Former GB and super bowl champion CB Sam Shields now says he regrets NFL career

[Don Otreply]

1 hour ago, Bill from NYC said:

I wish that I could come up with a way to argue with the above but I cannot.

Having thought about this a bit, I too have come to the same conclusion, it’s not so glamorous when one looks behind the curtain…, I’m going on 64 years old, and my body has aches and pains, I can’t imagine how my body and brain would feel after playing football from before high school through college and the pros…, it would likely be unpleasant to say the least. The kind of screwed up part is we take pleasure in watching it happen, 

 

GO BILLS!!!

 

 

[Jerome007]

18 hours ago, iccrewman112 said:

I can’t find the stat, but high school football participation has been down year over year for many years running now.

As a parent, it's such a tough call. MMA, football, hockey, even cycling (tons of injuries!) are guilt free for me when it comes to adults making the decision to play... but you have to learn young and that's where the moral issues arise.

 

My oldest played. Hits are a lot more forgiving for high school students as they are lighter, they have a lot less practice time than college or pros (concussions happen during practice, not just in games). But it's not risk free, obviously.

[TheBrownBear]

15 hours ago, msw2112 said:

I am very conflicted about this.  I played high school football and loved it.  I enjoyed the physical nature of the sport, and the spectacle of game day.  I have never been an active drug user, but I can't imagine any drug that would give me a bigger high than the one I got when I sacked the quarterback in a big game.  Football also did wonders for my fitness, discipline, and overall well being (although I could have arguably gotten those same benefits from any other competitive sport that I played 6 days per week).  I probably got my "bell rung" a few times, but didn't sustain any serious or long term physical or mental injuries.  I look back fondly upon it.  I might have been interested in playing in college, but I really wanted to go to a Big 10 school and I didn't have the talent to play at that level, so high school was it.

 

As an adult, many years beyond high school and college, I love the sport as a fan, both college and NFL.  Watching football and attending games is one of my absolute favorite things to do.  I'm even on a football-related message board every day and it's my favorite website (and I'm sure you can relate).
 

Despite all of this, I don't have a son, but if I did, I don't know if I would let him play.

Same here, man.  Not sure there was anything more fun as a kid than that feeling of running, hitting and being hit while playing football.  It's a total rush and it gives you a sense of confidence and teaches you how to tap into your physical strength and toughness in ways that other popular team sports can't (I ended up playing varsity baseball, basketball and golf instead of football).  I know these guys aren't forced to play it and almost all of them LOVE doing it, and view injuries as just part of the game.  I still can't help but love watching it, despite knowing the toll it takes on these guys.  It's complicated for sure.

 

I have two boys and have never pushed them into football.  They're into soccer (which I find boring...lol) and baseball.  I'd probably let them play football if they really wanted, but I wouldn't encourage it and I'd try my best to make sure they understood all of the immediate and future risks before they took the field.

[Beast]

2 hours ago, thenorthremembers said:

On average 2 out every 10 million high school sports participants die every year.    Basketball is responsible for the most deaths by more than 20% over football but you dont hear about basketball because it's not as headline grabbing.   Baseball and football are responsible for the same percentage of deaths but you dont hear about baseball, why?  Soccer, only 3% less than football..

 

Rugby, Hockey, and Soccer all have higher or comparable concussion rates to Football, but we are still only talking about football.  What about the future of those sports?

 

Any activity where you put stress on our body, including your heart which is why basketball deaths happen, comes with some sort of inherent risk.    So does driving a car, but I don't think we will be debating the future of driving anytime soon.  

 

The guy in this interview could have quit at any point in his career, why he chose not to I dont know, but I am going to go out on a limb  and guess that the fame and $34 million dollars he made during his career had something to do wit it.   I feel bad he has lingering effects from his career but he was an adult who made the decision to play football. 

And MMA is as popular of a sport as there is. Boxing deaths….we could go on.

 

Great post, bud.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Beast

[Thurman#1]

18 hours ago, SirAndrew said:

It isn’t going to scare away anyone in Texas or Florida, and that’s where the talent is at this point anyway. Declining participation in northeast suburbs isn’t going to hurt the game. 

