenditure can be attacked from different angles. But to ignore it, suggesting it is meaningless, is either an oversight or a reflection of bias.
3
The donation only came as a result of some publicity stunt to deflect some of the criticism of how the NFL ignored the terrible damage being done to the players. We have to remember the NFL is nothing more than a cartel formed by the billionaire owners of the NFL teams. These rich, profit driven people care more for the money than the players. Their $30M is nothing compared to their profits. I would also not trust, the data that comes from sympathetic researchers who gained from the donation. It's an old story done over and over by giant corporations like the NFL. An example would be the oil company's and their research that climate change is not man made, or the tobacco researchers who did not find problems with smoking, The NFL has proved it is not to be trusted.
1
The NFL is making 30 times more money each year than they have contributed in total to CTE research. It may not be meaningless, but it is certainly a demonstration of where the NFL's priorities lie. Players are disposable cogs for the cash machine. Ads extolling the 'family values' of the game are far more important than trying to fix this (literal) train wreck.
1
NFL pulled the CTE funding. Probably afraid of the CTE research and can no longer control the science. thttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/sports/football/grant-of-nearly-16-mil...
1
While it's important to focus on the NFL and CTE, it can give people the impression that these injuries are the result of playing at that level. The focus should be on the implications for what this means about the 99+% of young people that play football for years and never dream of becoming professionals. It should be on the simple message that football is extremely dangerous and risky. Middle and High Schools, and community programs, need to seriously consider why they'd continue to promote and fund this sport. If it's business as usual, because these kids aren't NFL players, it's self- and other-deception. It's the Flint water situation...
37
Sorry, Dagwood, but Americans have always associated football with school and manhood, the sport that makes us different from the sad, old countries we USED to live in. Your 99% applies to footballers with no neurological results fron contact during the game.
Besides, this is why God gave us knee ligament damage and arthritis, isn't it?
Besides, this is why God gave us knee ligament damage and arthritis, isn't it?
It's physics. Football -- the way it is played, geared up for, and coached -- throws too much human mass at too much humanity velocity at each other. And it's the brain that cannot handle the ferocious accelerations and decelerations that implies -- no one is complaining here about bruises or ruined joints or a broken rib or three.
It is a moral question, but also a purely mechanical one, as well.
Can this sport be safely played re: the reasonable limits of what physical punishment our brains can handle?
It is that simple. Control the mass and velocity. I would observe, that without a sturdy helmet and lots of padding, no sane person would throw and ram themselves with the magnitude of force the modern game is played at.
Get rid of the gear. The game slows down naturally. Coaches will quickly adapt, as they suddenly realize their million-dollar investments can quite easily be knocked out for a season with contusions and broken bones, if they don't figure out a different way to play.
It is a moral question, but also a purely mechanical one, as well.
Can this sport be safely played re: the reasonable limits of what physical punishment our brains can handle?
It is that simple. Control the mass and velocity. I would observe, that without a sturdy helmet and lots of padding, no sane person would throw and ram themselves with the magnitude of force the modern game is played at.
Get rid of the gear. The game slows down naturally. Coaches will quickly adapt, as they suddenly realize their million-dollar investments can quite easily be knocked out for a season with contusions and broken bones, if they don't figure out a different way to play.
25
Then they can call it rugby.
I'd like to agree with you, but regardless of equipment, contact sports are dangerous to the brain. Rugby is played in only shirts and shorts, but the game is as fast as our football, and sadly, rubgy players are turning up with C.T.E.
Similarly, boxing would be less damaging without the gloves. A bare-knuckled hit to the head would likely break the hand, so it wouldn't happen. There would be more blood and laceration, and less serious damage.
Suggestion: the decline of football will come from exorbitant insurance policies that high schools will have to buy; an unaffordable expense, coupled with declining participation, that will lead to dropping the sport
60
I suspect that your are correct. The "release" that parents must sign to allow their child to play football will not hold up in court if the child sustains a devastating injury. A lifetime of care for a brain injured child runs into the tens of millions of dollars.
Possibly correct, but heaven help the kids in Alabama schools, for instance, because down here we'd eliminate math and reading if that's what it took to pay the football expenses.
