6 ms·

Only thing safer helmets will do is encourage players to hit harder and harder, until someone really gets killed. I hope one day I will get to see the end of f

Only thing safer helmets will do is encourage players to hit harder and harder, until someone really gets killed. I hope one day I will get to see the end of football. Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
briffle 8y ago
So your advocating for an abstinence only education, when it comes to football?
- komali2 8y ago
  Or, to not have helmets at all, or much thinner helmets. Much like bare-knuckle or thin-padded gloves contribute to less "hard" hits being thrown in UFC than in boxing, or how Rugby players don't get the kind of brain injuries because they aren't smacking their heads into eachother as hard as football players are.
  - slg 8y ago
    Helmets were introduced because a dozen plus kids were dying every year playing it due to things like skull fractures. Football is an inherently violent game and it is because of the rules not the helmets.
  - lloydde 8y ago
    UFC: study that supports that assetion verses other factors like less money/rewards, shorter careers and full body contact? Different weight classes? Boxing vs Muay Thai? Yes, intuitively smaller gloves should contribute to less slow damage, but should also cause more acute and immediate injuries.
- sakuronto 8y ago
  Yes, in the same way I'd argue for an abstinence-only education when it comes to repeatedly bashing your own head against the wall.
ggg9990 8y ago
The US has a violence fetish, the same way that the UK has a class fetish. The football quarterback is the highest status kid in the school because he is the leader of an organization demonstrated to deliver and endure violence.
- tgb 8y ago
  Surely this is better explained as just another instance of best-player-of-most-popular-sport-is-popular? The same dynamic happens in countries where the considerably less violent of the two "footballs" is played. And star basketball players also are extraordinarily popular. Maybe the only distinction in American football being that a single individual gets to make nearly all the scoring plays and is designated with a specific role so that everyone knows who they are.
- adventured 8y ago
  Your premise is very weak in relation to US sports being a supporting argument. It comes across as though you've never actually played football or been on a football team. Players on one team largely go out of their way to avoid injuring players on the other team. The vast majority of the game is free motion, not the application of violence. Another large fraction of the game is what can best be described as aggressive shoving and using your body to push or block, not super violent at all. The quarterback, further, doesn't lead the defense. The job of the offense, which the QB leads, is to score. Ideally that occurs with the minimum amount of violence necessary, not the maximum amount. Offensive players mostly want to avoid that whenever possible. The quarterback does not inherently lead the team and does not lead the defense at all (ie the primary appliers of violence). The quarterback is popular because he's the center of the offense, which does the scoring, which is exciting. Not because he leads a violent machine. Basketball players in high school that are talented, are equally popular, because scoring points is exciting in every sport. Hockey is occasionally a quite violent sport. Gretzky wasn't one of the most popular players in hockey history because he was violent - it was because he scored at a rate nobody else ever has. The same goes for Mario Lemieux and countless other scorers. Baseball is particularly not violent. You know, America's pastime sport that tens of millions of people go to see every year and is wildly popular. Basketball is no more violent than soccer.
gldalmaso 8y ago
There are several sports than can be dangerous and involve risk of death, like basically all forms of racing, climbing, endurance, etc. As long as practitioners are educated and consenting, I don't see a problem. The problem is if the those responsible for the athletes are not upfront on the risks, or if the athlete is not able to make a proper judgement to consent, like a child.
- Cerium 8y ago
  The problem with sports like football is that they are an accumulative damage sport as opposed to a safe until accident sport.
- jacobsenscott 8y ago
  In all the sports you named - brain injury is not a regular part of the sport - it happens when something goes wrong. In football players suffer mild traumatic brain injury in every game, as a regular part of game play.
  - rkangel 8y ago
    While this seems to be the likely scenario, this isn't actually known for sure yet. We know that every concussion causes cumulative damage, but it is unclear what level of sub-concussive hit causes cumulative damage? It's almost certainly not 'none', but we don't know whether it's a light tap, or an almost concussive hit. For example, it could be that concussion is a red herring and certain angles and acceleration profiles are the issue and these don't correlate at all with concussion.
- privacypoller 8y ago
  Yes, there are risks in all these activities, the problem with full-contact football, or hockey & lacrosse is that there is no way to be educated and consenting for an aspect that is inherent to the very nature of the activity, especially if you're a kid. Up in Canada the pro-contact hockey crowd loves to talk about "teaching kids how to hit properly" which I'd suspect is a similar attitude to those coaching 5-yr-olds in full-pads football. But what does this mean? They seem to think that by addressing the technique of what is at it's a core a violent and damaging activity you can somehow mitigate the effects. I'm not buying it. Football is even worse; it's not the highlight reel tackles but the every single play collisions at the line that lead to long term, consistently demonstrated traumatic head injuries. Frankly I feel that the NFL working to address the root causes of head injuries is like asking Facebook to take care of personal information and privacy protection. They are entirely incompatible.