 

 

 

Even in Florida and Texas, this is having an effect.

 

"In 42 states, the number of players went down year-over-year. In 25 of those states, the number of football schools went down as well. In seven, the number of players declined even though the number of schools in the survey increased.

 

"In the eight states, plus the District of Columbia, where participation was the same or increased, four of them (DC, Nevada, Texas, Vermont) had more schools playing as well. (The other states: Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon.)

 

"Texas is the No. 1 state for participation (of course), but its participation-per-school rate is dropping quickly. In 2016-17 it was 153.3; in 2017-18, 135.3; and in 2018-19, 125.6. Meaning, its growth is coming from more schools offering football, not more boys showing up to play at every school."

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/29/high-school-football-participation-is-on-a-decade-long-decline/?sh=5374993633de

 

That means Florida has fewer players and Texas has fewer players per school (the state's population has gone from 20.04M to 29.5M in the years the study lasted, from 1999 to this year. So schools are increasing as are student populations, but players per school are going down.)

[Wayne Arnold]

19 hours ago, Big Turk said:

He looks terrible to be honest...like one of the drug addicts you'd see on the corner in a bad neighborhood. Looks like he's 50 and he is only 34.

 

Said his head feels like mush and concussions had a lot to do with it, and that he would not do it all over again if he had the chance...

 

Wonder how many players playing now are going to be in the same boat? This can't be good for the NFL and it's long term participation rates.

 

More content parents are going to read and add to the reasons why little Jimmy will be playing soccer instead of football.

 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/11/03/former-packers-db-sam-shields-says-he-regrets-nfl-career

 

Good. Have them play baseball instead.

[Shaw66]

19 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

Well, if one looks at American football objectively, one quickly realizes this is a modern day gladiator sport, players purposefully hit each other hard enough to injure each other on every play,  a high percentage of players have life long health issues due to playing the game, the money made does little if one can not enjoy its fruit. It is a brutal game, and the fans revel in the big hits, and care little how much damage is done to the players, at most it’s a thoughts and prayers deal, in other words, oh well….  It’s no wonder a player would have such thoughts in hind sight. 

Objectively, this is a correct take.   I stopped watching boxing decades ago because it was totally in-your-face human brutality against another human.   Football is only marginally better, dressed up and glorified, but a gladiator sport nonetheless.  

 

I've said for years that the beginning of the end will be when an NFL player dies on the field.   It's coming.   Bruce Smith said so 30 years ago, and I think he was right.  The linebacker for the Steelers came close.  When it happens, the NFL moguls will be defenseless, sponsors will drop them, and the whole glorious think will wind down.  I just hope the Bills win the Lombardi before it happens. 

[Paup 1995MVP]

18 hours ago, Buftex said:

Believe me, I love the NFL as much as anyone...but don't you think the fewer people willing to participate in the sport will erode its' popularity over time? We already claim that the sport is "wussified" compared to the sport most of us grew up with. I already see the lack of interest in the game amongst the younger kids in my own family.  I have a large family. We've always been football fanatics.  But the younger kids seem to have little interest in it.  One of my nephews (he's 12), who I have been plying with Bills gear for about 10 years, broke my heart recently, when he chose to go to a pro soccer game, over a chance to go to a Bills game. He also seems to prefer hockey to football... while I loved all sports growing up, by the time I was 12, football was it!  His friends seem all the same.  Their only appreciation for football seems linked to their parents. 