2
Instead of 80,000 spectators watching 22 men (+substitutes) on the field, imagine a nation where the 80,000 are running or working out, with just 22 playing flag football. Indeed, their girlfriends could participate also, if they could run fast enough.
18
The beer and snack food industry would never stand for it!
Dear George,
Do you understand that as a result of your efforts the boxing was replaced by dramatically more cruel and vicious cage-fighting that allows even the foot kicks into opponent face and the literal molestation of the defenseless opponent lying helpless on the ground for several seconds?
What kind of the world you live in? Do you have the TV at all in your home? Those kinds of fights are directly broadcasted all the time but you haven’t mentioned them at all…
Do you understand that as a result of your efforts the boxing was replaced by dramatically more cruel and vicious cage-fighting that allows even the foot kicks into opponent face and the literal molestation of the defenseless opponent lying helpless on the ground for several seconds?
What kind of the world you live in? Do you have the TV at all in your home? Those kinds of fights are directly broadcasted all the time but you haven’t mentioned them at all…
20
It is strongly suspected that cage-fighting would have developed with or without the decline of boxing. It appears to be faulty reasoning that because cage-fighting rose after boxing declined that the latter caused the former and that the author's efforts were responsible.
You know, the teaching of Latin has declined in America's schools. Since that decline we have seen the rise of obesity in our population and the worsening of the situation in the Middle East. Post hoc ergo ad hoc(or something like that). Better bring back those declensions!!!
You know, the teaching of Latin has declined in America's schools. Since that decline we have seen the rise of obesity in our population and the worsening of the situation in the Middle East. Post hoc ergo ad hoc(or something like that). Better bring back those declensions!!!
Even soccer sends more kids to the E.R. than football. But I have to admit being shocked that a swath of America is enraptured with this caveman cage-fighting racket.
And, of course, they work the women into their own circuit of fighting - but NOT so women will show up and buy the tickets. Well, maybe if they signed up Rachel Maddow....
And, of course, they work the women into their own circuit of fighting - but NOT so women will show up and buy the tickets. Well, maybe if they signed up Rachel Maddow....
Nonsense. Cage fighting, Mixed Martial Arts, kick boxing etc have all been around since the age of the ancient Greeks.
Brain trauma is like smoking in that everyone knew long ago that neither one is good for the body. That is only common sense. People who smoked back 50 years ago coughed and everyone knew that it was from smoking. Those that played football like my husband knew the dazed feeling was not fun but going with the tribe when you are a great player keeps you from humility, and you suffer physically in the long run the longer you smoke or the longer you play. No feeling sorry for our childish idea of ignorance or denial!
5
I've lived most of my life either in Oklahoma or Texas and was fed a heavy diet of football. But, it's time to admit that this "holdover" from ancient gladiatorial contests needs to reflect modern ethical and scientific knowledge.
There's no reason why full-contact football shouldn't transition to some form of flag-football in order to remove as much physical contact as possible. The form of the game -- huddles, plays, strategy, speed, deception -- would remain intact, but the game would no longer be a production line for dramatic brain trauma and other ailments.
There's no reason why full-contact football shouldn't transition to some form of flag-football in order to remove as much physical contact as possible. The form of the game -- huddles, plays, strategy, speed, deception -- would remain intact, but the game would no longer be a production line for dramatic brain trauma and other ailments.
41
Actually, I suspect flag football may even be more exciting, since the players would need to rely on speed and agility more than size and brute force. The game would be much faster.
George,
It’s not about the NFL at all.
It’s about the rest of America. It’s about the colossal failure of the parents, schools and free press.
All of them brought us down to the level of ancient Roman Empire that organized the gladiator games for the sake of entertaining the general public and spectators at the gruesome and bloody the cost to direct participants.
It’s hard to imagine such a profound parenting failure that encourages the own kids to hit each other at full speed and inflict the harsh blows upon another human being in order for those grown-ups, teachers, school principals, team owners, media outlets and corporates advertisers to feel important, influential and powerful.
To sacrifice own kids and the future for the sake of hubris is the historically colossal mistake.
Of course, with such kind of parents no wonder that our kids have dropped to excellent thirtieth place in the world in the math and science and that the drug addiction epidemics are at the staggering levels.
This is the astonishing absence of any kind of leadership.
