NFL admits link between football and brain injury (2024)

game changer

From the start of kiddie football, we must penalize all blows to the head and all blows with the head. The way people tackle and block must be change, or the game will die.

It is a game changer and potentially a game killer. The fact is that the human brain was not meant to sustain repeated violent collisions of the body. Even when direct contact to the head is not involved, the shock wave can be translated to the brain. We see this all the time in cases of Shaken Baby Syndrome. And while we have improved protective equipment dramatically, that has been offset by the drastic increase in the body mass and speed of the players. In short, bigger, stronger, and faster players mean more violent collisions.

Frankly, it was disingenuous at best for the NFL to deny a correlation between football and CTE.

I hope this doesn't spell the end of football and hockey, but it has become a hot topic. At the minimum, it's going to change the way the game is played/refereed.

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I could see that happening in the very near future. More and more parents are going to steer their kids into other sports.

tarheel0910 said:

I think they should just stop tackle football on the pee wee level. Those kids brains are still developing and it's hard to teach someone that young to avoid helmet blows. Let them learn the concepts and the nuances of the game first. The tackling can come in middle school.

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I agree. Have no tackle football before 7th grade. And start a rigorous enforcement of penalties for all hits to helmets - even by open hand swats - and by all uses of helmet to hit with. That kind of refereeing will force coaches to retrain players and bench those who refuse to learn.

Archer2 said:

I hope this doesn't spell the end of football and hockey, but it has become a hot topic. At the minimum, it's going to change the way the game is played/refereed.

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You're absolutely right and it sucks (the game changing part, not the you being right part ). Enjoy the game of football while it lasts. It's going to look entirely different or not exist at all in 20 years.

Archer2 said:

Unfortunately, I think you're right RH. I believe it's inevitable.

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But it doesn't have to ruin the game. Nobody tackled with the head even with leather helmets, because you'd knock yourself out. Changes in rules and refereeing will get us back to that game - no head butting.

When I started organized football, the old men who were behind the kids league all played before face masks were common. They taught - furiously - that we should always keep the head up and never use it except to see and think. Now you can find guys who teach 8 year olds to use their helmets as weapons.

With so many kids playing sports now you can't avoid it, but I wholeheartedly agree we can do a better job teaching the proper technique and penalizing the crap out of it. Still, I don't know that you will ever see the end of head injuries.

I coached youth football for 6 years and I can tell you it doesn't matter how much you coach kids, there will ALWAYS be helmet to helmet contact. We had one kid who literally dropped his head to the point the bottom of the face mask touched his pads on EVERY play he was in on. We did everything short of taping his helmet to the back of his pads and it didn't help. For some reason he simply could not keep his head up.

My son got a concussion during an Oklahoma drill in 7th grade. Same thing and he had played and been coached properly for years. Luckily he hasn't had another one since then, but I still sit in the stands on game night worried about it.

With that said, just last week at one of his baseball games a kid on the opponents varsity team got hit with a line drive in the face making a play on a line drive. He wasn't just standing there, he went after the ball and missed it and it hit him dead on in the face. Don't know if he got a concussion from it, but it was scary.

I have seen bad head to head injuries in basketball and soccer, too. My son (same one) came close to another concussion his freshman year in basketball. He got undercut on a breakaway layup and hit hard on the court. We just knew he had a concussion, but fortunately we have a sports medical professional at his school who is at every game and an orthopedic doctor who works in her office that comes to almost every game, too. I can't tell you how much better I feel about him playing with Patty there. Now, when I get a call from her I know something is wrong, but I know she won't call unless I am needed.

Archer2 said:

I hope this doesn't spell the end of football and hockey, but it has become a hot topic. At the minimum, it's going to change the way the game is played/refereed.

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I agree that both sports are going to change fairly dramatically over the next decade or two. I don't think hockey is in quite as much danger, as it's possible to play hockey without hitting/checking (women's hockey is no checking, and I could see them turning men's hockey into the same thing in the not so distant future), without too drastically changing the way the game is played. It's not possible to play the same version of football without hitting though (a large part of the game is to tackle). Unless they turn it into a flag football scenario, but that would lose a lot of viewership. They'll have to devise a way to get players to stop using their heads to hit.

The NFL has approved a rule change that moves touchbacks out to the 25-yard line. Same as college ball and for the same reason: increasing injuries on kickoffs.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...omatic-ejection-two-unsportsmanlike-penalties

What is up with these NFL owners? First Jones now Irsay. I guess you don't have to be smart to own a team.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...-colts-compares-risks-football-taking-aspirin

Raising Heel said:

You're absolutely right and it sucks (the game changing part, not the you being right part ). Enjoy the game of football while it lasts. It's going to look entirely different or not exist at all in 20 years.

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I made the comment 2 years ago that there would be no NFL in 20 years and was laughed at. I stand by that statement. Football is dying and it's going to happen much faster than most people think.

strummingram said:

In a century, people will look back at football like we look at pistol dueling and other arcane behaviors.

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Teddy Roosevelt said the same thing, a century ago.

TarHeelNation11 said:

Teddy Roosevelt said the same thing, a century ago.

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And that was crazy Teddy, who loved falling head first from galloping horses. It was manly.

Football is not going to die. But I do think we will see more rules changes that will affect the way the game is played and officiated.