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I am totally crushed by this. Last season I felt guilty every time I watched a football game though I enjoyed it anyway. I used the tortured justification that

I am totally crushed by this. Last season I felt guilty every time I watched a football game though I enjoyed it anyway. I used the tortured justification that many people suffer tragic, difficult lives of mental illness without the fame and fortune that comes with being a football player. That the suffering is a horrible thing but perhaps increased awareness will lead to rules changes and better player safety (I suspect the complex helmets and padding are actually the cause of brutality and concussions in football because the players use the padding as a weapon and as justification to go to physical extremes they would not dare try without their armor). But the moral weight of teenagers and twenty somethings who will never have the economic advantages that come with a professional career, and who are supposedly in college to begin the productive part of their life where they grow as human beings, are suffering in exactly the same way while the NCAA and its Universities profit from it is too much.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
I'm not sure helmets and padding are the driving issues here-aren't a lot of cases of CTE caused by sub concussive hits? Like linemen who hit each other on plays and have their brains rattled around? I'm not sure what can be done to ameliorate that, other than turning football into flag football.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ritchiea 12y ago
  I often wonder if football could be played without pads like rugby. And yes I do think the damage done to linemen can be attributed to helmets because when you have a helmet you have a false sense of security that you can smash your head into another person or another person's helmet without injury. I suspect without helmets players would make active attempts to keep their heads out of harms way as much as possible.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > And yes I do think the damage done to linemen can be attributed to helmets I don't. In all eras of football -- including the eras before pads and helmets -- the close-in part has been the most damaging and seen the most fatalities (especially before elaborate protective gear.) Rule changes designed to spread the game out specifically for the purposes of safety have reduced that overall, but the linemen are still in the worst of what remains. > And yes I do think the damage done to linemen can be attributed to helmets No doubt they would -- and did -- but "as much as possible" is unlikely to be enough to offset the increased consequences when it is not possible. Its not like we haven't had football without, or with less effective, helmets.
    - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
      The hits are big and regularly concussive because of the pace of the game. It's very short bursts of activity with lots of rest in between, resulting in enormous players with much explosive power. If there were less than a minute between every play, you simply wouldn't get the huge hits. The players would have to be smaller and trained for more endurance at the expense of power. The existence of special teams and having separate players for offense and defense also contributes to the problem. If the players were forced to play the whole game they simply couldn't be the wrecking balls they are now.
      - panzagl 12y ago
        Ooh, I like this idea- cut rosters down to 25 or so. Game becomes less about specific physical abnormality and there's more money to spread among fewer players.
      - zo1 12y ago
        Not a bad start. But have you seen the size of regular rugby players? They still specialize from the looks of it, and even the "small/fast" players are 6ft+ and above average in weight and build.
        12y ago
Goronmon 12y ago
(I suspect the complex helmets and padding are actually the cause of brutality and concussions in football because the players use the padding as a weapon and as justification to go to physical extremes they would not dare try without their armor) I suspect that helmets and padding are the reason we don't see more deaths at all levels of play.
- falcolas 12y ago
  Watch some Rugby and get back to us on that one. Same basic mechanics (tackling, diving, etc), but done with more caution because they aren't armored tanks.
  - ritchiea 12y ago
    Exactly! As I stated in the other thread off this comment, I wonder what American football would look like without padding like rugby.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    While not as bad as American Football, rugby is still pretty bad - my son plays rugby at U16 level and the level of injuries you see are pretty striking - broken bones aren't exactly uncommon. Still rugby is a great game and he loves it and I love watching him play. [Scrums are the really scary bit of rugby as of the risks to players necks - fortunately he is a No 8. not a prop!].
    - ritchiea 12y ago
      The thing is everyone knows these sports are brutal and can lead to broken bones. It's concussions that are of a larger concern.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        Concussions are of larger concern largely because we've reduced the problem of one particular kind of broken bone (to wit, the skull -- which was a fairly serious problem in football) to a more manageable level with protective gear. I don't think reducing the impact of concussions by returning to the age of deaths by brain injuries from broken skulls is a way forward.
cafard 12y ago
Football was pretty brutal in the leather-helmet day. There was a series of deaths in college games that led schools and the government to consider abolishing it, and ended in reforms (no "flying wedge" was one). Even after that, football was hard on the body, and a lot of players lived out their post-football days in steady pain. I believe that a major reason that we are noticing the brain problems now is that American men are living longer than they did fifty years ago. A man who is grouchy and eccentric in his fifties and dies of a heart attack at sixty isn't much noticed. But it is hard not to notice a guy who progresses in his sixties from eccentricity to dementia, and lives another twenty years a fog.
- _sword 12y ago
  My (I believe) great-grandfather was on the Yale football team during their famed flying wedge days and back when the leather helmets were their only protection. As far as my memory of our family records can remember, he died in his early fifties / late forties of some brain related complications I can't recall at the moment. What I remember very well, however, is that the doctors of the day attributed the complications that caused his death to his time playing football on the Yale football team. I have no idea if the same conclusions would be drawn by doctors today today, but I thought it is an interesting anecdote to share nonetheless.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> suspect the complex helmets and padding are actually the cause of brutality and concussions in football They aren't the cause of brutality, but they probably are the cause, in a way, of concussions and lots of the cumulative damage -- but still an improvement over not having them. Specifically, the modern "complex helmets" are a direct result of a past crisis in fatal brain injuries in football, peaking in the 1960s, and directly reduced them, you probably wouldn't have so many people surviving with brain injuries during football when instead they were dying from much more serious brain injuries.
- washadjeffmad 12y ago
  So it's similar to what happened following the adoption of metal helmets over cloth hats in WW1; injuries increased significantly because immediately attributable casualties decreased. The helmets stopped soldiers from dying but didn't deter them from risky behavior. I wonder what the brain damage rates of players of a game like rugby are?