The citizens that voted the country into $20 trillion national debt don’t have any sense of personal and social responsibility.
Their sole objective is the pursuit of unconditional happiness and endless partying.
The national priorities are the elimination of the wrinkles, the image of eternal youth, the botox-pumped lips, the tons of make-up and tattoos covering the bodies et cetera…
Truly shameful behavior…
It’s not about the NFL at all.
It’s about the rest of America. It’s about the colossal failure of the parents, schools and free press.
All of them brought us down to the level of ancient Roman Empire that organized the gladiator games for the sake of entertaining the general public and spectators at the gruesome and bloody the cost to direct participants.
It’s hard to imagine such a profound parenting failure that encourages the own kids to hit each other at full speed and inflict the harsh blows upon another human being in order for those grown-ups, teachers, school principals, team owners, media outlets and corporates advertisers to feel important, influential and powerful.
To sacrifice own kids and the future for the sake of hubris is the historically colossal mistake.
Of course, with such kind of parents no wonder that our kids have dropped to excellent thirtieth place in the world in the math and science and that the drug addiction epidemics are at the staggering levels.
This is the astonishing absence of any kind of leadership.
The citizens that voted the country into $20 trillion national debt don’t have any sense of personal and social responsibility.
Their sole objective is the pursuit of unconditional happiness and endless partying.
The national priorities are the elimination of the wrinkles, the image of eternal youth, the botox-pumped lips, the tons of make-up and tattoos covering the bodies et cetera…
Truly shameful behavior…
26
Why not eliminate all hits and tackles above the shoulders. There is plenty of room for tackling from the shoulders down
5
It's not just tackling, it's blocking and even incidental contact. It's torso-to-torso contact, and (if you hadn't noticed) a person's head and neck are very close to the torso. One doesn't need direct contact, whiplash and falling onto the ground do damage too.
You think a player who weighs 240 running at close to 20mph hitting in the chest a running back going in opposite direction at thAt same speed is not going to rattle his or both brain pans? Ha!
This is a terrific piece of writing. As a neurologist and a mother who would not allow her son to play football at any level, I am deeply concerned for children whose futures are at risk. After reading this, I did a quick google search for consent forms and found this language in a high school parental consent for football: "I understand that the risks include a full range of injuries including paralysis and death. I realize that neither
protective equipment and padding used in football, the safety rules and procedures, the coaching instruction
nor the sports medicine care provided to my athlete will guarantee safety or prevent all injuries." Remember these children are below the age of consent, so the parents are agreeing to this. I cannot imagine signing my name to such a document.
protective equipment and padding used in football, the safety rules and procedures, the coaching instruction
nor the sports medicine care provided to my athlete will guarantee safety or prevent all injuries." Remember these children are below the age of consent, so the parents are agreeing to this. I cannot imagine signing my name to such a document.
113
Yes, I agree. But look at the consent form for most sports and activities--from skiing to swim team. You'll probably find dire, cautionary language there as well. I don't think these parents are monsters, at all. But I'm betting they, like most of us, don't have a good sense of the odds.
3
Glad you liked, it doc. You get a gold star. But remember that the vast majority of football gladiators are poor blacks looking for the drug induced "American dream." Joe Namath came out of the steel and coal mines of Pennsylvania. But that was fifty years ago.
Today you've got WASP quarterbacks whose lineage is recounted on Wikipedia. Everybody else is raised by single mothers on food stamps, and absentee fathers who are in jail.
I'm afraid your comments are a little sanctimonious.
Today you've got WASP quarterbacks whose lineage is recounted on Wikipedia. Everybody else is raised by single mothers on food stamps, and absentee fathers who are in jail.
I'm afraid your comments are a little sanctimonious.
1
I write this while sitting at my kitchen table, reading over a Waiver of Liability for my son to attend a birthday party at a Bounce House facility. The waiver includes, "I...agree to assume all risk of personal injury, including the potential for paralysis and death."
I am an ex-football fan myself, having given up watching the sport after the initial reports about CTE came to light. I agree with you on principal, but you'll find these sorts of waivers of liability in many, many activities that children engage in.
I am an ex-football fan myself, having given up watching the sport after the initial reports about CTE came to light. I agree with you on principal, but you'll find these sorts of waivers of liability in many, many activities that children engage in.
