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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

#41

Post by dv_dt »

ineptech wrote: post #34

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…

I feel that this comment is unnecessarily divisive and condescending.

In general, I think people care about their kids, and will have different levels of risk sensitivity.

http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop-warn...

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

#42

Post by geophile »

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…

Yes, the NFL should shut down.

Yes, it is worse than the 3rd world child labor scenario. The kid in the 3rd world probably has no other choices, and along with his peers, may actually be improving things for his society. Nicholas Kristof (of all people) pointed this out when it was found that someone documenting the horrible conditions at Foxconn fabricated melodramatic stories. (This was a big kerfuffle on This American Life a couple of years ago.) The football player, living in a 1st world country, has other options. It is criminal that the responsible adults (coaches, recruiters) don't point out that they are signing up for virtually guaranteed severe brain damage.

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

#43

Post by mikeash »

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.

The study was definitely not a representative sample. On the other hand, if it turns out that the sample was as biased as possible, such that every single player with CTE was in the study, that would still put the incidence at 9%, which is crazy high.

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

#44

Post by runT1ME »

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…

Take the helmets off. Players would no longer run at each other head first, and be forced to grapple a bit more. Concussions are en extreme rarity in grappling/wrestling sports. They can still happen, but it's a freak accident rather than an inevitability each down.

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

#45

Post by ceautery »

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…

We could start by doing similar studies in other sports. Do rugby players get CTE as often? Can American football players retrain?

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

#46

Post by dv_dt »

runT1ME wrote: post #44
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…

Take the helmets off. Players would no longer run at each other head first, and be forced to grapple a bit more. Concussions are en extreme rarity in grappling/wrestling sports. They can still happen, but it's a freak accident rather than an inevitability each down.

It would be interesting to study Rugby comparatively re: concussion.

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

#48

Post by cjbprime »

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…

> Does that mean the NFL should shut down?

Probably not.

> Should they continue to operate as normal?

No.

> Can you make the game "more safe" without drastically changing the game?

Depends what you mean by drastic. Removing helmets from the game seems like one possibility, bringing it closer to rugby. I don't know if there have been CTE examinations of rugby players, but the intuition is that people won't collide heads at high acceleration on every single play if they're not wearing helmets.

> Should I feel bad as a fan for watching football?

Yes, I'd say so without changes. Malcolm Gladwell in 2009 wrote that watching football is starting to feel like watching dogfighting. It seemed ridiculous at the time and is not ridiculous now.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play

> Is it any worse than buying clothing made by child labor from a third world country?

Depends on the factory, I guess? Some of those jobs probably pay well relative to other options for those workers, even accounting for danger etc. In comparison, watching humans give each other brain damage because it's fun is harder to find potentially redeeming qualities for.

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

#49

Post by stevenwoo »

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…

Well, it's kind of like boxing or MMA in that the athletes are trading quality of life in the future for money now. Whether that is of value we currently leave to the athletes. But there's nothing that can be done according to Omalu, the guy who fought the NFL to make his findings public. If you are not familiar with the story: (2009) http://www.gq.com/story/nfl-players-brain-dementia-study-mem... (2015) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/28/concussion-p...

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

#50

Post by coob »

dv_dt wrote: post #46
runT1ME wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the helmets off. Players would no longer run at each other head first, and be forced to grapple a bit more. Concussions are en extreme rarity in grappling/wrestling sports. They can still happen, but it's a freak accident rather than an inevitability each down.

It would be interesting to study Rugby comparatively re: concussion.

Here's an interesting article on how Rugby is ignoring CTE:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/11857548/Rugby-u...

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