Brain damage dilemma

[Wayne Cubed]

Question for you: you mention equal #s of injuries in 3 sports. Do you feel there's any merit to the argument that rugby has less concussions because of the lessened protective equipment?

My friend's son played WR in football and Wing in rugby in HS and I have to say the rugby was scary to watch.

 

I see a good amount of Rugby over here in England. Premiere league. These guys certainly get concussions, loads of them. I was going to comment back to the person who posted that Rugby gets less concussions, its simply not true. In fact, they don't even have the steps in place like the NFL does so players rarely come out of the game.

 

In one of the Six Leagues Rugby games this year, a guy was attempting to tackle a player, got knocked out mid tackle(like black out) collapsed and had his head stepped on 2 times while he was out. Play doesn't stop with injuries sometimes. It was brutal.

[shrader]

I have to disagree with SDS.

 

My view is that football will weather this storm because of:

 

1) improvements in equipment

 

2) increased protocols/precautions (ie-baseline testing)

 

3) rule changes many of which have already been instituted (deal with it people… consider the alternative)

 

4) a re-evaluation of football fundamentals such as tackling accompanied by a de-emphasis on the use of the head (helmet) as a weapon

 

As I've stated numerous times, there are aspects to football where the violence is gratuitous… Warren Sapp's hit on Chad Clifton… the hit on Kurt Warner during the interception return, and numerous spearing and "excessive force" infractions.

 

If you can't enjoy football without these elements, I would suggest that you're the person who can't watch auto racing without the crashes… or hockey games without the fights.

 

I'll be perfectly happy watching a slightly less savage form of american football. It'll still be plenty brutal even with some of the changes. You'll still have great, hard-hitting games. You'll still have teams "imposing their will."

 

What you'll lose is the criminally violent aspect which didn't even exist in the game until fairly recently.

 

There's going to be change, but like you said, there are enough aspects to this game that it can continue to thrive after those changes. I do think the NFL could very easily fall off of its pedestal though because of all of this. The talent dilution is a very strong possibility, but none of us will live to see it. We're talking about a 50-100+ year thing.

 

There are other sports like boxing which I don't know how they can survive this. Its popularity is already way down and with more concussion issues coming to light, there's going to be very little justification for going that route.

 

All I know is that if I'm the completely unrealistic parent who thinks my kid is going to make it as a pro athlete, I'd much rather it be baseball or golf. Low risk AND the atmosphere would be great. Follow my kid around on a beautiful golf course during great weather? Sign me up.

[Ramius]

Glad to see people are bringing up the real problem here, and it's not concussions. (Obviously concussions aren't good, so thats not what i'm saying) As Darin mentioned, the real problem with head trauma is the repeated, low impact collisions over 30 years from the time these guys pick up a football as a kid until they retire.

 

There may be the same number or percentage of concussions in the NHL as in the NFL (i don't know). But, the biggest difference is that in hockey, i'm not lining up and slamming my head into a teammate for 3 hours 5 days a week like what goes on during football practice.

Edited May 11, 2012 by Ramius

[SDS]

I have to disagree with SDS.

 

My view is that football will weather this storm because of:

 

1) improvements in equipment

 

2) increased protocols/precautions (ie-baseline testing)

 

3) rule changes many of which have already been instituted (deal with it people… consider the alternative)

 

4) a re-evaluation of football fundamentals such as tackling accompanied by a de-emphasis on the use of the head (helmet) as a weapon

 

As I've stated numerous times, there are aspects to football where the violence is gratuitous… Warren Sapp's hit on Chad Clifton… the hit on Kurt Warner during the interception return, and numerous spearing and "excessive force" infractions.

 

If you can't enjoy football without these elements, I would suggest that you're the person who can't watch auto racing without the crashes… or hockey games without the fights.

 

I'll be perfectly happy watching a slightly less savage form of american football. It'll still be plenty brutal even with some of the changes. You'll still have great, hard-hitting games. You'll still have teams "imposing their will."

 

What you'll lose is the criminally violent aspect which didn't even exist in the game until fairly recently.

 

Just to pick on your post in a treasure trove of posts which to pick on - your response missed the point like a Kerry Collins pass.

 

Most NFL players become NFL players because they grew up playing football. I think that will be put into MAJOR jeopardy in coming years. This is AMERICA - the home of the lawyer, the home of the class action lawsuit. As more medical attention pours in about the effects of head injuries - the little league football clubs and schools of this country will face multiple lawsuits and because of that their insurance will skyrocket. This will force the closing of programs. Couple that with a flood of information on these injuries reaching the parents and you will start to see parents directing their kids into other sports. Parents have already spoken in this thread and we as a society are only getting our shoes on with respect to this issue.

 

Changes in equipment, techniques, or whatever else you suggested will have no affect on the lawsuits, nor the change in attitudes that the sport will face in the future.