Seems like the goal of boxing is to knock the other guy out. Football is about knocking the other guy down. Doesn't seem all that different to me. Just sayin ...
1
Instead of always going after the players, why not punish coaches? The players are at the bottom of a system that requires them to inflict violence on each other, every play, or lose their jobs.
Try expelling and suspending offensive and defensive coordinators and head coaches. Then there will be a response.
Try expelling and suspending offensive and defensive coordinators and head coaches. Then there will be a response.
3
Better yet - the owners.
1
One can choose to distinguish between types, levels and qualities of temporary or more permanent damage, to and between individuals, as they "play," philosophizing, as we actively or more passively, complacently, support:
For whom is it permitted, For whom is it forbidden, For whom is it an obligation,
For whom is it a choice, For whom is it a need to violate others...physically as well as in other ways. Along with sports-related concussions, which are increasingly documented, is our being coopted into supporting a culture which commodifies harm and violence...to ourselves as well as to others.
are increasingly documented
For whom is it permitted, For whom is it forbidden, For whom is it an obligation,
For whom is it a choice, For whom is it a need to violate others...physically as well as in other ways. Along with sports-related concussions, which are increasingly documented, is our being coopted into supporting a culture which commodifies harm and violence...to ourselves as well as to others.
are increasingly documented
3
Our children would be much safer, and televised sports much more exciting, if we replaced boring games like football with something less potentially damaging, like downhill skiing or motorcycle racing.
because no on has ever been injured doing those activities
I think Paul was being sarcastic (?) But you're missing the point. This is not about sports injuries in general -- it's about the specific long-term hazard of repeated blows to the head...which contains your brain.. which contains you as a person.
It's a lot easier to deal with a broken leg than a broken brain. It's like radiation exposure -- the damage occurs invisibly and insidiously over time. And it's irreversible. There is no cure for it. Only prevention.
Dementia of any degree is a horrible impairment, and it can occur in younger non-pro players. There have to be some exciting sports that don't routinely cause it.
It's a lot easier to deal with a broken leg than a broken brain. It's like radiation exposure -- the damage occurs invisibly and insidiously over time. And it's irreversible. There is no cure for it. Only prevention.
Dementia of any degree is a horrible impairment, and it can occur in younger non-pro players. There have to be some exciting sports that don't routinely cause it.
At its heart, boxing is one man attempting to physically and violently impose his will on another. Football is the same. Boxing differs because you achieve your goal by injuring, to the point of incapacity, the other, while injury is only a by-product of football. Take away the physical violence, and neither sport exists. Our society doesn't condone the use of physical violence to impose will (except when subject to certain rules), but our DNA apparently does. And, even if we aren't doing it ourselves, many folks like to watch others do this.
4
Dan -- for most fans (I presume) the allure of football is the complexity of the plays and response on defense. Also, its watching the artistry of the running back and passer-receiver connections.
Most don't watch the game to enjoy the hard hits. And who wants players to have to leave the game with injury? That just reduces the competitive interest of the game.
The only way to reduce injuries is to impose some sort of flag-football rules.
Most don't watch the game to enjoy the hard hits. And who wants players to have to leave the game with injury? That just reduces the competitive interest of the game.
The only way to reduce injuries is to impose some sort of flag-football rules.
2
CTE seems to result from years of repeated concussive and sub-concussive trauma. The focus on the NFL is somewhat misguided. By the time athletes even sniff an NFL try out, they have absorbed hundreds or thousands of hits. Children, with relatively massive heads and weak necks, are much more prone to brain injury from "legal" hits. Heads Up is a complete joke, there is no reason to believe "proper technique" will lessen injuries. Football needs to fade to black. Also, people who point to the demise of boxing seem to completely ignore mixed martial arts.
22
I agree about Heads Up. My 10 yo son asked to play tackle football last season, just as I was beginning to see articles about concussions and CTE in the papers. The Heads Up program consisted, in part, of tiny Heads Up stickers on the back of the players' helmets. The coaches assured the parents that the kids keeping their heads up would make for safe play. I bought it.
However, I was the team videographer, and I saw players run into other players heads down. And, the ref never called it. Apparently there is not a rule against it?
