Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy [CTE]

[Sgt PSN]

Yeah, I don't get the mindset that just because these guys choose to play, that they should be ok with their brain being slowly turned to mush.  It's a really obtuse point of view.   

The long term affects of the game on the body are very well documented and have been for decades.  Everyone knows that guys who play in the NFL are going to have painful joints and muscles much earlier in life than regular folks.  Broken bones and torn ligaments and muscles are an not preventable, even in non-contact sports.  However, I think that the NFL was aware of the studies on the long term affects on the brain through repeated hits to the head and didn't implement requirements for better equipment or make rule changes to reduce head on head collisions until after players started offing themselves.

Being a cop comes with the risk of getting shot and studies show that bullets are bad for the body.  So police departments give their officers bullet proof vests.  But if they didn't, cops and the families of dead cops would be furious.  So why is it ok for the NFL to sit on it's hands over the last 20 years in terms of player safety?  Does anyone really believe that these discoveries have just been made in the last 5 years or so?  The league could have been a lot more proactive in demanding the development of better equipment or making some rule changes to protect players a lot sooner than they did.  But they didn't because better equipment is expensive and they were scared of losing their fan base and hurting profits.     

You can't prevent major injuries in a sport like football, but you can at least be proactive in trying to minimize risk to your players, especially when it comes to your farging brain.  And I don't think the NFL was proactive in player safety at all.

[Diomedes]

If my idea is right, I think bigger shoulder pads would be a marginal improvement at best, because it's not just head to head contact that causes these brain injuries.  They occur in all kinds of collisions because the armor confers a sense of invincibility which allows players to go much harder than they would without them. 

But hey, maybe that's the way to go.  That is, maybe we decide "okay, so the pads and helmets are part of the problem, but you know what, farg it...we like the game the way it is, so we're just going to call CTE is an occupational hazard, make changes around the margins like bigger shoulder pads, implement a host of other measures to care for active and retired players as best as possible, and increase pay to the players as compensation for the hazard they assume by playing." 

That or, strip the armor, let the game change, and enjoy a drastic drop in CTE.

[Diomedes]

...I think that the NFL was aware of the studies on the long term affects on the brain through repeated hits to the head and didn't implement requirements for better equipment or make rule changes to reduce head on head collisions until after players started offing themselves.

For the record, I have seen no credible reporting to suggest this is true, and though I'm quick to condemn the greedy capitalists who run this plantation country, I just don't see them doing this. 

[Zanshin]

I don't think there's a realistic way to get rid of this problem while keeping what makes football football. It's a documented dangerous sport played by massive, fast men who treat their bodies like torpedoes on a regular basis. The very best that padding tweaks can do is slightly mitigate the risk (which they should do)..but it won't make this problem go away. Players should have the best equipment, and they should have the latest information...and even with that many will play and will have consequences like this down the line. It's baked into the unrelentingly violent nature of the game.

[Sgt PSN]

...I think that the NFL was aware of the studies on the long term affects on the brain through repeated hits to the head and didn't implement requirements for better equipment or make rule changes to reduce head on head collisions until after players started offing themselves.

For the record, I have seen no credible reporting to suggest this is true, and though I'm quick to condemn the greedy capitalists who run this plantation country, I just don't see them doing this. 

I haven't either.  But I do think that the league was aware of it before the general public and definitely before the players were.  Maybe it wasn't 20 years, but I think they knew.  At an absolute minimum, I think the league is negligent in at least putting the extra warning label on the game.  If players know the risk and don't demand better equipment or rule changes, then it's totally on them.  But you have to give them all of the information upfront, or once it becomes available and I don't think the league was very forthright with that info. 

The league (and union) is also guilty, imo, of failing to take care of past players.  Obviously someone who played 20 years ago had no idea about CTE and maybe the league didn't either at the time.  But once CTE was "discovered" the league and union should have immediately been reaching out to former players urging them to get their heads examined and assisting with the costs and it seems like there was a lot of hesitation from both parties to do so.   

[Diomedes]

There is no way to get your head examined for CTE without cutting the brain in half, so fat lot of good it will do anyone until a real exam is available.  If the breakthrough I posted about works, or leads to something that works, then things are going to get interesting.

If you can get a picture that proves brain damage, well, that's going to change some shtein.

[ice grillin you]

i think we should make coal mining more dangerous since coal miners dont have to mine coal

no more canary for YOU!

[Diomedes]

Worst analogy ever.

Might want to read more books and fewer entertainment magazines, Einstein.

[QB Eagles]

I think we're going to learn that the problem is the helmets and gear.  In time I think what we're going to see is that the hard shell helmet and facemask, not to mention other padding, allows our ever stronger and faster athletes to do much greater damage to their brains than would happen without it.  In time, I think we'll see that yes, you can get CTE from rugby and boxing and the like, but that the percentage of players who suffer brain damage is much greater in football and hockey. 

The solution will be simple: to stop using hard shell helmets, facemasks and body armor.  The game will change, but not much.  You can still have a wicked violent football game without all the gear.  And the result over years will be a decrease in CTE.

I agree that helmets are a big contributor to this. It's counterintuitive to people, but it's a well-understood economic phenomenon. People take more risks when they think they are protected. Studies have been done on the speed of football hits vs rugby or Aussie football hits, and we know the increased speed is due to the added protection. The number of car crashes went up when seat belts became mandatory. Now, the number of fatal accidents went down, but the overall number went up (as well as the number of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths) because people drive less safely the more protected they feel. When you shield a guy from hurting his head in most circumstances, he's going to take more chances with his head. It's not something we always do consciously, it's just the way we are wired.

Not sure I agree that boxing won't have the problem as much as football, though. The whole point in boxing is to bash someone's head in. When you KO a guy, you are giving him a concussion. If football is played perfectly, heads aren't hit at all. The big benefit of removing helmets is that guys would do more to avoid hitting their head at all, not that they would try to lessen the force of the head blows (although they would do that also).

[PhillyPhreak54]

NEW ORLEANS -- Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed said former NFL linebacker Junior Seau, who police say committed suicide and reportedly had brain damage from repeated concussions, "signed up for it'' when he came into the NFL.

Reed, who has been in the league since 2002, also said Tuesday he already has experienced issues that he believes stem from past concussions.

"I feel effects from it,'' Reed said, speaking during Super Bowl media day. "Some days, I wake up and I'm like, 'Where did my memory go?' But I signed up for it.''

While being asked about the hot topic of concussions, Reed repeatedly said he and other players know football is a violent game and realized the dangers going in.

That prompted a reporter to ask if Seau had signed up for it.

"Did he sign up for it?'' Reed said. "Yeah, he signed up for it.''

Reed then said several more times that all players accept the potential risks before turning back to Seau.

"Junior gave everything he had to football,'' Reed said. "I'm sure he's looking down and has no regrets.''

[Diomedes]

Ask him if he'd let his kid play.

[Rome]

Haha... what?

You realize you're posting on an NFL football message board, right?

The farg has happened to you, Dio?

[PhillyPhreak54]

It should be the kids choice to play.

What if the kid only likes football? Want him playing and getting physical exercise or playing video games all day?

[Diomedes]

Haha... what?

You realize you're posting on an NFL football message board, right?

The farg has happened to you, Dio?

Oh look, someone did ask him:

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/01/29/ed-reed-i-am-with-obama-on-not-letting-my-kids-play-football/

[Rome]

So the 150 pound Harvard law b-ball playing nerd doesn't think he'd let his equally tiny offspring play a violent contact sport?