That's a very interesting take Buftex.  You very well maybe right about younger kids not being overly excited about the sport of football.  But I think you can take it a little bit further then that on a bigger scale.  I am in my mid 50's.  When my generation grew up in the 70's and 80's, life was just so much rougher.  We scrapped in middle school and high school all the time.  I grew up in suburban Buffalo in a middle class area.  And you had better be able to stand up for yourself, otherwise life was not going to be easy.  I have 3 young adult children between the age of 19 and 25.  There wasn't near the fighting when they went to school as in my day.  That's not bad.  Its just what it is.  Basically the world has become super soft.  And I think that translates over to sports as well.  Look at how professional hockey and football are played today versus 30-40 years ago.  Very different.  The machismo that was so ingrained in sports like hockey and football from the violence and brutality of it, (and in males in general) just does not exist in the game or in society in general anymore.  Not saying its good or bad, just saying that's how life has evolved.  (Heck, when my son was playing pee wee football in the mid 2000's they were doing the Oklahoma drill with a bunch of 7 year olds.  And the parents loved it)  And with that young boys and their parents probably don't feel that playing football is a sign of their machismo and manliness, if the younger generation even knows what that means.  

 

My older son started playing football at 6 years old in suburban Atlanta.  He is 23 and a 6th year senior in his last year of college football.  He has loved every minute of playing.  And hopes to have a shot of playing in the NFL.  He has suffered injuries that required surgery.  But he is extremely driven and focused about the game.  But that life is not for everyone.  I am just glad that there are enough young men who love playing the game still.  Because I still love watching it.  But nothing lasts forever.  Is the NFL going to be around in the next millenium?  That's quite a question to ponder.

[SirAndrew]

13 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

 

Even in Florida and Texas, this is having an effect.

 

"In 42 states, the number of players went down year-over-year. In 25 of those states, the number of football schools went down as well. In seven, the number of players declined even though the number of schools in the survey increased.

 

"In the eight states, plus the District of Columbia, where participation was the same or increased, four of them (DC, Nevada, Texas, Vermont) had more schools playing as well. (The other states: Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon.)

 

"Texas is the No. 1 state for participation (of course), but its participation-per-school rate is dropping quickly. In 2016-17 it was 153.3; in 2017-18, 135.3; and in 2018-19, 125.6. Meaning, its growth is coming from more schools offering football, not more boys showing up to play at every school."

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/29/high-school-football-participation-is-on-a-decade-long-decline/?sh=5374993633de

 

That means Florida has fewer players and Texas has fewer players per school (the state's population has gone from 20.04M to 29.5M in the years the study lasted, from 1999 to this year. So schools are increasing as are student populations, but players per school are going down.)

Great post with good information. I’d just be curious to know why. I can’t imagine it’s due to parents not allowing their children to play. Football is cultural ingrained in many parts of this country. The game is extremely important to so many people, and the opportunities it presents are large. That type of stuff always wins over negative possibilities in life. 

[SirAndrew]

51 minutes ago, Beast said:

And MMA is as popular of a sport as there is. Boxing deaths….we could go on.

 

Great post, bud.

Driving automobiles is actually extremely popular also. 

[Beast]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

Objectively, this is a correct take.   I stopped watching boxing decades ago because it was totally in-your-face human brutality against another human.   Football is only marginally better, dressed up and glorified, but a gladiator sport nonetheless.  

 

I've said for years that the beginning of the end will be when an NFL player dies on the field.   It's coming.   Bruce Smith said so 30 years ago, and I think he was right.  The linebacker for the Steelers came close.  When it happens, the NFL moguls will be defenseless, sponsors will drop them, and the whole glorious think will wind down.  I just hope the Bills win the Lombardi before it happens. 

How is NASCAR doing these days? How have on track deaths contributed to viewership and sponsorship?

 

I don’t buy what you’re selling. At all.

[Thurman#1]

3 hours ago, thenorthremembers said:

On average 2 out every 10 million high school sports participants die every year.    Basketball is responsible for the most deaths by more than 20% over football but you dont hear about basketball because it's not as headline grabbing.   Baseball and football are responsible for the same percentage of deaths but you dont hear about baseball, why?  Soccer, only 3% less than football..

 

Rugby, Hockey, and Soccer all have higher or comparable concussion rates to Football, but we are still only talking about football.  What about the future of those sports?

 

Any activity where you put stress on our body, including your heart which is why basketball deaths happen, comes with some sort of inherent risk.    So does driving a car, but I don't think we will be debating the future of driving anytime soon.  

