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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

#391

Post by philwelch »

exclusiv wrote: post #385
philwelch wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not most lucrative if you consider 16 games for the NFL versus 82 for NBA. NFL contracts aren't guaranteed and they're still lower on an annual basis than the NBA. The biggest star QB's in the NFL might be Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, but Brady makes less than the second highest earning player on the Celtics and Rodgers makes less than the highest earning player on the Bucks. NBA minimum contracts are also…

There's a lot more spots in the NFL so I don't think it makes you an idiot to go for the NFL if you can do both. Very few can do both anyway. > I can't believe you're making a serious argument that the NFL requires more athleticism when half the players are morbidly obese and the other half never have to exert themselves for more than five seconds at a time. Your definition of athleticism seems to be tightly related…

> There's a lot more spots in the NFL so I don't think it makes you an idiot to go for the NFL if you can do both. Very few can do both anyway.

Since the NBA is so much more exclusive than the NFL, you're right. Very few can, and all of those who can end up in the NBA.

It's not just the pay difference. NFL players have higher risk of injury, shorter careers on average, non-guaranteed contracts, significantly less potential earning power in terms of endorsements...

If you're a first round NBA draft prospect, you have a guaranteed multi-million dollar contract even if you blow an ACL and never play a single game. You know by the time you're a college freshman whether you're in that category, because the NBA drafts college freshmen. The only point where it's a more rational decision to go for football is if you're already not a top basketball prospect...which more or less proves my point about that.

> You aren't going to see anyone in the NBA run a 4.24 40 like Chris Johnson or bench press 500+ pounds. Really any measure of strength. Or enter track and field in the Olympics.

NFL players are specialized enough that an NBA player wouldn't match them on any single metric, but on a combination of metrics the NBA player would come ahead. For example, I don't believe any NFL player would score higher than Russell Westbrook or LeBron James in the Olympic decathlon.

Also, Wilt Chamberlain could complete a 100 yard dash in 10 seconds and bench 500 pounds, albeit at slightly different moments in his career. He also competed in track and field at the collegiate level.

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

#392

Post by [deleted] »

jjuel wrote: post #217
kejaed wrote: post #4

An investigative piece was released yesterday from the Hamilton Spectator in Ontario where McMaster University researchers studied the brains of 20 living former Canadian Football League players. It didn't turn out particularly well. "Study shows ‘disastrous’ damage in brains of retired CFL players" http://3downnation.com/2017/08/30/study-shows-disastrous-dam...

I didn't see anywhere if these were just randomly selected players or players who volunteered because they thought something was wrong. I know there was another study where they found a shockingly high percentage of the people studied had issues. However, in that study it was all volunteers who suspected something was wrong. Well that doesn't mean that high of a percentage of players actually have issues just the one…

[deleted]

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

#393

Post by johan_larson »

Boxing used to be one of the top US sports early in the 20th century. But it faded away, mostly. In the same way, football could start fading away. There are already some early signs, with parents starting to push their kids toward flag football rather than tackle.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/i-quit-watching-nfl-and-why-you-...

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

#394

Post by yeswecatan »

wyattk wrote: post #167
yeswecatan wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 problem of defencemen getting plastered was not just the trapezoid. A lot of it had to do with the way icing worked. It used to be the d-man had to "touch" the puck for it to be icing, this always resulted in d-men and forwards going nearly full speed after the puck to either get the icing call or to beat it out. The NHL has done away with this and has "no touch icing" where the d-man only has to skate to the has…

Well sure, no touch is much safer, but the introduction of the trapezoid still made things much more dangerous. Icing worked the same way before and after (until a couple years ago) 2005. You didn't have defensemen getting drilled as often before 2005. No touch icing was introduced because the rule changes in 2005 made the game faster and more dangerous.

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

#395

Post by exclusiv »

philwelch wrote: post #391
exclusiv wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more spots in the NFL so I don't think it makes you an idiot to go for the NFL if you can do both. Very few can do both anyway. > I can't believe you're making a serious argument that the NFL requires more athleticism when half the players are morbidly obese and the other half never have to exert themselves for more than five seconds at a time. Your definition of athleticism seems to be tightly related…

> There's a lot more spots in the NFL so I don't think it makes you an idiot to go for the NFL if you can do both. Very few can do both anyway. Since the NBA is so much more exclusive than the NFL, you're right. Very few can, and all of those who can end up in the NBA. It's not just the pay difference. NFL players have higher risk of injury, shorter careers on average, non-guaranteed contracts, significantly less pot…

I get what you're saying but your argument is based on maybe 1 college player every few years (Charlie Ward, Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez, LeBron, Allen Iverson, etc.) that could be a top prospect in both sports and the rather recent contract situation of the NBA.

In that rare case yes you'd be dumb to take the NFL over the NBA for the reasons you listed. It's based on the NBA's contract rules, not that the contracts are commensurate with athleticism or talent as you suggest. Your argument doesn't illustrate that NBA players are more athletic and talented than the NFL though.

> I don't believe any NFL player would score higher than Russell Westbrook or LeBron James in the Olympic decathlon.

Well I disagree and we can look at history for more evidence:

- Milt Campbell won gold in the Olympics decathalon [1]

- Jim Thorpe won the decathalon and pentathalon. Considered one of the greatest athletes ever. [1]

- Darrell Green ran a 4.43 forty at the age of 50 [2]. His best was 4.15 and he had an official 10.08 100m. "Darrell Green was so fast that when they had a competition in different events (baserunning, track, 40 yd dash) Green wiped the floor with rivals, including nine time Olympic medalist Carl Lewis.... while Green never beat him in track competitions (they ran against each other in college), Lewis points out that Green was a world class sprinter, and again really fast." [3]

- Glenn Davis won Olympic titles in the 400 meter hurdles twice. Davis was either at or close to world records in many events including: 100 yards/meters (9.6/10.3), 200 meters (21.0), the half mile (1:52), 120 yard high hurdles (14.0), 200 meter low hurdles on curve (22.5 WR), 400 meter intermediate hurdles (49.2 WR), high jump (6-8), and long jump (24'8"). [4]

Kind of fun looking some of this stuff up. I learned that Carl Lewis was drafted by both the NBA and the NFL even though he never played in either sport. [5]

The NFL has a variety of Olympic wins including: decathalon, pentathalon, freestyle skiing, bobsled, hurdles, various sprint, shot put, long jump. [1]

The NBA's history in the Olympics is nearly non-existant. The only one I could find was Marion Jones (1 yr WNBA) and Carl Lewis (NFL & NBA as noted above but didn't play a game in either).

[1] http://www.nfl.com/photoessays/09000d5d82aed82d

[2] http://bleacherreport.com/articles/346647-darrell-green-50-y...

[3] https://dc.sbnation.com/2010/9/17/1694402/darrell-green-wash...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Davis_(athlete)

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis

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

#396

Post by spiralx »

mattmanser wrote: post #260
phillc73 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Rugby Union is more interesting than American Football (in my biased opinion), because the ball is in play for a lot longer and the game has better momentum. Then again, many Rugby Union vs Rugby League debates involve the criticism of Union that it is too stop-start. There is certainly a growing awareness of head injuries in Union and League at all levels. Players which show any sign of head trauma are (shou…

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…

> For all it's faults with prima-donnas, football is one of the most engaging team sports with much less risk of injury than rugby or ball-in-the-face field hockey.

It's heading the ball that's apparently the biggest source of concussive damage in football.

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