bcohen5055 8y ago
Yes, because seat belts and airbags only encourage people to drive faster and more reckless
- blueatlas 8y ago
  But there's no legal or financial liability for a football player running faster or hitting harder. He can pretty much do it without recourse and actually have people cheer him for his impressive speed and strength.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Ask a cyclist about that. Risk compensation is real.
francisofascii 8y ago
Simply play two hand touch or flag. Football is a fun game to watch and play without tackling.
- privacypoller 8y ago
  I agree with you that this addresses the game of football, but certainly not the business of football. Which one do you think the NFL cares more about?
  - francisofascii 8y ago
    If the NFL switched to two hand touch 10 years from now, people would still watch. The violence is not essential. The competition, strategy, amazing throws and catches, speed, team aspect, drama, and unpredictability make it fun to watch.
    - awgm 8y ago
      I would be very surprised if football survived at the level of popularity it enjoys now without the violent hits
  - r00fus 8y ago
    NFL players are like the modern gladiator. They look resplendent in their armor. It's core to the image of Football.
  - jsgo 8y ago
    In the modern era, people bemoan that officials are extra protective of quarterbacks relative to previous generations due to and specifically for Tom Brady. Common refrain, right? But the thing is: they still watch. Yeah, there'd be calls of it being "soft" or "these guys couldn't play with the greats from yesteryear" or the like as there are now, but they'd still watch. The second biggest sport in the US that I can think of (could very well be wrong) is the NBA and it isn't really known for violence being beneficial to the players/game (after the 90s, a lot of what would fly before stopped). Yeah, there are flops or drawing flags by intentionally getting into a play, but it seems the preferred method to force fouls at the end of the game isn't to blindside your opponent but to draw the ref's attention and hold/grab the opposing player. I was a bit bummed with the "boycott" over the knee taking as I had actually stopped watching around the same time due to all of the CTE research that came out around the same time. Hated the feeling that somehow me not watching due to that was going to get tallied in with people who are anti-protest. I do think if they could solve this problem (CTE), I'd be game to watch again, but I honestly think it isn't solvable.
megaman22 8y ago
Because it's a blast to play. And treating children like they are made of glass is a terrible way to raise them.
atommclain 8y ago
Risk compensation. For those interested, here is the relevant Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
- kaycebasques 8y ago
  Universal Principles Of Design [1] mentions this, as well. Rather counterintuitively, the solution for reducing brain injuries in football may be to remove helmets altogether. [1] https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592535879/amsi-20 https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592535879/amsi-20
  - jpindar 8y ago
    There was a time when American football players didn't wear helmets, or wore only soft leather ones. Men DIED on the field from head injuries. In 1905 there were 19 fatalities.
jedberg 8y ago
> Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport? For the poor, it is a way out. Even if you don't hit the pro level, being good at football can get you a full ride scholarship to a great school. One of my friends at Berkeley was in exactly this situation. He grew up very very poor, played football at the local high school, and managed to get a football scholarship to Berkeley. He wasn't very good at football, and rarely played at all, but he did get a full ride scholarship that covered tuition, housing, food, books, and a small stipend for living expenses. He also got a job working in the residence halls, which also came with free housing and food, so he basically made money in college. Then he graduated with a PhD in Education. He could have never afforded that without football.
- bgroins 8y ago
  If only we used all of that money spent on football programs to pay for higher education for poor kids. Wishful thinking I know.
  - kolbe 8y ago
    Football enriches most universities, giving them extra funds to do things like provide scholarships.
    - joshuas 8y ago
      This is not true, most universities lose money on their sports programs.
      - Someone 8y ago
        I don’t know whether it is true, but “Football enriches most universities“ is not inconsistent with that. Football may bring in less money than the other sports cost.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    There's an argument to be made that football helps a lot more than just the football players. At most big football schools, the money they make from football pays for all of the athletes in all sports, men and women (along with the basketball profits to some extent). That's a lot of student athletes getting scholarships, and most of them don't continue in their sport after graduation.
post_break 8y ago
At what point do we stop banning things because someone else doesn't like it?
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  Who said anything about banning something? It looks entirely plausible to me that football will die out within my lifetime simply because people don't want to play or watch it anymore.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

briffle 8y ago

So your advocating for an abstinence only education, when it comes to football?