Luckily, my son is smart -- he wasn't very thrilled with the whole crashing and bashing, although he played quite well - nose guard, and even made a few sacks. But, at the end of the season - he said - meh ... I prefer ... Flag Football! So, do I.
And, after everything I'd read, I was appalled that I had been suckered in by the Heads Up reassurances.
However, I was the team videographer, and I saw players run into other players heads down. And, the ref never called it. Apparently there is not a rule against it?
Luckily, my son is smart -- he wasn't very thrilled with the whole crashing and bashing, although he played quite well - nose guard, and even made a few sacks. But, at the end of the season - he said - meh ... I prefer ... Flag Football! So, do I.
And, after everything I'd read, I was appalled that I had been suckered in by the Heads Up reassurances.
3
And of course, they can always play rugby. No helmets, shoulder pads or tights.
16
There is another issue beyond brain trauma, and that is injury in general. The number of players playing hurt - or not playing - has become staggering. How often do two teams play each other at full strength? How often do two teams play each other with their first string quarterbacks?
And how long can the NFL continue to expect fans to pay for a "second string" product? We know that pro football is a part of our DNA, but the trend is obvious, and as injuries pile up, more and more fans will begin to question the product being put on the field, and the money they are paying to support it.
And how long can the NFL continue to expect fans to pay for a "second string" product? We know that pro football is a part of our DNA, but the trend is obvious, and as injuries pile up, more and more fans will begin to question the product being put on the field, and the money they are paying to support it.
5
Even more, Parents have to recognize the risk to their children. 50 years ago, I fell off a trampoline, upside down from 8 feet up, directly on my head. I didn't fracture my scull, but from that day I had some learning problems, and neck injury problems. My parents didn't sue, of course, as they assumed the risk, but you will notice that there are no trampolines in public schools anymore.
23
The injuries take away some of the best players and make the game less interesting. By the end of a season, many teams are playing with second or third stringers who replace the injured.
Change the rules to require automatic ejection from the game when a hit injures another player, whether the hit was done with intent to harm or not. If deemed intentional, the player is suspended for the rest of the season. Players and coaches will quickly learn how to play the game more safely. Or they will finish the season with practice squads.
Change the rules to require automatic ejection from the game when a hit injures another player, whether the hit was done with intent to harm or not. If deemed intentional, the player is suspended for the rest of the season. Players and coaches will quickly learn how to play the game more safely. Or they will finish the season with practice squads.
84
Your recommendation is intriguing and well-intended, but doomed to failure.
A coach would simply insert a low-level substitute into a game to square off against an opponent's top player. The substitute would "suddenly" suffer an injury, go to the locker room for examination, and be unable to return. This would remove the opponent's top player through a mandatory ejection.
I surely don't know the right answers, but unfortunately this probably isn't one of them.
A coach would simply insert a low-level substitute into a game to square off against an opponent's top player. The substitute would "suddenly" suffer an injury, go to the locker room for examination, and be unable to return. This would remove the opponent's top player through a mandatory ejection.
I surely don't know the right answers, but unfortunately this probably isn't one of them.
"..I was appalled by the ceaseless violence that the referee permitted.."
"Ceaseless violence" is the whole point of a boxing match. What were you expecting, a pillow fight?
But you decided to do something? Too bad it did not include not being part of the crowd paying to see grown men visit violence and mayhem on one another. Pathologist, heal thyself.
"Ceaseless violence" is the whole point of a boxing match. What were you expecting, a pillow fight?
But you decided to do something? Too bad it did not include not being part of the crowd paying to see grown men visit violence and mayhem on one another. Pathologist, heal thyself.
9
Barnyr--none of the boxers are minor children, right?
7
Boxing violence is typically brought to an end by the ref when one fighter is unable to defend himself. Not that night.
