311–320 of 396 posts
It will take a long time because football holds such a key place in the culture that it continues to be largely exempt from negligence law but when the tide turns it will be a tsunami.
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Rugby and league have no padding and those rules. It doesn't appear to anywhere close to enough.
Rugby is a much better analogue to gridiron - it's essentially the same game. Two lines of players run at each other, with a certain number of attempts to run the ball downfield, and almost every 'play' has contact of players running in opposite directions. Aussie Rules is much more freeform and has fewer 'opposing hits'. However, much as we aussies like to mock gridiron for the pads it requires, without the pads, pl…
But I'm not sure American broadcasters could adjust to a game with only two halfs of 40min each, no stopping of the clock and nowhere to stuff their abundance of ads.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rugby and league have no padding and those rules. It doesn't appear to anywhere close to enough.
>no padding This is offered as a solution a lot, but I am not sure if it would actually be effective. Football helmets were introduce early in the 20th century because dozens of people were dying every year playing football. Football helmets put an end to those deaths caused by acute trauma, but the physics of the game and those collisions haven't changed. Football is just a more violent game than Rugby due to variou…
Source: https://medium.com/upstart-magazine/nfl-vs-afl-injury-compar...
Helmets enable players to weaponize their heads, like this recent hit (Vontaze Burfict's suspension earning HIT on Anthony Sherman): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7qQtadYqsI and many others demonstrate. I believe removing helmets would mitigate this behaviour and increase the long term health of football players. Looking for data on Aussie rules, this is not quite what I was hoping to find, but interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_rules_footb...
Without question Aussie rules has its share of devastating brain injuries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8. Plenty of concussions and fencing responses in that clip.
At 33, I've stopped watching North American football altogether because the violence turned me off. 10 years ago it was my second fav sports (to Hockey).
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Hockey fights in 2017 aren't really comparable to what fighting in hockey used to be though. The enforcer role is all but gone, the rules around hits are more stringent and the league is far more rigorous with enforcement. I think the bigger risk in the game today is from the speed of collisions, having too much padding and high hits.
And anyway, fighting is not where the injuries happen. Ugly tackles to the head are the bad thing.
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Rugby has gone through periods of being a boring game and has had constant rule changes to try and make it more interesting, some of which significantly changed the nature of the game. The period of constant scrums was an especially dull period, as was the rolling mauls period. I vaguely remember a period of constant punts from each side down the field. I haven't kept up to date with Rugby, but google seems to sugges…
>"football is one of the most engaging team sports" Do you mean Association Football there, ie "soccer"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rugby is a much better analogue to gridiron - it's essentially the same game. Two lines of players run at each other, with a certain number of attempts to run the ball downfield, and almost every 'play' has contact of players running in opposite directions. Aussie Rules is much more freeform and has fewer 'opposing hits'. However, much as we aussies like to mock gridiron for the pads it requires, without the pads, pl…
Well, if they switched to rugby, then they could play internationally against established rugby teams. But I'm not sure American broadcasters could adjust to a game with only two halfs of 40min each, no stopping of the clock and nowhere to stuff their abundance of ads.
I wouldn't mock the Americans too much for their famous love of advertising. I haven't found a sport yet that is as much a slave to advertising as Aussie Rules. Try to find a square meter of space[1] at an AFL game without advertising - even the ball itself is adorned with the golden arches.
[1] Okay, some of the grass doesn't have advertising on it.....
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.…
Interesting that Americans do not care about PED use in their sports. Oh, they'll feign horror when a cyclist or an Olympic athlete tests positive but have no problem with the unnatural size and strength gains in the NFL or that drug testing in the major sports like baseball and football is a joke or that PED use has long-term bad health effects (including suicide). But concussions! That's not safe! Not sure why, just an observation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>no padding This is offered as a solution a lot, but I am not sure if it would actually be effective. Football helmets were introduce early in the 20th century because dozens of people were dying every year playing football. Football helmets put an end to those deaths caused by acute trauma, but the physics of the game and those collisions haven't changed. Football is just a more violent game than Rugby due to variou…
> In the NFL 18.8% of injuries occur at or above the shoulders, the area where athletes wear the most protective equipment. In the AFL 11.5% of AFL injuries occur in this area, where they wear virtually no protection. Source: https://medium.com/upstart-magazine/nfl-vs-afl-injury-compar... Helmets enable players to weaponize their heads, like this recent hit (Vontaze Burfict's suspension earning HIT on Anthony Sherman…
WRs for example have a somewhat similar situation to AFL players since they are mostly being chased by the defense and they don't get nearly as many contact injuries as RBs for example. Not to mention they are protected by (frequently controversial) pass interference rules.
From what I gather, introduction of the helmets back in the day reduced injury rates.
I am patiently waiting for the first bellwether Ivy league school to drop football with brain injury being the reason. I think the demise of college and then professional football would cascade after that, still a decade or two but it would be inevitable and possibly faster than people expect.
Yale cutting football has 0 chance whatsoever of convincing a single SEC school to cut football. The SEC would be around sponsoring football even if every other conference was shuttered. Edit: Okay maybe Vanderbilt would leave.
But, I was mostly suggesting that the social pressure that would result from the Ivy schools dropping for cause would snowball. The effects may be the most obvious at the lowest age groups, even more than now. I think that wave of decisions to not play or allow play, would march right up the recruiting pipeline.
I am in the Southeast and my county has no Middle school football, already. The only feeders for HS ball in my area is private leagues.