komali2 8y ago
Or, to not have helmets at all, or much thinner helmets. Much like bare-knuckle or thin-padded gloves contribute to less "hard" hits being thrown in UFC than in boxing, or how Rugby players don't get the kind of brain injuries because they aren't smacking their heads into eachother as hard as football players are.
- slg 8y ago
  Helmets were introduced because a dozen plus kids were dying every year playing it due to things like skull fractures. Football is an inherently violent game and it is because of the rules not the helmets.
- lloydde 8y ago
  UFC: study that supports that assetion verses other factors like less money/rewards, shorter careers and full body contact? Different weight classes? Boxing vs Muay Thai? Yes, intuitively smaller gloves should contribute to less slow damage, but should also cause more acute and immediate injuries.
sakuronto 8y ago
Yes, in the same way I'd argue for an abstinence-only education when it comes to repeatedly bashing your own head against the wall.

ggg9990 8y ago

The US has a violence fetish, the same way that the UK has a class fetish. The football quarterback is the highest status kid in the school because he is the leader of an organization demonstrated to deliver and endure violence.

tgb 8y ago
Surely this is better explained as just another instance of best-player-of-most-popular-sport-is-popular? The same dynamic happens in countries where the considerably less violent of the two "footballs" is played. And star basketball players also are extraordinarily popular. Maybe the only distinction in American football being that a single individual gets to make nearly all the scoring plays and is designated with a specific role so that everyone knows who they are.
adventured 8y ago
Your premise is very weak in relation to US sports being a supporting argument. It comes across as though you've never actually played football or been on a football team. Players on one team largely go out of their way to avoid injuring players on the other team. The vast majority of the game is free motion, not the application of violence. Another large fraction of the game is what can best be described as aggressive shoving and using your body to push or block, not super violent at all. The quarterback, further, doesn't lead the defense. The job of the offense, which the QB leads, is to score. Ideally that occurs with the minimum amount of violence necessary, not the maximum amount. Offensive players mostly want to avoid that whenever possible. The quarterback does not inherently lead the team and does not lead the defense at all (ie the primary appliers of violence). The quarterback is popular because he's the center of the offense, which does the scoring, which is exciting. Not because he leads a violent machine. Basketball players in high school that are talented, are equally popular, because scoring points is exciting in every sport. Hockey is occasionally a quite violent sport. Gretzky wasn't one of the most popular players in hockey history because he was violent - it was because he scored at a rate nobody else ever has. The same goes for Mario Lemieux and countless other scorers. Baseball is particularly not violent. You know, America's pastime sport that tens of millions of people go to see every year and is wildly popular. Basketball is no more violent than soccer.

gldalmaso 8y ago

There are several sports than can be dangerous and involve risk of death, like basically all forms of racing, climbing, endurance, etc. As long as practitioners are educated and consenting, I don't see a problem. The problem is if the those responsible for the athletes are not upfront on the risks, or if the athlete is not able to make a proper judgement to consent, like a child.

Cerium 8y ago
The problem with sports like football is that they are an accumulative damage sport as opposed to a safe until accident sport.
jacobsenscott 8y ago
In all the sports you named - brain injury is not a regular part of the sport - it happens when something goes wrong. In football players suffer mild traumatic brain injury in every game, as a regular part of game play.
- rkangel 8y ago
  While this seems to be the likely scenario, this isn't actually known for sure yet. We know that every concussion causes cumulative damage, but it is unclear what level of sub-concussive hit causes cumulative damage? It's almost certainly not 'none', but we don't know whether it's a light tap, or an almost concussive hit. For example, it could be that concussion is a red herring and certain angles and acceleration profiles are the issue and these don't correlate at all with concussion.
privacypoller 8y ago
Yes, there are risks in all these activities, the problem with full-contact football, or hockey & lacrosse is that there is no way to be educated and consenting for an aspect that is inherent to the very nature of the activity, especially if you're a kid. Up in Canada the pro-contact hockey crowd loves to talk about "teaching kids how to hit properly" which I'd suspect is a similar attitude to those coaching 5-yr-olds in full-pads football. But what does this mean? They seem to think that by addressing the technique of what is at it's a core a violent and damaging activity you can somehow mitigate the effects. I'm not buying it. Football is even worse; it's not the highlight reel tackles but the every single play collisions at the line that lead to long term, consistently demonstrated traumatic head injuries. Frankly I feel that the NFL working to address the root causes of head injuries is like asking Facebook to take care of personal information and privacy protection. They are entirely incompatible.