 

The guy in this interview could have quit at any point in his career, why he chose not to I dont know, but I am going to go out on a limb  and guess that the fame and $34 million dollars he made during his career had something to do wit it.   I feel bad he has lingering effects from his career but he was an adult who made the decision to play football. 

 

 

About the stuff that I highlighted in red above, that's not clearly true.

 

Football has the highest concussion rate, with ice hockey second but very significantly below, and soccer far below.

 

Football: 64 -76.8

Boys’ ice hockey: 54

Boys’ soccer: 19 – 19.2

 

https://headcasecompany.com/concussion_info/stats_on_concussions_sports

 

Rugby, on the other hand, is actually slightly higher than football.

 

There are a lot of different studies out there, and kids rates appear to be different from adult rates, and womens rates different from mens. Womens ice hockey appears to have quite high rates, generally a bit below football but not much below. (Weird since women's hockey is non-contact.)

 

Not to mention that CTE appears to be more about persistent impact as it is about concussions. And that most consussion frequency numbers are about number of injuries per "Athlete Exposures" (meaning number of practices or games), and that far more athlete exposures come in football than in hockey (six players on ice at a time and generally smaller teams, often much smaller) than in football. 

 

In this study, they estimated that football caused 55,007 concussions among HS and collegiate athletes, boys soccer 20,929 and girl's soccer 29,167. Far fewer concussions per exposure in soccer, so probably a lot more players and exposures.

 

It's still early days in studying this. There's still a lot we don't know. And we do know that a fairly low percentage of concussion actually get reported. Somewhere around half.

 

But linking stuff like the risks of football and the risks of driving, as you do above, doesn't make a lot of sense. It's hard to get by in society for most Americans without driving. Certainly not impossible, and easier in some big cities than elsewhere, but it's not hard at all to get by in society without playing football.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/15/health/concussion-high-school-sports-study/index.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

https://www.medstarhealth.org/news-and-publications/articles-and-research-reports/which-youth-sports-cause-the-most-concussions

 

 

 

 

[Thurman#1]

1 hour ago, SirAndrew said:

Great post with good information. I’d just be curious to know why. I can’t imagine it’s due to parents not allowing their children to play. Football is cultural ingrained in many parts of this country. The game is extremely important to so many people, and the opportunities it presents are large. That type of stuff always wins over negative possibilities in life. 

 

 

Well, I don't know if it's been studied. But my guess is that parents not allowing their children to play, and teachers and coaches being aware of the risks, and kids also being aware of it are absolutely the biggest factors. With perhaps the popularity of video games being probably in the top five. But rates of soccer participation are going up.

 

And even ingrained stuff changes. Boxing was huge a couple of generations ago. And I think it was precisely the risks that have caused such massive drops in the numbers for boxing.

 

 

EDIT: Here's another possible reason. Sports specialization. These days kids often stick with one sport only.

 

https://www.kare11.com/article/sports/state-of-football-why-is-participation-down/89-587419390

 

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Thurman#1

[Shaw66]

2 hours ago, Beast said:

How is NASCAR doing these days? How have on track deaths contributed to viewership and sponsorship?

 

I don’t buy what you’re selling. At all.

I'm not selling, not at all.  I don't want football to stop.  I think people can choose what they want.   I think the NFL has done a lot about head safety and will continue to do more, and I think even long term effects will go down.

 

I eas just talking about the practical reality of 22 strong guys running into each other at full speed.  Sooner or later someone will die, probably with a broken neck.  

[RoyBatty is alive]

4 hours ago, Jerome007 said:

As a parent, it's such a tough call. MMA, football, hockey, even cycling (tons of injuries!) are guilt free for me when it comes to adults making the decision to play... but you have to learn young and that's where the moral issues arise.

 

My oldest played. Hits are a lot more forgiving for high school students as they are lighter, they have a lot less practice time than college or pros (concussions happen during practice, not just in games). But it's not risk free, obviously.

I used to cycle a lot and cant begin to name the number of broken collarbones my compatriots have suffered with.