 

If you don't think a cultural change can bury a sport - all I have to ask you is who the world's heavyweight champ is... Boxing is a dead, fringe, irrelevant sport which used to be the king of all sports in America. It only took the time from Muhammad Ali until the exit of Mike Tyson to go from King to Jester.

[Chandemonium]

Just to pick on your post in a treasure trove of posts which to pick on - your response missed the point like a Kerry Collins pass.

 

Most NFL players become NFL players because they grew up playing football. I think that will be put into MAJOR jeopardy in coming years. This is AMERICA - the home of the lawyer, the home of the class action lawsuit. As more medical attention pours in about the effects of head injuries - the little league football clubs and schools of this country will face multiple lawsuits and because of that their insurance will skyrocket. This will force the closing of programs. Couple that with a flood of information on these injuries reaching the parents and you will start to see parents directing their kids into other sports. Parents have already spoken in this thread and we as a society are only getting our shoes on with respect to this issue.

 

Changes in equipment, techniques, or whatever else you suggested will have no affect on the lawsuits, nor the change in attitudes that the sport will face in the future.

 

If you don't think a cultural change can bury a sport - all I have to ask you is who the world's heavyweight champ is... Boxing is a dead, fringe, irrelevant sport which used to be the king of all sports in America. It only took the time from Muhammad Ali until the exit of Mike Tyson to go from King to Jester

I don't think boxing is the best example to use to make your argument here. Boxing fell by the wayside not because of concerns over the athletes being injured, but because it was replaced by an even more brutal, violent combat sport with the rise of MMA fighting.

[Alaska Darin]

I don't think boxing is the best example to use to make your argument here. Boxing fell by the wayside not because of concerns over the athletes being injured, but because it was replaced by an even more brutal, violent combat sport with the rise of MMA fighting.

Boxing was dead long before Forrest Griffen fought Stephan Bonner.

 

I will grant you that the brutality is only part of what killed it (graft, corruption, PPV, too many promotions, etc) but it did play a role.

[SDS]

I don't think boxing is the best example to use to make your argument here. Boxing fell by the wayside not because of concerns over the athletes being injured, but because it was replaced by an even more brutal, violent combat sport with the rise of MMA fighting.

 

I assume you are in your 20's because that didn't happen that way. Boxing went from the greatest sport in America to nothing virtually overnight. MMA came along to fill a niche, but it did not replace boxing circa Muhammed Ali (who was once considered one of the top, if not thee top, sports figures THAT EVER LIVED.)

[CodeMonkey]

I would let my kids play any sport they want, knowing the risks. Millions of people die in car crashes every year, should they never be allowed in a car?

 

How fearful of a society can we really evolve into? When does the fear become so great, that in guaranteeing your survival, you actually stop living?

The car statement is quite possibly the silliest argument I have seen here ever on any topic.

You are comparing something that in todays society is necessary like being in a car to a 100% optional activity like playing football?

 

Fearful? I prefer my kids don't suffer unnecessary brain injury due to playing one particular high risk sport. If that makes me fearful to you, then OK. I am fearful. Life is too short and too precious in my opinion to take stupid risks in the name of playing a meaningless (in the grand scheme of things) game.

 

Stats on US High School Sports Concussions

 

Tackle football certainly leads the way in the major US sports, at least according to these various studies.

 

Will tackle football die? Who can say. There may well be enough kids not allowed to play to kill, or at least severely diminish, the popularity of it. Or maybe there will always be enough parents who allow their kids to play despite the risks. Time will tell. From what I read however, particularly in the south high school football doesn't seems to be suffering from lack of participants or fans.

[Wayne Cubed]

I assume you are in your 20's because that didn't happen that way. Boxing went from the greatest sport in America to nothing virtually overnight. MMA came along to fill a niche, but it did not replace boxing circa Muhammed Ali (who was once considered one of the top, if not thee top, sports figures THAT EVER LIVED.)

I think what killed boxing the most is PPV honestly, not so much a cultural change.

[DrDawkinstein]

Very interesting, thoughtful post DrD.

 

Question for you: you mention equal #s of injuries in 3 sports. Do you feel there's any merit to the argument that rugby has less concussions because of the lessened protective equipment?

My friend's son played WR in football and Wing in rugby in HS and I have to say the rugby was scary to watch.

 

Thanks Hopeful.

 

I'd say the statement that Rugby is somehow safer is absolutely incorrect. While they are taught a slightly different style of tackling, the lack of helmet makes it 1000X easier to get a concussion. As I mentioned about soccer, without a helmet, all it takes is catching a knee or elbow the right way or even bouncing your head off the ground while being tackled. Add in the soccer-type side of Rugby where players are able to kick at a live ball, and you have guys getting booted in their unprotected head all the time. And this is just about head injuries, no mention of shoulder and rib injuries and everything else.

