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ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

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Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#191

Post by dhimes »

Rapzid wrote: post #155
kpwags wrote: post #24

Good for him. I stopped following football after watching League of Denial on PBS. If I'm at the bar or something and it happens to be on, I might passively watch it, but I haven't sought it out since. I just can't support the NFL. I do feel torn though because I love hockey. I know they're dealing with similar controversies. My justification, however flimsy it might be is that I don't like the fighting (I might be i…

I never really followed it but could enjoy a game every now and then. Now I have a distaste for it. My biggest issue by far is how embedded football is into our public school system. They are essentially feeder leagues for the NFL that the public pays to operate. We glorify the sport to little kids and then shove them into the head trauma pipeline. We should absolutely not be a party to that at the public level. I'm…

The parents are the problem. It's ridiculous to see them. Football is the most important part of their life and damn if their kid isn't going to play.

Could you imagine if our schools and home cultures emphasized putting that kind of work into math rather than football?

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#192

Post by dsacco »

yequalsx wrote: post #107
BearGoesChirp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I just can't support the NFL. I'm not sure what the NFL does that's wrong. Their players get significant fame, are consenting adults, and get pay checks that many would trade even more of their health for. It is the college level, and especially the high school level, that I see the major problems at. When you have kids, or even people who aren't paid, risking their health it crosses a significant line. If college p…

Would you be OK allowing two consenting adults to fight to the death for pay? Most people would not be for allowing this. A lot of people are willing to work in very risky environments because they feel they have no alternative. Should companies be allowed to have dangerous work environments because there are people desperate enough to be willing to work in them?

> Would you be OK allowing two consenting adults to fight to the death for pay?

Given that scenario as stated? Sure, I'm all for it. Take away the gloves in boxing and we're pretty close to that.

I'd be concerned about the negative incentives that could potentially exploit lower income people, but on its own I don't have a problem with it.

I personally wouldn't do it, and I don't think I'd enjoy watching it, but I'm of the opinion that:

1. If it occurs a lot, there is a market for it,

2. Given a market for it, we should explore allowing and heavily regulating it, including negative externalities, rather than banning it and pushing it to a black market.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#193

Post by ksenzee »

pwthornton wrote: post #166

Football's core problem is still denial that this is an issue. Until that happens, real, concrete steps won't be taken to address it. Here are a few suggestions: 1) No tackle football before a certain age (to be determined by scientists based on brain development and how damaging a concussion would be). You can learn a ton about football, running routes, learning plays, getting in shape, etc. without hitting people.…

> 15-year penalties are not nearly enough

A 15-year penalty seems like it would be plenty... oh, you meant 15-yard. Yes. Agreed.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#194

Post by dhimes »

Brendinooo wrote: post #179
santoshalper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the NFL uses College and High School Football as free development leagues. If HS and CFB didn't exist, where would the NFL get their players?

This...doesn't quite compute to me. Professional football was born out of amateur athletic clubs and college clubs. The lack of a development league for the NFL is lamentable for a few reasons, but I don't think it's insidious that people play for free then get the attention of the NFL, if only because most people play football because they enjoy the sport. If HS and CFB didn't exist, there would be no NFL, because i…

They need to get the college sports off of national TV and set up a farm team system. But that's a debate for another time probably.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#195

Post by chmars »

soperj wrote: post #178
BurningFrog wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Swede who grew up loving European hockey. NHL Hockey bores me. You can think of the difference either as physical or mental. Physical: The European rink is 100 feet wide while the NHL rink is 85 feet. This gives a lot more space to skate around people rather than through them, more space and time for a passing and placement game, more time for smart play over brute force play. Mental: Each continent plays hocke…

Europe has no standard size rink. Finnish league is different from the Swedish league etc.

Finland is actually the exception, the rest of the non-NHL world uses the IIHF rink size.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#196

Post by neaden »

EpicEng wrote: post #187
Pxtl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. Actually, that might be worse... If hockey turns out to have as bad a concussion problem, the leadership of the sport is likely even more culpabl…

>Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Could it? I wonder how many people would continue to watch hockey if fights weren't essentially sanctioned as a part of the game. I imagine only the diehards as it's not the most entertaining sport in the world...

I mean, only about a third of hockey games have a fight, and usually it's not that dramatic. Part of the issue though is that fights are partly for players to enforce unwritten rules about sportsmanship, so if you got rid of fights there is some bad conduct that might increase that could also be dangerous.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#197

Post by dsacco »

autokad wrote: post #134
guiomie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the same side as you about the fights. I'm just not a fan of the hypocrisy of letting people fight their anger away on national TV when someone doing the same in a public space would get arrested. I've played hockey, I get the whole aspect of being emotionally invested in the game, but I still don't think it's the right thing to do. Otherwise, I always thought the concussion aspect was much less worst in the N…

hockey has more concussions today than the clutch and grab days of the past. this is a 2 fold reason: #1 players are moving faster now - expected #2 clutch and grab actually penalized larger players, as it took more energy to get moving again (hockey is an endurance sport). now player size is inflating. I think the football solution is to force players smaller again. One way to accomplish this is to weight pun salary…

Can you flesh out your weightclass idea of salary brackets there? I'm curious to understand how you think it would work.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#198

Post by eropple »

criley2 wrote: post #177
eropple wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NFL doesn't exist without the legions of unpaid, bodies-broken, brain-scrambled college ( and high school ) athletes who get nothing for their troubles.

I would argue that the NCAA stands in the way of a true professional minor system similar to Baseball. NFL doesn't prevent the minors from existing, NCAA does.

You can argue that, but it's not particularly true or relevant. The NCAA is the recruiting pipeline because the NFL wants it to be. No other reason. If it's not the recruiting pipeline, it's relegated to obscurity and general irrelevance--see NCAA hockey for an example. The NCAA is still a monstrously shitty organization, but don't try to excuse the NHL because of it--not least because minor leagues still don't solve the problem that high schools and colleges, too, profit from breaking the bodies and the brains of their athletes as they hope to make it to the NFL. The NFL is the goal, and everyone else profits from young athletes destroying themselves to try to get there.

Football is intrinsically dangerous as a sport, intrinsically exploitative as a business at each and every level, and intrinsically immoral to watch or support in a way that no other American sport, not even hockey, can manage.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#199

Post by ams6110 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #84
Pxtl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. Actually, that might be worse... If hockey turns out to have as bad a concussion problem, the leadership of the sport is likely even more culpabl…

I think the rules could get reworked to make it less dangerous for brain injury. Take a cue from Australian Rules Football: remove all padding and make high tackles that endanger the head illegal.

Head contact, boarding, and checking from behind are already illegal.

I agree hockey could survive the elimination of checking, and think it probably will happen eventually. It's not even introduced until 14U age and younger kids learn to play with body contact only.

It would be a different game but all the skilled puck handling, skating, passing, shooting and speed would remain.

Re: ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

#200

Post by pkulak »

EpicEng wrote: post #187
Pxtl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. Actually, that might be worse... If hockey turns out to have as bad a concussion problem, the leadership of the sport is likely even more culpabl…

>Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Could it? I wonder how many people would continue to watch hockey if fights weren't essentially sanctioned as a part of the game. I imagine only the diehards as it's not the most entertaining sport in the world...

Who really likes the fights, though? I don't know anyone who does. They are more boring than commercials.

I don't think it's the fights though. They're mostly just hugging. I think the checks are what do the damage.

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