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

I'm not sure helmets and padding are the driving issues here-aren't a lot of cases of CTE caused by sub concussive hits? Like linemen who hit each other on plays and have their brains rattled around? I'm not sure what can be done to ameliorate that, other than turning football into flag football.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ritchiea 12y ago
I often wonder if football could be played without pads like rugby. And yes I do think the damage done to linemen can be attributed to helmets because when you have a helmet you have a false sense of security that you can smash your head into another person or another person's helmet without injury. I suspect without helmets players would make active attempts to keep their heads out of harms way as much as possible.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > And yes I do think the damage done to linemen can be attributed to helmets I don't. In all eras of football -- including the eras before pads and helmets -- the close-in part has been the most damaging and seen the most fatalities (especially before elaborate protective gear.) Rule changes designed to spread the game out specifically for the purposes of safety have reduced that overall, but the linemen are still in the worst of what remains. > And yes I do think the damage done to linemen can be attributed to helmets No doubt they would -- and did -- but "as much as possible" is unlikely to be enough to offset the increased consequences when it is not possible. Its not like we haven't had football without, or with less effective, helmets.
  - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
    The hits are big and regularly concussive because of the pace of the game. It's very short bursts of activity with lots of rest in between, resulting in enormous players with much explosive power. If there were less than a minute between every play, you simply wouldn't get the huge hits. The players would have to be smaller and trained for more endurance at the expense of power. The existence of special teams and having separate players for offense and defense also contributes to the problem. If the players were forced to play the whole game they simply couldn't be the wrecking balls they are now.
    - panzagl 12y ago
      Ooh, I like this idea- cut rosters down to 25 or so. Game becomes less about specific physical abnormality and there's more money to spread among fewer players.
    - zo1 12y ago
      Not a bad start. But have you seen the size of regular rugby players? They still specialize from the looks of it, and even the "small/fast" players are 6ft+ and above average in weight and build.
      - 12y ago

Goronmon 12y ago

(I suspect the complex helmets and padding are actually the cause of brutality and concussions in football because the players use the padding as a weapon and as justification to go to physical extremes they would not dare try without their armor) I suspect that helmets and padding are the reason we don't see more deaths at all levels of play.

falcolas 12y ago
Watch some Rugby and get back to us on that one. Same basic mechanics (tackling, diving, etc), but done with more caution because they aren't armored tanks.
- ritchiea 12y ago
  Exactly! As I stated in the other thread off this comment, I wonder what American football would look like without padding like rugby.
- arethuza 12y ago
  While not as bad as American Football, rugby is still pretty bad - my son plays rugby at U16 level and the level of injuries you see are pretty striking - broken bones aren't exactly uncommon. Still rugby is a great game and he loves it and I love watching him play. [Scrums are the really scary bit of rugby as of the risks to players necks - fortunately he is a No 8. not a prop!].
  - ritchiea 12y ago
    The thing is everyone knows these sports are brutal and can lead to broken bones. It's concussions that are of a larger concern.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Concussions are of larger concern largely because we've reduced the problem of one particular kind of broken bone (to wit, the skull -- which was a fairly serious problem in football) to a more manageable level with protective gear. I don't think reducing the impact of concussions by returning to the age of deaths by brain injuries from broken skulls is a way forward.

cafard 12y ago

Football was pretty brutal in the leather-helmet day. There was a series of deaths in college games that led schools and the government to consider abolishing it, and ended in reforms (no "flying wedge" was one). Even after that, football was hard on the body, and a lot of players lived out their post-football days in steady pain. I believe that a major reason that we are noticing the brain problems now is that American men are living longer than they did fifty years ago. A man who is grouchy and eccentric in his fifties and dies of a heart attack at sixty isn't much noticed. But it is hard not to notice a guy who progresses in his sixties from eccentricity to dementia, and lives another twenty years a fog.

_sword 12y ago
My (I believe) great-grandfather was on the Yale football team during their famed flying wedge days and back when the leather helmets were their only protection. As far as my memory of our family records can remember, he died in his early fifties / late forties of some brain related complications I can't recall at the moment. What I remember very well, however, is that the doctors of the day attributed the complications that caused his death to his time playing football on the Yale football team. I have no idea if the same conclusions would be drawn by doctors today today, but I thought it is an interesting anecdote to share nonetheless.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> suspect the complex helmets and padding are actually the cause of brutality and concussions in football They aren't the cause of brutality, but they probably are the cause, in a way, of concussions and lots of the cumulative damage -- but still an improvement over not having them. Specifically, the modern "complex helmets" are a direct result of a past crisis in fatal brain injuries in football, peaking in the 1960s, and directly reduced them, you probably wouldn't have so many people surviving with brain injuries during football when instead they were dying from much more serious brain injuries.

washadjeffmad 12y ago
So it's similar to what happened following the adoption of metal helmets over cloth hats in WW1; injuries increased significantly because immediately attributable casualties decreased. The helmets stopped soldiers from dying but didn't deter them from risky behavior. I wonder what the brain damage rates of players of a game like rugby are?