rolling American football death spiral thread

heywood jablome

(good tight end for Notre Dame in the '70s)

no

i can't figure out at this point if morbz posts them bc he legit thinks they're clever/witty and ilx needs to see them, or if he's just trolling us bc he knows no one thinks they're clever or witty.

fuck your motherfucking asshole sport btw

^easy, killer

I used to be able to throw a pretty good American football death spiral. Bad shoulder now.

It's now known as the "Sanchez"

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/sports/football/actuarial-reports-in-nfl-concussion-deal-are-released.html

so three HS kids die at/after practice in one week, a couple weeks ago

NYT story about the Tallahassee police cleaning up FSU players' messes was sickmaking

but on it rolls

@DennisThePerrin · 21h
To make this wretched season complete, New England must win. The Patriots deserve to be the NFL's standard bearer. #SuperBowl

@DennisThePerrin · 21h
On a positive note, the NFL had a bad PR year. Nothing that would sink the ship, but you have to start somewhere. #SuperBowl

As part of their $400 million renovation of Sun Life Stadium, the (Miami Dolphins are) installing 32 “living rooms” in the lower bowl of the stadium that come in groups of four with 30-inch wide recliners and an 18-inch television in front of each seat.

“We’re out to give a fan the very best seat and the very best experience they could possibly have,” Dolphins president and CEO Tom Garfinkel, via ESPN.com. “There are enough people in this marketplace that, if you can do that, (you) don’t care what it costs.”

This is the future of the NFL: Private rooms for people who can afford to pay $75,000 per season (that’s 160% of Miami’s median income!) to sit and watch the game at TV like they were at home, but in the same building as the actual game.

they should live there

And when they die, they should be buried underneath the field.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/concussion-watch/new-87-deceased-nfl-players-test-positive-for-brain-disease/

96 percent

Voluntary donors are a biased sample of course but that's a dramatic number even so, especially given that CTE isn't found in people who don't hit each other in the head.

http://usatodayhss.com/2015/no-colquitt-county-coach-rush-propst-headbutts-player-opens-bloody-gash-in-middle-of-playoff-game

This was bizarre. Someone in my family is coaching a HS football team and they played on Friday night. The opposing team's coach had a freakout where he was yelling at one of his kids and went up and headbutted him so hard that he started bleeding. He seems to be a pretty controversial pick for a coach too w a dodgy history. Seems to keep getting jobs for some reason or another...

Just imagining a math or english teacher coming up and hitting a kid, they would lose their job in a heartbeat.

What if you wore a helmet to math class?

literally disband all HS football teams and fire all head football coaches

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/12/the_truth_about_will_smith_s_concussion_and_bennet_omalu.html

But are we actually watching players kill themselves before our eyes? No, not on average: A 2012 study of several thousand NFL retirees, conducted by researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, found that the former football players lived significantly longer than race- and age-matched controls. They were much less likely to die from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, accidental falls, or homicides than anybody else. That doesn’t mean that taking hits improved their health, of course; surely the opposite is true. But still this study gave the lie to a fundamental intuition about football and one that’s touted almost everywhere. There’s zero evidence that playing professional football shortens lives on average. Those are the facts. Take ’em or leave ’em.

This is the best study that we have on NFL players and mortality, yet its findings never seem to enter public consciousness. The simple truth, that former players aren’t dying—that in lots of ways they’re much healthier than you or me—smacks against the screen-ready version of history, in which a team of underdog physicians, led by heroes like Bennet Omalu, risked their livelihoods to expose a hidden slaughter.

^This is just changing the subject. He pretends the discussion was a concern about longevity rather than about degenerative brain disease. His facts don't refute the concerns about brain disease. Those facts don't even address the real subject.

there's some good points in there but his ending it basically saying, despite his protestations, that cte basically isn't a substantial thing, seems very iffy.

and nfl players' relative longevity makes sense surely? they're wealthy, do a lot of exercise during their careers, and retire in their 30s.

been thinking about brain injuries lately, an acquaintance had a bike accident without a helmet on, and sustained a brain injury. while he can already walk normally, talk properly, etc. he's very, very clearly altered in some major and deleterious way that is really affecting to see

Part of the discussion has been overall longevity - every now and then I'll see someone quote another study that said football players lived ten years shorter than peers (controlled for ethnicity, body type/size, etc.).

yes, it's definitely something ive came across, and believed tbh.

