Nightline Report On Football Head Injuries

[Bemular]

Saw this on the tube this evening - I dunno guys, our sport is definitely under the microscope and not in a good way.


The more these types of reports surface - the more this game is going to change.

 

[Kinzu]

I still don't think it will change anything. It will progress safety equipment, but it won't stop people from playing. You think if a study came out showing a high rate of heart failure in soccer players would suddenly cause the sport to decline over in Europe? Of course not because the sport is way to popular, and even if it did you're talking about decades before it would be noticed. All these studies are going to do is push the leagues and commissions in our country to make more rule changes and equip players with better and safer gear.

 

[Bemular]

I still don't think it will change anything. It will progress safety equipment, but it won't stop people from playing. You think if a study came out showing a high rate of heart failure in soccer players would suddenly cause the sport to decline over in Europe? Of course not because the sport is way to popular, and even if it did you're talking about decades before it would be noticed. All these studies are going to do is push the leagues and commissions in our country to make more rule changes and equip players with better and safer gear.

These are precisely the changes I was referring to.

 

[Jikkle]

I believe pop warner football will eventually go extinct and it'll be replaced with a flag football variant where the kids will likely wear shells and have minimum contact and no tackling.

I don't see High School, College, and the NFL dramatically changing and I agree that the changes there will be made with safer gear rather than major fundamental changes to the game itself.

As long as the money is good there will always be plenty of people more than willing to play the game.

 

[Bemular]

I believe pop warner football will eventually go extinct and it'll be replaced with a flag football variant where the kids will likely wear shells and have minimum contact and no tackling.

I don't see High School, College, and the NFL dramatically changing and I agree that the changes there will be made with safer gear rather than major fundamental changes to the game itself.

As long as the money is good there will always be plenty of people more than willing to play the game.

I tend to agree with your sentiment about PW. As mentioned in the video and the one that followed, PW is instituting immediate sweeping changes about head-to-head contact, which is a step toward a limited contact/flag type league.

Changes to any mega-profitable institution such as football will always occur as minimally as possible and at the slowest possible pace. But these changes no matter how minimal will have a ripple effect and create consequences, some perhaps unforeseen, of their own.

As for the fundamental changes you don't think we will see, I think we are already seeing changes on that level aren't we? Regarding safer gear, there are a couple important points to keep in mind about safer gear.

One, for the most part it is "safer gear" that has brought us to the station we are at today. And two, you can only change the gear so much before you change the game. The question is how close are we to that tipping point?

 

[Jikkle]

I tend to agree with your sentiment about PW. As mentioned in the video and the one that followed, PW is instituting immediate sweeping changes about head-to-head contact, which is a step toward a limited contact/flag type league.

Changes to any mega-profitable institution such as football will always occur as minimally as possible and at the slowest possible pace. But these changes no matter how minimal will have a ripple effect and create consequences, some perhaps unforeseen, of their own.

As for the fundamental changes you don't think we will see, I think we are already seeing changes on that level aren't we? Regarding safer gear, there are a couple important points to keep in mind about safer gear.

One, for the most part it is "safer gear" that has brought us to the station we are at today. And two, you can only change the gear so much before you change the game. The question is how close are we to that tipping point?

The only gear the really need to figure out to make safer is the helmet or anything to reduce or prevent head injuries. The other parts of the body aren't that huge of a deal because of where medical science is at and where it's going.

I'm sure as we speak the NFL is pumping in a lot of cash into researching the better helmet because that's really the only way they are going to keep football football without having to massively gut what makes football so popular.

 

[Bemular]

The only gear the really need to figure out to make safer is the helmet or anything to reduce or prevent head injuries. The other parts of the body aren't that huge of a deal because of where medical science is at and where it's going.

I'm sure as we speak the NFL is pumping in a lot of cash into researching the better helmet because that's really the only way they are going to keep football football without having to massively gut what makes football so popular.

I agree with all of this. I would add that Riddell is probably putting alot of its own money on the line as well.

 

[Bemular]

...And the trickle begins

Bart Scott: I don’t want my son to play football

This part of the article is going to be quite commonplace going forward - the counter-point.

"Keeping kids inside a protective bubble has plenty of risks, too — there are a lot more kids struggling with health problems related to obesity than there are kids struggling with health problems related to football"