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Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

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Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#31

Post by moretai »

wyager wrote: post #22
backtoyoujim wrote: post #17

Trying to watch NFL reminds me of the moment in "Django Unchained" when we meet diCaprio's character sitting in a chair watching to slaves beat each other to death. That moment of that movie comes to me every time the TV producers cut to the team owner sitting in their fancy box in their fancy chair paying lots of African American men to beat each other up for our entertainment and profit.

The primary difference, of course, is that NFL players often make more money than God.

Money's real useful when they blow their brains out.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#32

Post by grogenaut »

ambulancechaser wrote: post #18
grogenaut wrote: post #10

Summary: a national football league player, and PhD in math from mit, John Urschel, abruptly retired 2 days after a study showing 99% of retired NFL players from a study group had chronic brain issues (Cte). This is right before training starts for the season. Edit: updates. Will point out that any summary is going to miss some facts as it's a summary. But I think people might be more likely to read the article if th…

> a study showing 99% of NFL players had chronic brain issues (Cte) Just to quibble but I understood that the study revealed that 99% of the group inspected had CTE. The group was not intended to be cross-section of the general population of NFL players. Not to trivialize the results but I think you extended them beyond what they said.

Fixed I think

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#33

Post by grogenaut »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #16
grogenaut wrote: post #10

Summary: a national football league player, and PhD in math from mit, John Urschel, abruptly retired 2 days after a study showing 99% of retired NFL players from a study group had chronic brain issues (Cte). This is right before training starts for the season. Edit: updates. Will point out that any summary is going to miss some facts as it's a summary. But I think people might be more likely to read the article if th…

. . . a study showing 99% of NFL players had chronic brain issues (Cte)" This is not exactly true. The study required volunteers, and from what I understand, the families who volunteered already suspected brain damage, so it's not really a representative study. It's still very alarming, though.

V0.0.2 to address your concerns. Still in alpha and peer review. Expecting public release soon.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#34

Post by ineptech »

Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe?

If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be "Why do you hate America and apple pie" vs "Why do you want children to suffer and die".

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#35

Post by aphextron »

siegecraft wrote: post #29
wyager wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary difference, of course, is that NFL players often make more money than God.

NFL players are probably compensated the worst out of the 4 major US sports. That's just in terms of what they get paid and doesn't even look at the total package of the risk they expose themselves to in terms of chronic injury, painkiller addiction, etc.

>NFL players are probably compensated the worst out of the 4 major US sports. That's just in terms of what they get paid and doesn't even look at the total package of the risk they expose themselves to in terms of chronic injury, painkiller addiction, etc.

Especially when you factor in that they have been doing this to themselves from the age of 8 years old in most cases, all the way through high school and 4 years of college play for no compensation. All for the tiny slim opportunity of maybe one day having a 3 year career in the NFL and earning less total than an MLB rookie's first year signing bonus. The only reason the NFL has their pick of such top talent is because millions of kids in this country spend their lives putting schoolwork and health second to this dream of "making it". There's a massive externalized cost to society which the NFL has arbitrage on.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#36

Post by bearcobra »

wyager wrote: post #22
backtoyoujim wrote: post #17

Trying to watch NFL reminds me of the moment in "Django Unchained" when we meet diCaprio's character sitting in a chair watching to slaves beat each other to death. That moment of that movie comes to me every time the TV producers cut to the team owner sitting in their fancy box in their fancy chair paying lots of African American men to beat each other up for our entertainment and profit.

The primary difference, of course, is that NFL players often make more money than God.

The average career earnings for an NFL player is somewhere around $5 million. That's a lot of money, but I'd argue it isn't a crazy amount to make over an entire career while in the top 1% of the field.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#37

Post by nilved »

Azkar wrote: post #28

So what's the big picture here? We've suspected for years that football leads to brain trauma. Does that mean the NFL should shut down? Should they continue to operate as normal? There have been efforts recently to make the game safer for players, but the amount of concussions and injuries seen every season don't seem to be decreasing. Can you make the game "more safe" without drastically changing the game? Any game…

By this definition football is basically modern Gladiatorial combat.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#38

Post by ssharp »

siegecraft wrote: post #29
wyager wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary difference, of course, is that NFL players often make more money than God.

NFL players are probably compensated the worst out of the 4 major US sports. That's just in terms of what they get paid and doesn't even look at the total package of the risk they expose themselves to in terms of chronic injury, painkiller addiction, etc.

They have non-guaranteed contracts, meaning they could be cut at any time, only the top-tier players get substantial guaranteed money in their contracts, and their average career length is two years shorter than a baseball player and a year shorter than a basketball player.

You are, however, more likely to become an NFL player than an MLB, NBA, or NHL player.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#39

Post by CurtMonash »

I abruptly stopped being a football fan last November.

The immediate reason was Bill Belichick staking his own reputation on Donald Trump's assaults on the media, in a close state in a close election. But CTE was making it hard to remain a football fan anyway.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#40

Post by andrewstuart2 »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #17

Trying to watch NFL reminds me of the moment in "Django Unchained" when we meet diCaprio's character sitting in a chair watching to slaves beat each other to death. That moment of that movie comes to me every time the TV producers cut to the team owner sitting in their fancy box in their fancy chair paying lots of African American men to beat each other up for our entertainment and profit.

The NFL started out as almost exclusively white, and is now very mixed-race and the demographics are pretty purely skills-based. So I'm not sure any slave fighting analogies apply.
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