Sad, poorly argued defenses of still watching this insipid sport are a leading indicator imho (or rather, a trailing indicator of the peak)

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/01/why-we-need-football

https://newrepublic.com/article/124409/necessity-football

Also, the college playoffs ratings totals dropped by a full third from last year. What do you think ESPN's chances are of transforming New Year's Eve into College Football Playoff Night? Hubris, anyone?

I saw a bar/restaurant in my neighborhood that had scrawled "We Love That Captain Kirk! HTTR" on the chalkboard outside this morning; I immediately resolved to stop patronizing them and openly talk shit about their poor menu, lackadaisical service and mediocre beer selection whenever the opportunity strikes.

This is why between 2012 and 2015 the Department of Defense paid 18 NFL teams a total of more than $5.6 million for marketing and advertising, including flying military bombers over stadiums at taxpayers’ expense.

He gets really close here to making a point.

On the home stretch of not watching a single minute of football (either nfl or college) all season for maybe the first time in my life. Though the freedom has gone to my head and I've given up regular season nba as well.

youve gone too far

Horrible decision on that last part

the media: dude check out all these brain injuries and fucked up stuff about football
ryan: oh wow thats terrible i guess i better stop watching sports
steph curry: *is literally christ*
ryan: i sure hope i didnt miss christ returning
me: *points to a sign i made that says "YA U DID DUDE"*

lol. i dunno it's like i needed a break. also pre-xmas nba is very skippable in my experience.

then i guess you missed the warriors streak eh

nah luke walton becoming a jedi was fun but all bb played before the super bowl is preseason

luke walton is actually phil jackson's child imo

lol i'm thiiiis close to being arsed to shop that

The only football I've watched since that shit show of a Super Bowl last year has been games that just happened to be on in various drinking and eating locations that I was spending time drinking and eating in. And GIFs that popped up on Deadspin. Quitting the NFL = way easier than cigarettes or beer, no surprise there

Anyway prepare to be sad: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2016/01/19/former-nfl-receiver-antwaan-randle-el-regrets-ever-playing-football/

Randle El is not naive to the profitability of the sport or the impact it has on society, but with the concussion and life-long injury issues getting more attention than ever before, the nine-year veteran thinks the end may be near.

“Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if football isn’t around in 20, 25 years.”

Me neither, Antwaan. I hope they can figure out how to help these guys get better. I mean stem cells and nanoscale whatsits, right? There have to be some prospects for treatment somewhere in the pipeline?

OTOH I guess if a reliable program of treatment were developed it would just become an excuse to let people keep hitting each other with the force of highway collisions

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZHkaFTWYAEYn50.jpg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/school-said-son-suffered-a-concussion-parents-sued-to-get-him-back-on-field/2016/01/18/8a15c018-bdec-11e5-9443-7074c3645405_story.html

this story linked in the randle el one is insane.

Kerasidis explained that there are two schools of thought: (1) A child’s brain is still developing and any trauma can be especially harmful; (2) children are smaller, slower and perhaps unable to deliver as much force in their collisions as older players.

how are these mutually exclusive?

in my experience playing football from junior high through high school im pretty sure i saw dozens of concussions (and was dazed myself a number of times) but i can only remember 1 or 2 actually being diagnosed as such.

point being: even if medically diagnosed concussions arent happening regularly that doesnt mean that it's a safe sport for children (or anyone).

also: i used to play full tackle football minus any pads or helmets with buddies all the time, and it was much much safer (and less terrifying). and more fun.

in my experience playing football from junior high through high school im pretty sure i saw dozens of concussions (and was dazed myself a number of times) but i can only remember 1 or 2 actually being diagnosed as such.

― ryan, Wednesday, January 20, 2016

long-term memory loss :(

"good news guys it's not a concussion just a grade 2 rung bell"

hah, that's pretty much the way it was. concussions were kind of a laughing matter back then, people would talk about dumb things they did because they were concussed much like people talk about being drunk. when you get one though it's scary...like "wait, are we whites or blues today, why can't I remember??" scary - this was not all that long ago

As a bona fide nerd weakling the idea of laughing off a traumatic brain injury is terrifying to me.

well sure when you call it a traumatic brain injury it sounds scary

that's why the tough guys call it "getting your bell rung".