1
As a father of a 4 year college football player, I find relief knowing that his career arc ended with his last game in November. He did not play football until 9th grade but certainly fell in love with it quickly. I watched in person, or on the web, every single game hoping that the hits he took would be absolutely minimal. When I talk to him about implied consent to played football for kids who start at 7 years old, he says those games are weight balanced until you get into high school. I ask him whether someone in high school should better understand the risks and he says the players will ignore it unless the parents pull them out. Then I asked how it felt to play in college and be confronted with players who weigh over 300 pounds who can out run him and basically crush him and he said this is when it gets scary. He did say that college football has more stringent rules about hits and they are constantly checked for concussions. However, as Dr. Lundberg points out, it is all the small sub-concussive hits which add up. My son wants to pursue his career aspirations now, but he also wants to coach at some level in football. I tell him that fewer and fewer parents are letting their kids play and his response is that this will just lead to football consolidation where those who excel attend a school with a great football team. I trust him and I know football will never leave the landscape.
24
You son could be just as successful coaching other sports. And he would have to browbeat kids with little athletic ability into going out for football just so the first stringer will have someone to scrimmage against.
1
Yes, and then just the select few will be able to end out their lives in acute mental anguish while millions cheer. Here, here.
Boxing and football both make the libertarian argument. If players know the risk and still want to compete in the sport why not let them?
The answer is that while this is framed as 'ones individual choice' it's really not. When injuries occur we all end up paying for them. Sometimes that cost is direct when our tax dollars provide medical and even long term care for those with serious injuries. Other times it's indirect as our insurance premiums go up to account for this high risk group.
But the marketplace might have an answer were politicians are reluctant to pursue an outright ban. If these sports required participants to each have a long term care insurance policy to provide coverage for both immediate and long term injuries like C.T.E. then the choice would really be individualized. My guess is that in short order the insurance actuaries would accomplish what legislation can't. It would make the game of football simply too expensive to continue.
The answer is that while this is framed as 'ones individual choice' it's really not. When injuries occur we all end up paying for them. Sometimes that cost is direct when our tax dollars provide medical and even long term care for those with serious injuries. Other times it's indirect as our insurance premiums go up to account for this high risk group.
But the marketplace might have an answer were politicians are reluctant to pursue an outright ban. If these sports required participants to each have a long term care insurance policy to provide coverage for both immediate and long term injuries like C.T.E. then the choice would really be individualized. My guess is that in short order the insurance actuaries would accomplish what legislation can't. It would make the game of football simply too expensive to continue.
77
Hmm...I wonder why we are required, by law, to wear seat belts, and penalized when we smoke and drink, or get fat? Could it be that all of these things are bad for people's health, and in the end, everybody pays for the consequences of the actions of a few?
2
Dr. Spock. I agree. Ditto with gun ownership. Let's have all gun owners carry liability insurance for each gun that they own... just like a car!
3
Of course there is really no choice. Most of the players grow up in poverty and it is the only way out. The injuries, early death, etc. are better than living a long life in poverty.
Just like when one asks a former player if they would do it again. Of course they would. It has provided a better life for their family. Most people would do anything for that.
Just like when one asks a former player if they would do it again. Of course they would. It has provided a better life for their family. Most people would do anything for that.
I've been studying this subject for quite some time and I must say this is the most convincing argument for football reform I've ever read. My hat is off to you, Dr. Lundberg, and I hope your observations find a wide audience.
63
Dr. Lundberg's essay is a public service. But I worry that our society has become dismissive of science. We desire lots of harmful things -- football, fossil fuels, sugar -- but close our eyes to the scientific facts. I'm as guilty as the next guy, but we've already decided that our 5 year old won't play tackle football.
I know it goes against what is generally termed "common sense," but the rate of devastating damage to the players' brains in the NFL might be greatly reduced if they took off the armor. No helmets, no shoulder pads, no gloves, no padding of any sort. Might reduce the number of head-to-head collisions and the resulting brain and neck injuries.
44
This is a great and important article. Football is a great game, but Gustafson is right in that we have to change the game in order to save it, because right now it is a horrific disreguard for the heath, safety, well being and longevity of those who play it, perhaps even criminal, but certainly uncivilized.
4
David, do you honestly think these guys are going to be less aggressive if they play with no armor? Their job security depends on aggression. Are you ready to see lacerated, broken faces and rivers of blood in HD?
Also, head-to-head collisions are only a small part of the equation. While no study has confirmed it, who among us would argue that head-to-turf events are just as likely to produce CTE? Still want to eliminate helmets?
