George Will column - perhaps football days are numbered

[BlueMAB]

Haven't read the entire thread, apologize if it's been said/covered.

I've said it before, if we want to get serious about head injuries there needs to be rules regarding how players tackle. If you use your helmet once, you sit out a few series (or a quarter/amount of time). If you do it again, you sit for the rest of the game.

I'm not an expert, but my eyes tell me the majority of the problems come from players putting their head down and using their helmet as a weapon. Carl is right, either take away their helmets, or take away their playing time if they use their helmets incorrectly.

 

[Jarhead_1775]

Haven't read the entire thread, apologize if it's been said/covered.

I've said it before, if we want to get serious about head injuries there needs to be rules regarding how players tackle. If you use your helmet once, you sit out a few series (or a quarter/amount of time). If you do it again, you sit for the rest of the game.

I'm not an expert, but my eyes tell me the majority of the problems come from players putting their head down and using their helmet as a weapon. Carl is right, either take away their helmets, or take away their playing time if they use their helmets incorrectly.

There's a lot to be said for the complacency aspect of it. We wear protective clothing that's light years ahead of what firemen had just 20 years ago and while no one can argue that we are better protected, we are definitely more likely to put ourselves in situations that we would not have 20 years ago. So I can see the correlation with helmets that it gives a semi false sense of security.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

Oh yeah - soccer, the other football.

here's a case of kid that had a cerebral aneurysm after a soccer head injury, lucky his parents got him to the hospital in time. Jun 2012
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22749486

Lucky you don't have a girl LROCK - girls soccer is right behind football in the incidence of concussion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22287642


This whole thing about concussions, and the danger of football, is a great case in how the media, and sensationalism, extreme cases in the public eye, gets blown out of proportion.

Football players sustain concussions at a much higher rate than other athletes. Concussions, may or may not, be related to neurologic brain degenerative conditions that are present in the general public later in life. THere's plenty of evidence suggesting that the tendency to develop neurologic degenerative conditions later in life is a product of either genetic, or long term environmental reasons (probably both), and that in individuals with those factors, multiple concussions most likely accelerates the development of the condition.

The way to deal with the problem is to identify the ways that by which football players most often sustain concussions, and then take corrective action to prevent it, and that's exactly what is being done - and has been done for several years now at both the intercollegiate and secondary school level, by reserachers, academics, coaches, and competition committes and rules makers.

The pros have lagged behind, and they're going to pay for it, through lawsuits. That's it.

Guess which college "sport" generates the largest number of reported injuries? Cheer leading.

 

[ZooCougar]

Haven't read the entire thread, apologize if it's been said/covered.

I've said it before, if we want to get serious about head injuries there needs to be rules regarding how players tackle. If you use your helmet once, you sit out a few series (or a quarter/amount of time). If you do it again, you sit for the rest of the game.

I'm not an expert, but my eyes tell me the majority of the problems come from players putting their head down and using their helmet as a weapon. Carl is right, either take away their helmets, or take away their playing time if they use their helmets incorrectly.

I agree with this. But even still you're going to have alot of head injuries. Players are bigger, faster and stronger than ever before at many levels of football going even below the HS level. There is no workout that can protect the brain. I don't see how a better helmet will help defy the violent physics of a sudden stop with your brain crashing into the inside of your skull.

The only way to change this, would be so costly that it would change the very nature of the game. You take the facemasks off and you go with soft sided helmets. Then you probably change the shoulder pads as well because they could damage and open face. Then we will see more "rugby-like" tackling. I just don't see that happening.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Face masks, shields, in hockey at least, actually decrease the risk of sustaining concussion in that sport. Not sure about football, don't recall reading any studies on it.

 

[ZooCougar]

Face masks, shields, in hockey at least, actually decrease the risk of sustaining concussion in that sport. Not sure about football, don't recall reading any studies on it.

The theory is that you will have less players leading with their heads without a facemask. Unless of course you actually want to rip your face off.

In rugby or Aussie Rules, where hitting is still physical and punishing, they don't/can't hit the same way because of the lack of padding.

 

[CL82]

I do think that there needs to be a return to wrapping up a player rather than using yourself as a projectile. As fan I love the big hits but I also hate watching an opposing running back bounce off a diving defender and pick up additional yards. Better concussion testing, including routine comparisions to a baseline test, ought to identify concussed players. Equipment changes and/or rule changes to disuade using head on collisions and encourage wrapping up players to tackle can go a long way to fix the problem without diluting the game to the point it's not football anymore.

 

[Carl Spackler]

The funny, thing, is that the hardest tackles, the tackles that create the most psychological damage, that aren't going to cause head injury, arent the flying missile hits, they're the chest to chest, head up, face to face, and wrap and plant somebody in the turf on their ass- hard hits. Nothing like that, becuase you're eye to eye with the guy as your driving him into the ground.

Nothing more demoralizing to ball carrier than to run chest to chest into somebody and then get planted right into the turf, and then have to look the guy right in the face, when he's saying what he's going to say about what he just did to you.

I really can't wait for football.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I didn't want to start a new thread on this topic, so i pulled up this one. I read "Concussion" about Bennet Omalu, and was doing a little reading around it to see if the book was reasonably accurate.

Permanent brain damage from even playing youth or high school sports is a show stopper for most parents. I do not see a way out of this for football. The game depends on collisions to be interesting, and I do not think it can survive becoming whatever sport it needs to become to bring the risk of head injury down to a manageable level. Football will survive like boxing has survived, but I expect to see the youth participation continue to drop dramatically over the next few years, and that will impact college and the pros.