 

That being said, Rugby was my absolute favorite sport I've ever played (and I love football and lacrosse). I wish I would have been able to play longer and would love to be one of the thousands of old guys that still play well into their 40s and 50s.

 

As a side note I played Fullback, which is basically the equivalent to Safety defensively, and an extra Winger offensively. I'd say the risk for injury is much greater for the Backs than the Pack players, just like it is greater for WRs/DBs than Linemen, because you are getting those high speed impacts that have distance between them.

[SDS]

I think what killed boxing the most is PPV honestly, not so much a cultural change.

 

Yes and our culture changed from recognizing that the boxing heavyweight champion of the world was the single greatest title you could hold in sports to no one giving a rat's ass. All in about 15 years. That's a cultural change.

[Wayne Cubed]

Yes and our culture changed from recognizing that the boxing heavyweight champion of the world was the single greatest title you could hold in sports to no one giving a rat's ass. All in about 15 years. That's a cultural change.

Yes, I get that as a result of boxing not being as popular culture changed. But it wasn't our culture changed their opinions of the sport, then boxing became less popular. Boxing became less accessable and people stopped watching, which in turn our culture changed what sport they thought most popular. You, I believe, are suggesting that our culture will change its opinion of football and therefore the sport will die out. Which isn't the same as what happened to boxing.

Edited May 11, 2012 by Wayne Cubed

[bowery4]

Yes, I get that as a result of boxing not being as popular culture changed. But it wasn't our culture changed their opinions of the sport, then boxing became less popular. Boxing became less accessable and people stopped watching, which in turn our culture changed what sport they thought most popular. You, I believe, are suggesting that our culture will change its opinion of football and therefore the sport will die out. Which isn't the same as what happened to boxing.

 

Well football is pretty going the way of PPV and with the injury concerns of a somewhat brutal sport it may well go the way of boxing. One of the things that boxing did was get a bit more international which the NFL has seemingly ignored as a real option in the last few years, the consequences of that could lead down the same road. Or they could start little leagues in non soccer places. Basketball and soccer are cheap (so is rugby) American football with it's equipment is anything but. There is no inroads to make it an international sport so if the popularity with kids (or their parents, in most cases)drops off, there is not a big future. I think the owners must recognize that but they have short sight and don't do much about it.

[CodeMonkey]

Well football is pretty going the way of PPV and with the injury concerns of a somewhat brutal sport it may well go the way of boxing. One of the things that boxing did was get a bit more international which the NFL has seemingly ignored as a real option in the last few years, the consequences of that could lead down the same road. Or they could start little leagues in non soccer places. Basketball and soccer are cheap (so is rugby) American football with it's equipment is anything but. There is no inroads to make it an international sport so if the popularity with kids (or their parents, in most cases)drops off, there is not a big future. I think the owners must recognize that but they have short sight and don't do much about it.

The NFL tried NFL Europe and they play games in Europe every year now. So they are trying. Just not having much success to date.

Soccer has a very strong hold there and the rest of the world. Tackle football gaining popularity outside the US is a very uphill battle in my opinion.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Just to pick on your post in a treasure trove of posts which to pick on - your response missed the point like a Kerry Collins pass.

 

Most NFL players become NFL players because they grew up playing football. I think that will be put into MAJOR jeopardy in coming years. This is AMERICA - the home of the lawyer, the home of the class action lawsuit. As more medical attention pours in about the effects of head injuries - the little league football clubs and schools of this country will face multiple lawsuits and because of that their insurance will skyrocket. This will force the closing of programs. Couple that with a flood of information on these injuries reaching the parents and you will start to see parents directing their kids into other sports. Parents have already spoken in this thread and we as a society are only getting our shoes on with respect to this issue.

 

Changes in equipment, techniques, or whatever else you suggested will have no affect on the lawsuits, nor the change in attitudes that the sport will face in the future.

 

If you don't think a cultural change can bury a sport - all I have to ask you is who the world's heavyweight champ is... Boxing is a dead, fringe, irrelevant sport which used to be the king of all sports in America. It only took the time from Muhammad Ali until the exit of Mike Tyson to go from King to Jester.

Hey, Kerry Collins made 2 Pro Bowls, took the Panthers to the NFC Championship game and the Giants to the Super Bowl…

 

Maybe you didn't connect my dots and mishandled my "errant throw" like a Donte Whitner dropped interception.

 

 

My point was that the game will be made safer (from the top down) which will allay the fears of enough parents that football will survive.

 

I know that cultural shifts can have big impacts on the popularity of sports. I was born in 1961, not yesterday. In addition to boxing, horse racing was also a very popular sport at one time. Baseball used to be much more popular than football. Those sports declined for various reasons.

 

I believe football will survive and thrive for the reasons I mentioned and for other reasons… some having to do with socioeconomics.