Fact is, football will have to change radically in order to be safe (touch, flag). And then it will no longer be the complex, strategic, thrilling sport it now is.
I think the science of head and body protection should continue, and I think now-fully-informed parents and children should decide if football is worth the risk.
Also, head-to-head collisions are only a small part of the equation. While no study has confirmed it, who among us would argue that head-to-turf events are just as likely to produce CTE? Still want to eliminate helmets?
Fact is, football will have to change radically in order to be safe (touch, flag). And then it will no longer be the complex, strategic, thrilling sport it now is.
I think the science of head and body protection should continue, and I think now-fully-informed parents and children should decide if football is worth the risk.
1
The rules would also have to change. In the early days of football, (1900-1920) when protection was minimal there were fatalities from the game. Today's player would have to learn to play a whole new version of football.
I also recall when a handful of eastern colleges and the service academy's fielded light weight football teams that I think had a 145 lb. limit. The idea was to provide football for students who were former high school players, but were too small to play on the varsity. I don't know if there's any data from those days, but my guess is there were fewer injuries.
I also recall when a handful of eastern colleges and the service academy's fielded light weight football teams that I think had a 145 lb. limit. The idea was to provide football for students who were former high school players, but were too small to play on the varsity. I don't know if there's any data from those days, but my guess is there were fewer injuries.
I completely agree with the author's hope that football can be saved by making modifications that don't ruin the excitement of the sport. The first change should be the adoption of strict Olympic-style drug testing after every game. My proposal would be that pain killers be included in the ban (allowed for pain but at the cost of getting removed from that day's game). Perhaps the human body, without pharmaceutical help, will be the most effective way to change self-destructive behavior, such as using your head to hit a 250 lb receiver in the NFL.
41
A sport that requires violent collisions between players isn't worth saving. American football isn't fun. People play baseball, basketball and soccer for fun, but no one plays full-contact American football for fun; they play touch football. If we banned American football, soccer would become just as popular in America as in Europe.
2
I completely agree with the author's premise that football can be saved, but only by making some modifications that don't ruin the excitement of the game. I propose the first modification to the football status quo is the vigorous adoption of Olympic style drug testing after every game
8
And yet boxing is still with us and retains its allure: witness the enormous popularity of the Rocky films culminating in 'Creed,' and in Clint Eastwood's 'Million Dollar Baby'. I see women learning to box at the gym - not minorities, but upscale white suburban matrons.
Boxing has been reformed at least twice, once by Dr Lundberg and his ilk, and a hundred years before him by the Marquess of Queensberry (he who brought down Wilde, not by a punch but by a writ). Similarly, football has been reformed before, a hundred years ago, when Teddy Roosevelt, appalled at the mayhem on the field, pushed for reforms.
I don't care for either sport. But I think they can be reformed if there is the will. They answer a primal need in participants and spectators which is not necessarily ignoble. (I think also, though there is no room to explore it here, that the gay rights movement diminished the appeal of boxing, which was one of the few venues in which a closeted man could watch muscular, sweaty half-clad men in intense, intimate physical contact one on one. I'm far from the first to speculate on the homoerotic male-bonding element of these sports.)
Boxing has been reformed at least twice, once by Dr Lundberg and his ilk, and a hundred years before him by the Marquess of Queensberry (he who brought down Wilde, not by a punch but by a writ). Similarly, football has been reformed before, a hundred years ago, when Teddy Roosevelt, appalled at the mayhem on the field, pushed for reforms.
I don't care for either sport. But I think they can be reformed if there is the will. They answer a primal need in participants and spectators which is not necessarily ignoble. (I think also, though there is no room to explore it here, that the gay rights movement diminished the appeal of boxing, which was one of the few venues in which a closeted man could watch muscular, sweaty half-clad men in intense, intimate physical contact one on one. I'm far from the first to speculate on the homoerotic male-bonding element of these sports.)
7
The high school my kids attended used to field a football team. Now, three schools pool their players for one team. Parents are voting by not allowing their kids to play, or the kids are coming to this decision on their own. This may cause the interest in football at the pro level to wane. At the high school and college level, there must be a concern over liability issues as well as the logic of sponsoring a sport that causes brain damage. It will be interesting to watch what schools do. The NFL, due to its popularity and profitability, will be the last to change. But, at the high school and small college level, change is quite likely.