EVERY sport is going to be impacted by CTE, not just football. I think that the way charges are called in basketball will change within the next 5-10 years. The flops are incredibly dangerous to the head and also legs, and simply a stupid requirement to draw a charge call. Soccer needs to do something about the headers.

 

[Stinger92860]

A friend of mine coaches youth football. We were discussing the CTE issue and he said the number of children signing up for football has dropped dramatically over the last few years.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I didn't want to start a new thread on this topic, so i pulled up this one. I read "Concussion" about Bennet Omalu, and was doing a little reading around it to see if the book was reasonably accurate.

Permanent brain damage from even playing youth or high school sports is a show stopper for most parents. I do not see a way out of this for football. The game depends on collisions to be interesting, and I do not think it can survive becoming whatever sport it needs to become to bring the risk of head injury down to a manageable level. Football will survive like boxing has survived, but I expect to see the youth participation continue to drop dramatically over the next few years, and that will impact college and the pros.

EVERY sport is going to be impacted by CTE, not just football. I think that the way charges are called in basketball will change within the next 5-10 years. The flops are incredibly dangerous to the head and also legs, and simply a stupid requirement to draw a charge call. Soccer needs to do something about the headers.

I have a nephew and a niece who were done with sports by their freshman year of high school. My nephew had a concussion in rec soccer, sat out two months, got cleared by a doctor and got another concussion his first game back. Bad luck? Sure. But teenage brains are in their prime development phase for higher level functioning.

My niece was playing first base and a ball ripped through her glove and dotted her forehead. She dropped and went limp. Two years later she still has seizures. She's been to every neurological specialist in Eastern Pennsylvania over the past two years.

I got knocked out by a softball collision when I was 30 years old. I have zero memory of the collision, laying on the field or the ambulance ride to the hospital. I woke up in the ER. I had a tooth put in the back of my mouth and some gum damage. Ended up with a root canal and surgery on the gums. The other guy had a broken nose and a couple broken ribs. And he doesn't have any memory of the collision either.

As for football specifically, it will become like boxing in that it will continue to exist in lower economic portions of society where the risk of injury is balanced against opportunity for education and payouts from pro sports. And that is still a large enough percentage of the population to fill out college and pro rosters.

 

[ZooCougar]

Has anyone ever done a head injury study comparing FB and Rugby(no pads or headgear)? Rugby, to me, is more grab-ass arm tackling, but no one leads with the head.

I think that in order for football to maintain or regenerate participation is to change what is legal in tackling and blocking. It's evolve or become boxing.

 

[HuskyBandDad]

I must have brain damage too. Read entire thread and did not know it was from 2012.

 

[ZooCougar]

Oh yeah - soccer, the other football.

here's a case of kid that had a cerebral aneurysm after a soccer head injury, lucky his parents got him to the hospital in time. Jun 2012
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22749486

Lucky you don't have a girl LROCK - girls soccer is right behind football in the incidence of concussion.
Epidemiology of concussions among United States high school athletes in 20 sports. - PubMed - NCBI


This whole thing about concussions, and the danger of football, is a great case in how the media, and sensationalism, extreme cases in the public eye, gets blown out of proportion.

Football players sustain concussions at a much higher rate than other athletes. Concussions, may or may not, be related to neurologic brain degenerative conditions that are present in the general public later in life. THere's plenty of evidence suggesting that the tendency to develop neurologic degenerative conditions later in life is a product of either genetic, or long term environmental reasons (probably both), and that in individuals with those factors, multiple concussions most likely accelerates the development of the condition.

The way to deal with the problem is to identify the ways that by which football players most often sustain concussions, and then take corrective action to prevent it, and that's exactly what is being done - and has been done for several years now at both the intercollegiate and secondary school level, by reserachers, academics, coaches, and competition committes and rules makers.

The pros have lagged behind, and they're going to pay for it, through lawsuits. That's it.

Carl also believes that smoking cures cancer.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I think that in order for football to maintain or regenerate participation is to change what is legal in tackling and blocking. It's evolve or become boxing.

Basketball needs to change how charges are called or it will have issues too. No where in any rule book is there a provision that it is only a charge if the defender flops, yet 80% of refs won't even consider a charge call unless the defender is on his back. It is worse at the youth level. It is infuriating as a coach, because I have to choose between protecting the players while following the rules, OR trying to draw offensive foul calls. It should not be "either/or".

 

[Duncan Idaho]

 

[Chin Diesel]

View attachment 13236

The conspiracy theorists would say there's a reason why ESPN is giving TV and internet coverage to "E Sports". Poindexter for Heisman.

 

[LRock34]

I love the game as much as anyone, and played it for many years, but I will not be pushing my kids to play football. It's not like it was when I was younger anymore, where u were a pansie if you didnt want to get out there and lay a good hit on someone. There is now an abundance of scientific data that shows even the smallest of hits to the head at young ages can have a HUGE impact, in terms of lifetime effects. If they ask in high school, I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it but they will not be playing until then.

This is EXACTLY how I feel. I played football from the age of 8 into my early 20s, I LOVE the game but I am pushing my 4 year old son towards soccer.

That said football will survive because there are plenty of poor kids with NFL dreams and poorly educated parents who will continue to push football. If my son loves the game and is adamant about playing I wont take it away from him. Fortunately he seems to like soccer and I have a feeling that by the time he reaches High School soccer will rival Football in many communities.

 

[huskypantz]

Same here. I had at least a few concussions, I have no doubt that it has an impact on me. My son is 2, I'll let him play whatever he wants but we'll probably start with soccer first in the fall. And as much as I love the sport, I won't encourage him to play unless he's a beast.

 

[LRock34]

Wait a minute how old is this thread? I just noticed I commented on this in 2012? LOL