Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy [CTE]

[Sgt PSN]

It wouldn't be if the NFL would just admit their wrong doing and take care of their former players.

[Diomedes]

I think it will still be the end.  As the days pile on, more and more evidence is going to mean fewer and fewer kids playing.   High schools and colleges are going to drop it entirely because they can't afford the risk on top of the actual cost of the game, which is already hight.

And then there are the mothers.  If there are, for the sake of argument, 20 million kids at the bottom of the player pyramind which comes to a pinnacle in the NFL...how much of a reduction in that number can the game withstand before the product on the field starts to look weaker?  10%?  20%? 

The game is already something of a last ditch chance for a lot of kids, but there is also still a huge portion of the playing population which hail from affluent homes where the kids have a future other than the streets.  Those kids are going to vanish because their mothers read news papers and go to the doctor's office, etc.  The playing population will become darker and poorer and less educated and the whole enterprise will lose it's ability to come off as a sport rather than a plantation.

25 years from now the NFL will be very different, and I think less powerful, popular, and palatable.

[QB Eagles]

The playing population will become darker and poorer and less educated and the whole enterprise will lose it's ability to come off as a sport rather than a plantation.

Not at all convinced America would care about that. People love to watch the SEC slave league, where the talent is way worse than the NFL, typically isn't affluent or educated, and looks like the result of genetic and chemical experiments some scientists ran on sharecroppers back in the eugenics era. Oh yeah and they get paid zero (officially) rather than the big bucks the NFL tosses around.

The NFL will continue to make more money than ever and the machine will survive just fine. The spice must flow.

[Sgt PSN]

Dangle a golden carrot in front of (poor) people and they'll run through walls head first to get it. Consequences be damned.

[QB Eagles]

Dangle a golden carrot in front of (poor) people and they'll run through walls head first to get it. Consequences be damned.

In all fairness, if you're both poor and dumb, you might be willing to accept some CTE to get filthy stinking rich. In fact, a lot of people who aren't dumb and aren't poor may make that evaluation. Just like a lot of the players already in the league would rather take a hit on a part of their body where it will give them the shakes in their 50s rather than where it will end their career in their 20s.

[Diomedes]

Fewer and fewer players as the years pile on will cause the game to atrophy if nothing else, and there is no doubt whatsoever that fewer will be playing.

[General_Failure]

The number playing will probably hurt colleges, but the NFL will only be hurt by the number watching.

[Sgt PSN]

As long as Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida are above water, there will be no shortage of parents pushing their kids into football.

[Sgt PSN]

And right on cue I hear about this.


http://youtu.be/aFXpqZzFgy4

Texas.

[Diomedes]

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/31/269422083/sidelined-by-brain-injury-ex-nfl-player-copes-with-desperation

Sean Morey and his brain damage profiled by NPR.

[Diomedes]

it's not news, it's cnn

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/01/health/jenkins-nfl/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

[Tomahawk]

After watching League of Denial on PBS the other night, I agree with Dio. Except I don't think it's mom's keeping their kids from playing that ends/changes the NFL; it'll be legislation.

[Tomahawk]

[Seabiscuit36]

More and more I keep coming to the conclusion for modern day players Boo freaking hoo.  You made a crap ton of money in a short period of time, and you gave up a part of yourself to do so.  You don't hear this shtein from Boxers or MMA guys, they understand the deal that they've made. 

[Zanshin]

That's really what it's about, I think. Nobody can claim surprise about this anymore. It's about making that choice knowing the inherent risks, at least going forward.