[Logic]

22 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

Well, if one looks at American football objectively, one quickly realizes this is a modern day gladiator sport, players purposefully hit each other hard enough to injure each other on every play,  a high percentage of players have life long health issues due to playing the game, the money made does little if one can not enjoy its fruit. It is a brutal game, and the fans revel in the big hits, and care little how much damage is done to the players, at most it’s a thoughts and prayers deal, in other words, oh well….  It’s no wonder a player would have such thoughts in hind sight. 

This pretty much sums it up.

Modern day gladiator sport.

"Bread and circuses", and all that jazz.

The major argument one can make FOR it is that so long as the players are educated as to the dangers and are compensated very well, then it's up to them to decide whether or not they want to participate. And if, after knowing the dangers and getting paid and accepting the risks, they wind up sustaining injuries or concussions or what have you, then so be it.

Really, though, if one is to be a fan of pro football, one ought to take full stock of what it really is that they're watching and weigh the entire barrel of factors that go into the game's existence and its effect on its players. To really face and consider the whole thing and to weigh how its significant moral implications do or do not impact your desire to participate as a spectator and/or purchaser. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Logic

[Lost]

22 hours ago, Beast said:

High school players have been getting killed every year for decades.

 

Pro, college and high school players paralyzed as well.

 

Terrible injuries. Legs snapped in half. 
 

People have been wondering about the future of the sport for as long back as I can remember.

 

Yet, here we are.

 

Football is king.

 

 

 

UFC went from being banned in like 40 countries to one of the fastest growing sports in the world.   People seem to still like violence.  The spectators do at least.

[Don Otreply]

22 hours ago, SirAndrew said:

It isn’t going to scare away anyone in Texas or Florida, and that’s where the talent is at this point anyway. Declining participation in northeast suburbs isn’t going to hurt the game. 

It will when those many millions of folk in suburbs and cities from DC to Maine  & Washington state to the Mexican boarder aren’t buying tickets to the games, or jerseys etc, or watching the games on their TVs, and advertising revenue declines, yes all of this over time will reduce the games overall draw, it will indeed hurt the game, in fifty or so years, when almost everyone who is currently on this and most other team forums are dead, who’s taking our places?  Change is the only constant. 

[Beck Water]

4 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

Even in Florida and Texas, this is having an effect.

 

"In 42 states, the number of players went down year-over-year. In 25 of those states, the number of football schools went down as well. In seven, the number of players declined even though the number of schools in the survey increased.

 

"In the eight states, plus the District of Columbia, where participation was the same or increased, four of them (DC, Nevada, Texas, Vermont) had more schools playing as well. (The other states: Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon.)

 

"Texas is the No. 1 state for participation (of course), but its participation-per-school rate is dropping quickly. In 2016-17 it was 153.3; in 2017-18, 135.3; and in 2018-19, 125.6. Meaning, its growth is coming from more schools offering football, not more boys showing up to play at every school."

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/29/high-school-football-participation-is-on-a-decade-long-decline/?sh=5374993633de

 

That means Florida has fewer players and Texas has fewer players per school (the state's population has gone from 20.04M to 29.5M in the years the study lasted, from 1999 to this year. So schools are increasing as are student populations, but players per school are going down.)

 

But is this all because of concern about the physical dangers of football?

 

We live in a small school district.  They cancelled the football program 7 years ago.  Part of it was insufficient interest on the students - even if there was the same level of interest, enrollment was declining.   There is less interest in football and more interest in soccer, partly because soccer is the "IT" sport to immigrant parents

 

But a lot of it was $$.  Football is a relatively expensive sport to field a team safely because of the equipment.   I was told they could field M and W soccer AND cross country for the cost of the football program.

 

 

[Beast]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I'm not selling, not at all.  I don't want football to stop.  I think people can choose what they want.   I think the NFL has done a lot about head safety and will continue to do more, and I think even long term effects will go down.

 

I eas just talking about the practical reality of 22 strong guys running into each other at full speed.  Sooner or later someone will die, probably with a broken neck.  

Sometimes dying is better than ending up like Darryl Stingley, and then dying anyway.