 

I don't think boxing is the best example to use to make your argument here. Boxing fell by the wayside not because of concerns over the athletes being injured, but because it was replaced by an even more brutal, violent combat sport with the rise of MMA fighting.

One other thing that turned many people off to boxing was that it became more and more fragmented and corrupt with no clear governing body (at one point there was the WBC, WBA, IBF, NABF, and others … ) a sport that was run by promoters such as Don KIng and Bob Arum… a sport where often the two best fighters in a weight class didn't fight each other because there was no governing body mandating that they do so.

 

Boxing degenerated into a mockery of a sport. Boxing was/is their own worst enemy.

 

The NFL on the other hand, is the best run professional sport in North America, if not the world. Under Goodell the NFL is not hiding their heads in the sand but rather, anticipating problems and confronting them head on.

 

 

 

 

[Offside Number 76]

I see a good amount of Rugby over here in England. Premiere league. These guys certainly get concussions, loads of them. I was going to comment back to the person who posted that Rugby gets less concussions, its simply not true. In fact, they don't even have the steps in place like the NFL does so players rarely come out of the game.

 

In one of the Six Leagues Rugby games this year, a guy was attempting to tackle a player, got knocked out mid tackle(like black out) collapsed and had his head stepped on 2 times while he was out. Play doesn't stop with injuries sometimes. It was brutal.

 

That was me, and apparently, I am considerably misinformed. It has never been an issue on BBC Sport (sorry to say, that's really my only informer on rugby; I can go to soccernet for soccer or cricinfo for cricket, but for the ruggers, that's it), and I really had no idea. Maybe someone needs to take up the cause over there.

 

I don't want to think, forty years on, that I was following gladiators.

[K-9]

Am I the only one that remembers closed-circuit TV broadcasts for the big boxing matches? There was PPV long before there was PPV. Saw Ali/Frazier II at the Niagara Falls Convention Center on a closed circuit telecast. Can't remember what my friend's dad paid for the four tickets, but that place was packed.

 

I agree with Scott in that after Tyson, there just weren't any more compelling heavyweights and there has been a palpable cultural shift in interest towards the sport.

 

And it's always been about the heavyweights.

 

And there will never be another Ali.

 

GO BILLS!!!

[Hapless Bills Fan]

If you don't think a cultural change can bury a sport - all I have to ask you is who the world's heavyweight champ is... Boxing is a dead, fringe, irrelevant sport which used to be the king of all sports in America. It only took the time from Muhammad Ali until the exit of Mike Tyson to go from King to Jester.

 

Scott, do you intend the implication that boxing is fringe because of traumatic brain injury?

At the least, arguments can be made that boxing became fringe because it fissioned into a plethora of fringe governing bodies with competing titles, and the bouts never became popular on mainstream TV. Sort of like would have happened to football if the USFL and Arena football had all become going concerns.

 

It's an interesting point about insurance. Still, a number of high-risk activities that have been subjected to a barrage of litigation are flourishing. Horseback riding and piloting small planes come to mind. In both cases state and/or federal legislation has stepped in to pass laws that limit liability. Peewee and Pop Warner programs might wither or become flag leagues - IMO those kids are really too young to be playing full-contact tackle football

[DrDawkinstein]

That was me, and apparently, I am considerably misinformed. It has never been an issue on BBC Sport (sorry to say, that's really my only informer on rugby; I can go to soccernet for soccer or cricinfo for cricket, but for the ruggers, that's it), and I really had no idea. Maybe someone needs to take up the cause over there.

 

I don't want to think, forty years on, that I was following gladiators.

 

No, no one needs to take up any causes. Keep the over-parenting out of these sports. These are grown men making their own decisions, fully aware of the brutality of the sport.

 

If the thought bothers you that much, stop watching all sports. Every time a player in any sport steps on the field/court, they are lining themselves up for a potentially devastating injury.

 

Dont mean to sound like Im attacking you, but this is getting ridiculous with the over-sensitivity, and the sentiment that we have to protect everyone from everything, even though they are choosing to do it. If NFL players were that concerned with brain damage, they would wear the more protective helmet. They, as grown men, choose not to.

 

Be glad that the players enjoy the sport, and enjoy it yourself.

[Mr. WEO]

Yes and our culture changed from recognizing that the boxing heavyweight champion of the world was the single greatest title you could hold in sports to no one giving a rat's ass. All in about 15 years. That's a cultural change.

The death of boxing has nothing to do with brain injury or concussions. Ali proved the sport was all about personality, nothing else. Larry Holmes was champ for years after Ali and no one cared until Tyson came along. Then no one cared about boxing again.

 

Heavyweight boxing was also killed by the silly splitting of the belts. PPV definitely ruined all boxing, turning it from something the whole country could see on prime time TV to what is now the equivalent of watching a concert "on demand".