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

nytimes.com

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

#41

Post by unethical_ban »

beachy wrote: post #17

Speaking as someone from a rugby-playing nation, where mostly players wear no protection except mouthguards and shin pads, American Football is spectacular but insane. Wearing protective helmets just ups the ante as players launch into each other with full force. In rugby, you don't tackle someone like that as you'll hurt yourself, and fail to stop the opponent. Rugby is a plenty violent sport, and has its own health…

Another reason rugby tackles are different: The goal is to stop the player. The difference between one meter and another is minimal. In football, inches matter for the downs. So the hits are blowouts to stop people as soon as possible.

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

#42

Post by ghaff »

wavefunction wrote: post #36
alistairSH wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference is rugby limits the contact to the guy carrying the ball to a greater degree than American football. In the US version, the majority of players on the field will have contact on the majority of plays.

Also, I don't see too many 350lb corn-fed rugby players when I've watched compared to American football.

No. But they are getting bigger which is a cause for concern with respect to injuries.

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

#43

Post by maxxxxx »

ep103 wrote: post #10
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #6

What about the sponsorship of daredevil sports like free climbing, wing suits, etc., by consumer companies like GoPro and Redbull. I feel that we are supporting these companies with our purchases, and then they in turn create social media spectacles by giving these people an incentive to do dangerous stunts. Recently a wingsuit daredevil died while livestreaming on Facebook, watched by his young daughter and wife. It…

I don't think that's a fair comparison. I love motorcycling, and the Isle of Man TT is probably the craziest spectacle I watch every year. And every year, at least one person dies in the race. A lot of the mechanics and race shops that build bikes for that race talk about whether or not they're doing a good thing. And as dangerous and awful as the above is, I wouldn't change the TT for anything. But I also wouldn't w…

I can't watch the TT. The risks they are taking are just stupid. Go on a real race track where you can explore the limits without dying.

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

#44

Post by simplicio »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #5

Football is America's gladiator sport. For all the fun, the money, the excitement, the money, the drama, the bombast, the cheerleaders, and even the money, we should remind ourselves that American football is a very violent sport rife with injury and long term disability, and our participation as passive spectators and consumers makes us just as responsible for the incentive structure that harms so many young men for…

I disagree. I think Americans are generally pretty intolerant of sports and other activities where death or disability are likely outcomes. The rules of football, boxing, MMA, etc. have been continuously changed to make them safer, even at the cost of abandoning major aspects of the sport (19th century football was much different than the modern sport, and much more frequently fatal).

Football has managed to dodge the CTE issue so far because the injury is both hard to diagnose (basically requiring a brain autopsy), it's symptoms appear decades after the initial injury and involves a lot of mental issues that people often develop without CTE.

But as evidence mounts, its clearly becoming harder and harder for the public to ignore. So I think we'll see football drastically change to solve the issue, or die off as public discomfort with the cost to players manifests itself in shrinking audiences.

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

#45

Post by jklinger410 »

komali2 wrote: post #37
beachy wrote: post #17

Speaking as someone from a rugby-playing nation, where mostly players wear no protection except mouthguards and shin pads, American Football is spectacular but insane. Wearing protective helmets just ups the ante as players launch into each other with full force. In rugby, you don't tackle someone like that as you'll hurt yourself, and fail to stop the opponent. Rugby is a plenty violent sport, and has its own health…

This is how I feel about boxing vs MMA. Boxing gloves are huge and massively padded, meaning you take hit after hit after hit, bouncing your brain around like a ball. MMA gloves are only padded enough to maybe prevent you from breaking your knuckles, and maybe prevent your knuckles from breaking someone's jaw. If you threw the kind of punches people throw in boxing with MMA gloves on, you'd wreck your hands. That one…

Every knockout is a concussion, and likely brain damage. It may be relatively safer than Boxing but you can't keep striking and knockouts and think it's too much better.

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

#46

Post by djKianoosh »

wavefunction wrote: post #36
alistairSH wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference is rugby limits the contact to the guy carrying the ball to a greater degree than American football. In the US version, the majority of players on the field will have contact on the majority of plays.

Also, I don't see too many 350lb corn-fed rugby players when I've watched compared to American football.

You're looking at the evolution of the sport because of the equipment. If the players didnt wear so much protective gear they wouldnt have to be so big and fast and powerful, as described a few comments above.

That said they cant all of a sudden change the gear but they can evolve the rules to adapt.

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

#47

Post by aaron-lebo »

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…

1. Willingly plays 5 years in the league, makes $10,000,000, has 50% chance of reduced health in the future.

2. Willingly works 5 years in the factory, makes $10,000, has 50% chance of reduced health in the future.

Why does the first situation bother us so much more than the second? Most products we use are built via the second, but you're probably still using those products. The NFL seems like better employment than Foxconn, and I'll still use an Apple computer.

People make sacrifices all the time, if someone wants to willingly do it as a professional, why not?

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

#48

Post by cdolan »

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…

Fellow hockey fan here. Can you share some information about Hockey's concussion risks? I was not aware it is "dealing with similar controversies". There are certainly head injuries in Hockey, but I was not aware that people had the same life-altering issues brought on by years of head trauma from football.

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

#49

Post by Isamu »

beachy wrote: post #17

Speaking as someone from a rugby-playing nation, where mostly players wear no protection except mouthguards and shin pads, American Football is spectacular but insane. Wearing protective helmets just ups the ante as players launch into each other with full force. In rugby, you don't tackle someone like that as you'll hurt yourself, and fail to stop the opponent. Rugby is a plenty violent sport, and has its own health…

> Wearing protective helmets just ups the ante as players launch into each other with full force.

Agreed, but funny thing is the protection has gradually developed over time to limit injury. American football used to be played with no protection, then with very limited protection, leather helmets, pads. Then hard helmets, armored pads. Etc.

Kind of an arms race, as with increased protection, the hits keep getting harder.

Unintended consequences of trying to reduce harm.

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

#50

Post by Pxtl »

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…

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 culpable because they had more options to fix the problem than football does.

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