bcohen5055 8y ago

Yes, because seat belts and airbags only encourage people to drive faster and more reckless

blueatlas 8y ago
But there's no legal or financial liability for a football player running faster or hitting harder. He can pretty much do it without recourse and actually have people cheer him for his impressive speed and strength.
jessaustin 8y ago
Ask a cyclist about that. Risk compensation is real.

francisofascii 8y ago

Simply play two hand touch or flag. Football is a fun game to watch and play without tackling.

privacypoller 8y ago
I agree with you that this addresses the game of football, but certainly not the business of football. Which one do you think the NFL cares more about?
- francisofascii 8y ago
  If the NFL switched to two hand touch 10 years from now, people would still watch. The violence is not essential. The competition, strategy, amazing throws and catches, speed, team aspect, drama, and unpredictability make it fun to watch.
  - awgm 8y ago
    I would be very surprised if football survived at the level of popularity it enjoys now without the violent hits
- r00fus 8y ago
  NFL players are like the modern gladiator. They look resplendent in their armor. It's core to the image of Football.
- jsgo 8y ago
  In the modern era, people bemoan that officials are extra protective of quarterbacks relative to previous generations due to and specifically for Tom Brady. Common refrain, right? But the thing is: they still watch. Yeah, there'd be calls of it being "soft" or "these guys couldn't play with the greats from yesteryear" or the like as there are now, but they'd still watch. The second biggest sport in the US that I can think of (could very well be wrong) is the NBA and it isn't really known for violence being beneficial to the players/game (after the 90s, a lot of what would fly before stopped). Yeah, there are flops or drawing flags by intentionally getting into a play, but it seems the preferred method to force fouls at the end of the game isn't to blindside your opponent but to draw the ref's attention and hold/grab the opposing player. I was a bit bummed with the "boycott" over the knee taking as I had actually stopped watching around the same time due to all of the CTE research that came out around the same time. Hated the feeling that somehow me not watching due to that was going to get tallied in with people who are anti-protest. I do think if they could solve this problem (CTE), I'd be game to watch again, but I honestly think it isn't solvable.

megaman22 8y ago

Because it's a blast to play. And treating children like they are made of glass is a terrible way to raise them.

atommclain 8y ago

Risk compensation. For those interested, here is the relevant Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

kaycebasques 8y ago
Universal Principles Of Design [1] mentions this, as well. Rather counterintuitively, the solution for reducing brain injuries in football may be to remove helmets altogether. [1] https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592535879/amsi-20 https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592535879/amsi-20
- jpindar 8y ago
  There was a time when American football players didn't wear helmets, or wore only soft leather ones. Men DIED on the field from head injuries. In 1905 there were 19 fatalities.

jedberg 8y ago

> Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport? For the poor, it is a way out. Even if you don't hit the pro level, being good at football can get you a full ride scholarship to a great school. One of my friends at Berkeley was in exactly this situation. He grew up very very poor, played football at the local high school, and managed to get a football scholarship to Berkeley. He wasn't very good at football, and rarely played at all, but he did get a full ride scholarship that covered tuition, housing, food, books, and a small stipend for living expenses. He also got a job working in the residence halls, which also came with free housing and food, so he basically made money in college. Then he graduated with a PhD in Education. He could have never afforded that without football.

bgroins 8y ago
If only we used all of that money spent on football programs to pay for higher education for poor kids. Wishful thinking I know.
- kolbe 8y ago
  Football enriches most universities, giving them extra funds to do things like provide scholarships.
  - joshuas 8y ago
    This is not true, most universities lose money on their sports programs.
    - Someone 8y ago
      I don’t know whether it is true, but “Football enriches most universities“ is not inconsistent with that. Football may bring in less money than the other sports cost.
- jedberg 8y ago
  There's an argument to be made that football helps a lot more than just the football players. At most big football schools, the money they make from football pays for all of the athletes in all sports, men and women (along with the basketball profits to some extent). That's a lot of student athletes getting scholarships, and most of them don't continue in their sport after graduation.

post_break 8y ago

At what point do we stop banning things because someone else doesn't like it?

0xffff2 8y ago
Who said anything about banning something? It looks entirely plausible to me that football will die out within my lifetime simply because people don't want to play or watch it anymore.