271–280 of 396 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In rugby there is no blocking. The only time non-ball carriers come into contact with the opposing team is during a scrum or accidental collision (which are quite rare).
Or a ruck - clearing out the ruck, it's allowed there. Or a catch and drive in the lineout. But yes, the contact in these situations is more pushing than collisions.
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…
American football is also obsessively measured. The difference of a few yards at any point in time can be the difference of a game. Players are also obsessively measured for their performance, so every second counts towards a professional player's career - and their compensation. Players are highly incentivized to "give it their all", and that's how people end up getting injured or receive massive head trauma. Hockey…
There are just five men on the ice for a team in hockey, there's arguably more pressure for each individual player to "give it their all" at any one moment than in football where there's 11 men on the field.
As someone lucky to be from Pittsburgh where we have both the Penguins and Steelers consistently being the top teams in the NHL and NFL respectively, there is no shortage of serious brain trauma in the NHL. Just ask Sidney Crosby.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Great idea! Less head injuries, but still a hard-hittin' sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The RedSkins can't fill their stadium in a major market. Try to get Alabama tickets ... or NotreDame ... or Penn State all in minuscule markets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I recently caught up with an old acquaintance. We interned together many years ago. He was on the college football team then, and quite proud of it. It hasn't been that long; he isn't that old. Yet at the end of a lunch (at which we had nothing to drink) he forgot four times in a row that we had already paid the cheque. He complained of a recent lay-off. He believes he was targeted for forgetting appointments and mis…
For every one of those there are others who are still functioning at a very high level. I played in Junior High, High School, and a couple years in college. I have yet to see any ill effects. The problem with the science behind it is they never take other factors into account. Who knows if someone had some genetic cause that may have exacerbated the effects of hits in football.
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 just watched "Ice Guardians," a documentary about enforcers in hockey. They claimed that only a small percentage (can't remember off the top of my head, maybe 5%) of concussions in hockey were due to fights. The majority come from the high speed nature of the game, especially after 2005. The game became a lot faster then. Big, slow players were replaced with smaller, speedier guys. The trapezoid was introduced whic…
The other thing that is hard to capture statistically, is that teams used to have big guys that rarely would see much ice time. Now you have many legit skilled players at 220+ pounds who are regulars.
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…
The reason I cannot stop watching football is that the combination of enormous economic incentives and ruthless selection process has produced individuals that are performing at near-superhuman levels. It is arguable that when you watch a quarterback or a cornerback play well in 2017 you are watching someone do something better than anyone has ever done anything.
I find that fascinating and extremely compelling.
Further, this is the reason that I no loner have any interest in college football - the professional game winnows that population down so much and so dramatically that the level of skill is no longer comparable.
Consider: after all of these years and all of this fame and outreach and development, there are still only 8-10 people in the entire world that can competently play the position of starting quarterback. If you can perform this task with even middling competency there is an immediate 8 figure paycheck waiting for you. This (totally arbitrary and otherwise useless) combination of speed, agility, strength, resiliency and lightning-fast-OODA-looping is amazing to watch. And that's just the quarterback ...
I can't get enough of it.
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 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…
As for fame, which players get significant fame? Every team has over fifty guys on their roster - how many of those could ever be named by a random member of the public who isn't a diehard fan of that same team? The linemen are the ones that cop the brunt of the big hits - how many linemen ever get known by name?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. And yet, rubgy and Australian football have just as much contact and do not suffer from an endemic injury problem. Maybe something related to the padding?
Here's a bit where they measured the force of rugby -vs- football tackles. Football is 3 times harder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o Don't have much commentary on the subject and just wanted to share the vid. I'd only think that a difference like that can't really be resolved to padding.
A rugby union player has to run around the pitch for 2 bouts of 40 minutes [about 40 minutes of 'ball in play' time]. According to this article - https://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-comm... - the average NFL match is 11 minutes of action, in [average] 4s bursts, over a 3+ hour period. Many NFL positions can optimise for muscle mass without worrying about stamina and sustained speed.
FWIW the measured tackle and at least one footage tackle [8mins 26s] in your linked video - https://youtu.be/TSc_Gxq1two - look illegal to me, lifting a player and pushing them down with head/shoulders first towards the ground (spearing, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear_tackle) is a red-card offence.