You can't hit above the shoulders, which makes a pretty big difference.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
NYT: Out of 111 NFL players' brains, 110 tested positive for CTE.
- Thread starter torre_avenue
- Start date
You can't hit above the shoulders, which makes a pretty big difference.
MisterR
Member
Good point, at least with basketball though, there is a lot of opportunity for good players, not quiet good enough for the NBA, to have long, very lucrative, careers overseas.
LegendofJoe
Member
And you can still get scholarships without having to pay for them with brain damage.
gamechanger87
Member
But they are competing with the international player pool over there as well. It one of the reasons you don't see as many athletic kids in the US going fully into soccer.
lightskintwin
Banned
Football has stronger, bigger, faster athletes hitting you.
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
Is cte prevalent in rugby?
Maybe, and I know it will never happen
But they should move to tag football
Maybe, and I know it will never happen
But they should move to tag football
GoldenEye 007
Member
We'd have to know if the level of scrutiny and research matches football, though. Until we know where it is and we determine it is a similar level of scrutiny and reporting, we can't say that some of these other sports are less dangerous based on a potential lack of information.
lightskintwin
Banned
What? International player pools has nothing to do with Athletic kids in the US not going fully in soccer. LOL
Ok, that's a good point.
Alex_Mexico
Member
More kids choosing soccer over American football because of this could mean a colossal change for the better of American soccer. You guys have everything to be a world soccer superpower if you only gave a damn.
gamechanger87
Member
I meant competing for the big bucks. The best soccer players make way more money than the best football players. Its harder to make it big in soccer versus football.
lightskintwin
Banned
But that has nothing to do with why American kids don't play it.
It's pretty simple, it's just not popular here. That's it.
MisterR
Member
To some degree, but if you're a decent player at a D1 US basketball program, you can make good money overseas.
How old is your son?
I am part of the board of directors in a local youth flag football league in which both of my sons (ages 5 and 10) play. Neither of them have had any significant injuries and across the league we have have very few injures that required any sort of medical attention.
As for youth participation, our league has doubled in size over the last few years and now we are more or less at capacity for what we can offer. We get a lot of kids coming from hockey, and are happy that they can play football in a "safe" environment. We do see the enrollment drop off once the kids hit high school, but we are pushing to try and get more to play through their teen age years as there are some tremendous athletes and very good competition that can be had for flag football. Even at my 10 years old age group, I'm often amazed at how good the kids are and how exciting the games can be.
Those that feel this is unacceptable need to vote with their wallet. You can't expect change if you tune in every Saturday and Sunday.
My dad's side is a lot of Samoans so several of them play football, my father included and I've got cousins that are on college teams as I type this. That said it surprised me that many are backing off of this now and don't really want to let their kids get into. I think Junior Seau's suicide really had a huge affect on the Polynesian community and its connection to football in some ways.
Earthbound64
Banned
Absurd sport.
Just ban it.
Just ban it.
Except that heading soccer balls also leads to CTE. Basically anything that involves even small repeated impacts to the head is bad over time. Most of the big sports are going to have to make significant changes to avoid CTE.
radios shipping overview
Member
At this point I'm glad that I mostly sat on the sidelines when my parents put me into junior high tackle football.
MugiwaraCole
Member
That's the thing though.
This is damning evidence as to the effects of the game, but the people playing these days know it already. In regards to them, nothing wrong is really being done. They're consenting adults/young adults.
For that reason, I'm not really for getting rid of the sport. If people want to play it (and let me tell you, if I had a time machine and could go back in time and decide to not walk away from football for track in college a few years ago, I still would. I loved playing the game, and I miss it dearly), they should be allowed to. But only after they're made completely aware of what it will do to them.
Latvian Hitman
Member
StreetDisciple
Member
Price you pay for playing football. Its a contact sport. To many people who care nothing about football trying to make rules for it. Before you know it you guys would strip it down to two hand touch. Its disgusting...let it be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5jZQZ1GY7Q
Exactly how I feel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5jZQZ1GY7Q
Exactly how I feel.
Any abrupt stop your head makes sloshes your brain around in your skull. There is no helmet that will make football as it's currently played safe from CTE. Impact sports like boxing, football and hockey need huge changes. Soccer just needs to eliminate heading the ball.
gamechanger87
Member
Latvian Hitman
Member
Nah, I got that the image was a joke, but too many people think helmet technology will fix the problem. Besides an NFL concussion helmet from the 90's would probably have been funnier since they were real.
Latvian Hitman
Member
I agree with that part. Once you're 18, you're free to make those choices, but the other side to the coin is that our kids are playing tackle football as early as grade school. If any non sports-related school sponsored activity was linked to these kinds of symptoms later in life, it would be banned immediately. But football and soccer? Won't be touched.
PhantomHound
Banned
Stop watching football. Everyone takes it way too seriously... and forget about the NFL, our kids are being injured everyday to satisfy your silly game.
SomedayTheFire
Member
Train people to tackle properly? Stop them going headfirst into everything? Stop head on head clashes?
biggersmaller
Banned
Few care. Consenting adults. Bla bla bla bla.
We should drop all full contact pre-college football though. We don't have boxing or MMA fighting as a grade school athletic sport for a reason.
We should drop all full contact pre-college football though. We don't have boxing or MMA fighting as a grade school athletic sport for a reason.
DizzyCaffeine
Member
Every single football fan
We're too busy constructing the perfect fantasy football team to care.
