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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

#171

Post by [deleted] »

cr0sh wrote: post #116
jackhack wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard the same argument applied to automobiles. Would people drive more safely/carefully/considerately if a metal spike were attached to the steering wheel rather than an airbag? I can't pretend to know the answer, but it's interesting in that behaviors definitely change if there are costs associated with the actions.

I don't know about a metal spike, but automakers could cheaply implement something if they put a sticker on the airbag cover that said something like "SRS manufactured by Takata"... /s

[deleted]

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

#172

Post by qq66 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #70
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…

Do kids face the same risk factors as professional NFL players? Someone who plays in high school isn't necessarily going to play football for their entire life; do four years of football from ages 14-18 significantly increase risk?

The risk of getting hit by a 14-year-old kid is obviously less than the risk of getting hit by one of the hardest-hitting 26-year-olds in the world, but the rewards are also less. Many Hall of Fame-level NFL players have said that the glory, fame, and riches were worth the lifetime of pain, dementia, etc. afterwards. It's not clear that someone who got 10% of the brain damage but 0.0001% of the rewards would say the same thing.

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

#173

Post by abalone »

opportune wrote: post #139
dceddia wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He certainly could be, if he keeps living on $25k/year. See [0] and run some calculations at [1]. 0: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim... 1: https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement

People generally don't retire to $25k/year, especially if they eventually get married and have children. The only way to really make something like that work is to move somewhere extremely inexpensive like SEA. That's unrealistic for most people. This is the one thing that has always struck me as odd abut the FIRE community. FIRE is a good goal but it's highly abnormal for people to retire early with these very low a…

There are a lot of areas of the U.S. where people actually do retire on $25K/year. Having said that, they probably own their home, have cheap Medicare and have paid all child-related expenses at that point. So you're right, for most 30 year olds it's a different story.

Also, even if people budget a $25K/year retirement there is always the possibility of needing long term nursing home care in the last years of life. (Say, if you're a football player that suffers dementia later in life.) Depending on the quality of care, that can wipe out even a $1M nest egg. It's a big financial concern at that age. It's not covered by insurance the way that, say, a heart attack or stroke is.

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

#174

Post by tnecniv »

paulddraper wrote: post #117
aresant wrote: post #65

A few colorful facts to the story here: 1) 3 years of service vests into NFL pension plan, he just hit qualification - value pegged at $21,360 a year for life (3) 2) He has not publicly commented on his retirement or reasons for it. 3) He has a hugely awesome secondary option - doctorate of math at MIT 4) He was at end of his rookie contract, next year would be the "in the money" year for him so he is clearly leaving…

> after tax is 7 figures but still not a lot What exactly is "a lot of money" (and how much do you think MIT professors are paid)? I think point #6 is more relevant than point #5.

Well he's only a student so somewhere between $30k and $40k, maybe a touch more if he gets a fellowship.

Also, how much professors make varies quite a bit. An engineering professor might make $100k from the university. If they are particularly motivated, you have professors who write books, play key roles at companies, consult, or give expert testimony. They can make quite a bit off those secondary activities but it isn't automatic.

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

#175

Post by ll931110 »

magic_beans wrote: post #47

"Urschel is pursuing his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the offseason, focusing on spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra and machine learning." This guy has a back-up plan. Good man.

Met him twice during my time at MIT. A very nice, down to earth guy. We did get curious about his days as a football player for a while :)

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

#176

Post by sizzzzlerz »

magic_beans wrote: post #47

"Urschel is pursuing his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the offseason, focusing on spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra and machine learning." This guy has a back-up plan. Good man.

Continue playing until his 30's, make a lot of money, and suffer pain and disability for the remainder of his life in addition to constantly diminishing mental acuity

- or -

retire now to pursue a PhD and be healthy, earn a living that could possibly meet his football earnings but more likely, keep him comfortable, and be able to use his mind for the rest of his life. Plus, he has a much reduced chance of losing a $150,000 earring jet skiing.

I think he made the correct choice.

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

#177

Post by opportune »

abalone wrote: post #173
opportune wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People generally don't retire to $25k/year, especially if they eventually get married and have children. The only way to really make something like that work is to move somewhere extremely inexpensive like SEA. That's unrealistic for most people. This is the one thing that has always struck me as odd abut the FIRE community. FIRE is a good goal but it's highly abnormal for people to retire early with these very low a…

There are a lot of areas of the U.S. where people actually do retire on $25K/year. Having said that, they probably own their home, have cheap Medicare and have paid all child-related expenses at that point. So you're right, for most 30 year olds it's a different story. Also, even if people budget a $25K/year retirement there is always the possibility of needing long term nursing home care in the last years of life. (…

Yes, I don't mean to exclude those people. Both pairs of my grandparents had a fixed income of less than that. But as you said, they didn't have many personal expenses beyond bills and food.

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

#178

Post by usgroup »

I admire this sort of decision making. In particular, I admire that he took the risk playing football in the first place but called it at some prerequisite level of damage he was willing to take. I'd imagine that is something he put a hard stop on before embarking on the career: "two concussions max then I'm out whatever".

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

#179

Post by heygrady »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #158
heygrady wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling camaraderie is not exclusive to football. I felt that same thing being in the marching band and playing soccer. It is a good thing for young people to belong to a team and work together to achieve a common goal. Because it's possible to experience the benefits of camaraderie without the risks of brain damage, it's sensible to question if football is too dangerous for children.

I made a response answering this over here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14867607 Basically, Football works you harder physically (strength), which makes the camaraderie that much stronger (you all overcame the same adversity).

Your core argument that football builds stronger camaraderie [than other sports or team-like activities] is unsupportable. There is no reason to believe that football is the key ingredient to lasting feelings of camaraderie. What if we just put high school students through a marines-style boot camp?

Also, everyone from the marching band still remembers marching through Disney World in 100+ degree heat in full marching uniforms. It was tough and it was a memorable bond we all shared.

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

#180

Post by Azkar »

cr0sh wrote: post #111
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…

A couple or so year ago, Budweiser (or one of the other large beer companies) had a display at the grocery store I frequented depicting the concept of large anthropomorphic robots playing the game. Imagine high-speed, large scale robo-soccer - for football. I am not a sports fan in general, but I would watch the hell out of such a game if it could be created. Especially if everything was fully autonomous, and teams w…

You should check out Rocket League.
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