CTE Diagnosed in 99% of former NFL players

[nelsonmuntz]

And 87% of football players from any level.

Study: CTE diagnosed in 99% of former NFL players, 87% of ex-players at all levels

There better be a strong rebuttal, and quickly, or this is the death knell of football as a mainstream sport.

Football drives the train? Not anymore.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

I don't think the sport is in such a futile situation. They can always get away with the old "the players knew the risks" spiel. I'm sure pop warner numbers will decrease, if it hasn't already begun. But at the end of the day, no real change for college and professional football. Too big to fail.

 

[Chuck]

And 87% of football players from any level.

Study: CTE diagnosed in 99% of former NFL players, 87% of ex-players at all levels

There better be a strong rebuttal, and quickly, or this is the death knell of football as a mainstream sport.

Football drives the train? Not anymore.

I'm shocked that parents of young kids let their kids play football. I've heard anecdotally that participation in my football-centric small town is way down at a youth level. I do know a few parents that plan on letting their boys play when they get to high school. I can see that changing.

For those that feel that college and the NFL will continue to thrive, it's a slow drip of interest level that will hurt the sport. Boxing is a side show with a couple events per year between a handful of stars. It's participants are generally warriors from rough backrounds that are literally fighting their way out of a tough situation. It makes for a compelling story, but not one that can produce thousands of superior participants. Will football get to that point? Not to that extreme, but I can easily see the numbers dwindling to the point where there is only Division 1 football with significantly less talent depth. DII and DIII won't have enough athletes to fill teams.

That being said, as a parent of kids that play a decent amount of organized sports, I'd want to see two other data points: i) percentage of CTE in other athletes in sports that have contact including soccer, lacrosse, even basketball; and ii) percentage of CTE in non-athletes.

Without that information, it's hard to know what is football's fault vs. what is biologically the norm.

My kids both play soccer. US Soccer banned heading by kids until U12. I've seen the kids get very adept at playing with other parts of their body. I plan on encouraging my kids to continue that practice now that they are allowed to head. Not only can I see heading the ball causing minor, but frequent, damage, but I believe that most head injuries come from attempting to head a ball. Neither one of my kids' teams have had a head injury in soccer in the 4 years they've been playing travel soccer (knock on wood) and I have to believe that the inability to head the ball is a reason.

 

[Guapo]

And 87% of football players from any level.

Study: CTE diagnosed in 99% of former NFL players, 87% of ex-players at all levels

There better be a strong rebuttal, and quickly, or this is the death knell of football as a mainstream sport.

Football drives the train? Not anymore.

Although the playing of football is becoming increasingly morally and ethically dubious; if you think this is going to cause football to cease being a major college sport anytime in our lifetimes than you have not spent much time outside of New England in the fall.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Football is going to go the way of boxing, the other modern-day gladiatorial sport. It will become heavily class-polarized.

Poor kids who don't see another path to college or a career will still see sports as their way out, including football, despite the risks. Rich kids may shy away though.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Football is going to go the way of boxing, the other modern-day gladiatorial sport. It will become heavily class-polarized.

Poor kids who don't see another path to college or a career will still see sports as their way out, including football, despite the risks. Rich kids may shy away though.

I'm in the heaviest football crazed area of the country and anecdotally can say youth football participation is way down with the middle class. Five years ago the youth organization in my part of the county had about 250 kids in 5-13 age groups. This year they are down to about 100. Simultaneous to the football decline was the introduction of lacrosse. Five years ago there weren't any youth leagues and no high school had a lacrosse program. Now youth programs have almost 200 players and over half the high schools have boys/girls lacrosse.

I don't have any numbers on some of the inner city parks, but I doubt there isn't any +/- over historical numbers.

 

[Excalibur]

Although the playing of football is becoming increasingly morally and ethically dubious; if you think this is going to cause football to cease being a major college sport anytime in our lifetimes than you have not spent much time outside of New England in the fall.

Never underestimate the power of stupidity. There is a large segment of the population that simply will not care about the risks, even for their own kids, because "that's the way we did it". Football will decline, but it's not going anywhere in the near future.

Football is going to go the way of boxing, the other modern-day gladiatorial sport. It will become heavily class-polarized.

Poor kids who don't see another path to college or a career will still see sports as their way out, including football, despite the risks. Rich kids may shy away though.

This has already been happening. Even within my town, there are only a couple of kids on the youth football rosters from our school district (which happens to contain most of the town's wealthiest residents). Football participation is down in many wealthy suburbs.

 

[billybud]

The study on the epidemiology of high school sports concussions found that in 7,780,000 accumulated exposures (practices and competition), there was a hierarchy of concussion rates....one can assume that concussion rates per sport exposure correlates also to the incidence of sub concussive traumas.

Football's rate of 6.4 was highest, and boys ice hockey was second at 5.4....followed by boys Lacrosse at 4.0.

If there is concern about student brain injuries, those three sports should be the ones to look at....

 

[huskymedic]

The study on the epidemiology of high school sports concussions found that in 7,780,000 accumulated exposures (practices and competition), there was a hierarchy of concussion rates....one can assume that concussion rates per sport exposure correlates also to the incidence of sub concussive traumas.

Football's rate of 6.4 was highest, and boys ice hockey was second at 5.4....followed by boys Lacrosse at 4.0.

If there is concern about student brain injuries, those three sports should be the ones to look at.---

6.4 per what? 1000? 10,000?