Latvian Hitman
Member
This is like trying to decrease substance abuse by proclaiming that people need to "parent better." Sounds great, but there's no way to enforce it or put it into practice.
Even if you could, head-to-head contact is not the sole source of CTE. Any type of collision, whether the head is directly involved or not, sloshes your brain around a little. It all adds up over time.
bigmit3737
Member
I think the NFL has hit its peak and it will go downhill.
NFL has gotten too big and the execs will make some blunders trying to squeeze more profits .
And I just don't think the younger /future generations will be into this sport -- it's barbaric and not the kind of barbaric stuff that kids seem to be into these days . I think basketball may eventually overtake football .
Just doesn't feel like there is a future unless there is drastic change .
NFL has gotten too big and the execs will make some blunders trying to squeeze more profits .
And I just don't think the younger /future generations will be into this sport -- it's barbaric and not the kind of barbaric stuff that kids seem to be into these days . I think basketball may eventually overtake football .
Just doesn't feel like there is a future unless there is drastic change .
when I played HS football, my coach would cheer on me and others that would go helmet to chest. Spearing people. Thankfully, I was utter shit at the sport... example: Played Defensive Back on Offense, cost us a touchdown. My career shortly ended after that.
I'd never let a loved one get into it. They cheer on brain smashing collisions.
It's really not that hard to not have brutal violence and still be an enjoyable sport. Simple:
1. only tackle within a certain time of the snap. So that reduces the momentum.
2. No tackling the QB, which is already there. I think. But period.
3. Add in leg sweeps and jersey pulling + other CQC methods.
4. FUCKING PROFIT.
Poohblaster
Member
It's ultimate frisbee's time to shine!
Taking people to the ground means head impacts with the ground. Tackling has to be removed from the game to remove CTE. You are basically left with flag football.
I have a 6yr old, he's not playing, period. They do youth flag football around here, after that, nah.
No, because Rugby and other sports aren't rife with CTE. Maybe reduce the amount of body armor that football players have, and that will reduce the amount of contact and momentum. Right now you feel like you're an armored tank, plowing through a body. It feels great, sure. But there is more to the game of football, than just smashing eachother as hard as you can.
They don't know which sports are rife with CTE because currently they can only diagnose people posthumously. Once they develop a test for living people I can only imagine the results will be staggering.
Widdle Puppy
Banned
Isn't this what killed boxing?
adamsappel
Member
It would be interesting to see what they could come up with for "professional" flag football. Obviously it wouldn't be a couple of straps Velcro'd to a belt. Something electronic that could also whistle a play dead, perfectly spot the ball, etc.
The 110 included kickers, but I would like to know what position it was.
I closed that before it even started. It's a visceral thrill to see a hard hit during a game, but a highlight reel makes it too apparent I'm watching brain damage in the making.
Didn't they neuter part of the story anyway, because of pressure from the NFL?
I felt boxing started to die when it left network tv. It helped HBO for a long time, but I can't justify paying $100 for a PPV of fighters I haven't seen or care about.
FrenchMovieTheme
Member
How do you know this?
The Jazz Cabbage Master
Member
They can change it.
If they don't, and continue to allow this shit to happen it can all burn to the ground for all I care. In the face of the mountain of evidence the sport needs to adapt.
Okay, parsing over the study itself, it looks like the study was completed in essentially 2 stages.
1. A blind clinical survey (i.e. the survey takers don't know the pathological state of the donor) to the families of the deceased, where they essentially assemble the progression of the participant's symptoms, such as changes in mood or cognitive function.
2. A blind pathological evaluation (i.e. the pathologists don't know the symptomatic state of the participants). Basically they look at brain tissue samples and determine whether it has CTE by discrete physiological changes.
Among 202 samples, they diagnosed CTE in 87%. Of those 202, 111 were NFL players, and 110 had CTE.
What was most interesting to me was this:
"There were no asymptomatic (ie, no mood/behavior or cognitive symptoms) CTE cases."
I mean, on one hand, no shit, but on the other, it's makes a compelling case that the physiological state is likely never asymptomatic.
Finally, the authors do lay out the limitations of their study, namely that they only have samples from people who donated, and of course that would bias for people who already have CTE, and this overall doesn't allow us to draw conclusions about the participants of the sport at large.
My question, though, is how much would the public consider acceptable risk? 1 out of 10 players? 1 out of 20 players? 1 out of 100?
1. A blind clinical survey (i.e. the survey takers don't know the pathological state of the donor) to the families of the deceased, where they essentially assemble the progression of the participant's symptoms, such as changes in mood or cognitive function.
2. A blind pathological evaluation (i.e. the pathologists don't know the symptomatic state of the participants). Basically they look at brain tissue samples and determine whether it has CTE by discrete physiological changes.
Among 202 samples, they diagnosed CTE in 87%. Of those 202, 111 were NFL players, and 110 had CTE.
What was most interesting to me was this:
"There were no asymptomatic (ie, no mood/behavior or cognitive symptoms) CTE cases."
I mean, on one hand, no shit, but on the other, it's makes a compelling case that the physiological state is likely never asymptomatic.
Finally, the authors do lay out the limitations of their study, namely that they only have samples from people who donated, and of course that would bias for people who already have CTE, and this overall doesn't allow us to draw conclusions about the participants of the sport at large.
My question, though, is how much would the public consider acceptable risk? 1 out of 10 players? 1 out of 20 players? 1 out of 100?
Similar threads
- Locked