135
Yes. How do institutions whose purpose is to train those brains justify promoting sports that destroy them? Spare me the homilies about football teaching kids sportsmanship and strategic thinking. College administrators chase the elusive payoff of big-time sports, and they don't seem to care about the collateral damage. It's disgusting.
4
Robert, I agree. It will take a generation or so, but change is coming. For example, soccer is much more popular now and have regular games on tv as more and more kids played soccer... and then as adults, wanted to see soccer on tv.
Too much money is involved. The schools make so much money from their football programs they will never, willingly, do anything about it. Remember, these are not student athletes, they are non-paid performers for the Games just as were the gladiators of ancient Rome. Since they will not take moral responsibility for their decision to support football, they should be made to take legal responsibility for the health of the football players at their school. Always remember to follow the money. If the schools become responsible legally for the injuries from football, they will change their tune on the game.
1
I agree that changes need to be made and not someday.
1- College and Pro alike should put weight restrictions on who can play to stop the ever increasing size of players. In the case of the college game a little less time in the weight room and a little more time in study hall would be a good thing. players should have to weight in just like fighters.
2- Every one of us- thanks to bundling- financially supports ESPN and the NFL Network even if we do not want to if we subscribe to cable or satellite TV. Try to buy a TV package without Fox Sports and ESPN. It effectively amounts to a tax and subsidizes the Billionaires that own the teams of the NFL. To a lesser extent the same is true of College Football and ESPN & Fox Sports. We should be able to opt out of subsidizing this sport.
3- Boxing needs to go away, yet Showtime and HBO both continue to show it. I like my HBO and Showtime, but do not wish to support Boxing.
1- College and Pro alike should put weight restrictions on who can play to stop the ever increasing size of players. In the case of the college game a little less time in the weight room and a little more time in study hall would be a good thing. players should have to weight in just like fighters.
2- Every one of us- thanks to bundling- financially supports ESPN and the NFL Network even if we do not want to if we subscribe to cable or satellite TV. Try to buy a TV package without Fox Sports and ESPN. It effectively amounts to a tax and subsidizes the Billionaires that own the teams of the NFL. To a lesser extent the same is true of College Football and ESPN & Fox Sports. We should be able to opt out of subsidizing this sport.
3- Boxing needs to go away, yet Showtime and HBO both continue to show it. I like my HBO and Showtime, but do not wish to support Boxing.
123
This idea that weight restrictions could somehow make the game safer is fundamentally ridiculous. The most traumatic hits that I see, occur in the open field between wide receivers and safeties. Positions generally filled by some of the smallest individuals on the field. It's about velocity prior to impact, not the size of the men involved in the collision. If we want football to become a safer game the emphasis has to be on teaching fundamental tackling at the youth level. Burfict's hit on Antonio Brown during the AFC Wild Card Game was everything that you would tell a child not to do when tackling, he went in high and did not wrap up. Despite the fact such a hit is fundamentally unsound it is encouraged at all levels. This is what needs to stop and this is precisely what will not stop if we begin a movement against youth football. If we love football and we want our children to enjoy the game as we always have, the emphasis must be on teaching.
So to quote the author, just like him the only reason you are not asking football to be banned like boxing is "That would be a shame. I have had a love affair with American football, especially Alabama football, since 1944, the legendary Harry Gilmer’s first year." So, the more humans like something harmful, the more willing they are to advocate not for its logical extinction but to rationalize its continued existence. Oh, humans....
1
Around here every cable subscriber pays $5 a month to ESPN. I never watch it. How about a system where only true sports fans are required to support it? Of course, there's an avalanche of ads too so ESPN has two revenue streams: monthly fees and ads. I'd love to cut the cord, but no over the air HD coverage available in our area.
1
If statistics would show that this type of situation is indeed causing a significant percentage of dangerous hits, my next question would be again one to the statisticians: How many yards do receivers gain after catches of short to medium passes across the middle? I would expect very little. So, a rule where a receiver across the middle could not be hit but also not advance after the catch would not change the game that much.
Except of course for the real reason for the real bad hits: To knock the opponent unconscious, "send a message" and cause a fumble. But these are parts of the game that I at least could live very well without.