You might want to add girls soccer to that list. New study shows that girls soccer has higher per capita rate of concussions than any other sport

 

[Adios]

6.4 per what? 1000? 10,000?

You might want to add girls soccer to that list. New study shows that girls soccer has higher per capita rate of concussions than any other sport

"From the study: To our knowledge, this is the first study to report that concussions now account for a higher proportion of injuries in girls soccer than boys football. The concussion rate for girls soccer is also increasing rapidly, and is now nearly tied with boys football and 3-fold higher than boys soccer."

Women's soccer is going to fade!!!!

 

[History Geek]

To be fair, these brains were donated by the families because of suspicion of CTE, so it is not a random sample by any means. Having said that, the evidence is mounting and in my mind overwhelming.

 

[shizzle787]

And 87% of football players from any level.

Study: CTE diagnosed in 99% of former NFL players, 87% of ex-players at all levels

There better be a strong rebuttal, and quickly, or this is the death knell of football as a mainstream sport.

Football drives the train? Not anymore.

This is bad, but it wasn't a very good study. It only involved people who volunteered their brains who had physical and mental problems before they died. A true study would have involved people who didn't play football and those who didn't have major medical or mental issues.

 

[Stinger92860]

I think the takeaway from the study is that the risk of brain injury is extremely high. Is it 99 or 87? Even if it's 50% it's not pretty. No way I let my kids play football, after seeing these numbers. Why would you place their health at such significant risk?

Any statisticians on here who can discuss the sample size of the study and it's potential accuracy for the larger population? Being the insurance capital should produce a lot of talent in this area.

 

[metsfan2323]

Football will change the existing tackling rules before it disappears. Either Rugby tackle or get thrown out of the game. Kickoff's will probably be gone sooner rather than later which will stink but the sport will still be popular, especially if gambling becomes leagalized.

The sport isn't going anywhere but it will change.

Nelson please compile a list of all the colleges that have dropped football to date (any level). There must be a few if this is such a problem.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Nobody sees the late effects of CTE. Concussions aren't very gruesome to see. Hell, guys getting blasted in the head is about as common in media and comedy as anything else. So the audience will always be there.

Comes down to how parents act on this information. I think millions of talented, athletic kids will still be drawn to the sport for obvious reasons. Wonder how many people even care in the South. I don't think you know the South and football if you think one piece of research is the deathknell of American football.

 

[shizzle787]

I think the takeaway from the study is that the risk of brain injury is extremely high. Is it 99 or 87? Even if it's 50% it's not pretty. No way I let my kids play football, after seeing these numbers. Why would you place their health at such significant risk?

Any statisticians on here who can discuss the sample size of the study and it's potential accuracy for the larger population? Being the insurance capital should produce a lot of talent in this area.

There isn't a way to extrapolate the data because the subjects were chosen not random. However, this isn't pretty.

 

[shizzle787]

Nobody sees the late effects of CTE. Concussions aren't very gruesome to see. Hell, guys getting blasted in the head is about as common in media and comedy as anything else. So the audience will always be there.

Comes down to how parents act on this information. I think millions of talented, athletic kids will still be drawn to the sport for obvious reasons. Wonder how many people even care in the South. I don't think you know the South and football if you think one piece of research is the deathknell of American football.

Agree about the South, but it wouldn't surprise me if New England high schools and colleges (such as URI) that struggle anyway drop sport.

 

[shizzle787]

Football will change the existing tackling rules before it disappears. Either Rugby tackle or get thrown out of the game. Kickoff's will probably be gone sooner rather than later which will stink but the sport will still be popular, especially if gambling becomes leagalized.

The sport isn't going anywhere but it will change.

Nelson please compile a list of all the colleges that have dropped football to date (any level). There must be a few if this is such a problem.

Northeastern and BU have dropped in the last two decades, and Vermont has dropped in the past as well. There have been quite a few NY schools that have dropped in the last decade.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Northeastern and BU have dropped in the last two decades, and Vermont has dropped in the past as well. There have been quite a few NY schools that have dropped in the last decade.

Surely that has to do with cost more than lack of interest/turnout

 

[shizzle787]

Surely that has to do with cost more than lack of interest/turnout

I think so. Though one of them actually saw an increase in donations after dropping football.

 

[mdkhusky]

Football drives the bus and will for a long while

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Football will change the existing tackling rules before it disappears. Either Rugby tackle or get thrown out of the game. Kickoff's will probably be gone sooner rather than later which will stink but the sport will still be popular, especially if gambling becomes leagalized.

The sport isn't going anywhere but it will change.

Nelson please compile a list of all the colleges that have dropped football to date (any level). There must be a few if this is such a problem.

Do your kids play football?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Soccer and basketball could clean up their head injury problem with a few simple, and in the case of basketball, long overdue rule changes. If basketball referees enforced the offensive foul rule as it is written rather than only rewarding flops, I think it would cut the amount of all injuries in basketball by 50%. The flop is an incredibly dangerous play that should be illegal.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Clay Travis on XM83 went down the socioeconomic path this morning on his radio show.

Agrees with BY. The days of middle and upper middle class parents putting their kids in to tackle football has sailed.

 

[Excalibur]

Clay Travis on XM83 went down the socioeconomic path this morning on his radio show.

Agrees with BY. The days of middle and upper middle class parents putting their kids in to tackle football has sailed.

So you're his listener?