rolling American football death spiral thread

as an aside do we have the slightest idea how many head injuries actually happen in rugby? i bet we do not.

i genuinely think football will evolve into a pass-dominant touch-tackle sport

yeah I guess I can see that path as a lot more viable

it helps that it's what people like too

yeah i could see that

Football would be a lot safer if they just replaced tackling with tickling.

lol

I think some are greatly overestimating how much the average fan gives a shit. Most football fans I know rationalize it as some "they knew what they were getting into" BS. The real test will be whether the NFL can survive an ongoing parade of lawsuits, but if they do, I don't think the fanbase is going anywhere.

These stories keep leaving a really bad taste in my mouth though, I feel a shameful complicity in just having watched the game...

i remember reading once that there's drastically less head injuries in rugby because you have to learn how to tackle without using your head. in football, the helmet gives the feeling of invincibility, so the helmet itself is probably a misnomer anyway

― J0rdan S., Thursday, January 17, 2013 4:40 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In football you can play to the whistle and have 30 seconds to recover or leave the field, so in that timeframe all manner of violence can occur. Rugby has (more) sustained play so you couldn't have that kind of behavior or half the field would have injured dudes on it.

back before helmets people were getting killed in football all the time so I'm skeptical that they're a net negative

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6fejWutXCk

I've never heard about pre-helmet deaths - AFAICT only one NFL player has ever died on the field.

i think the most realistic change is something that prevents players from playing through injuries. if the NFL has to pai out multiple billions of dollars after all these suits are settled, they would have a real compelling reason to significantly strengthen their rules/regulations so that no player can talk his way out of sitting due to a concussion.

"In 1905, there was roughly one-fifth the number of college football players as there are today, yet, 18 were killed and 159 severely injured in that one year alone. "

sounds like a good way for weasel coaches to get extra timeouts

the solution is very simpe, guys: everybody should watch basketball instead

Football in 1905 didn't look much like today's game. What about 1945 or 1950?

I should think that the NFL is in no immediate danger of being litigated out of existance. After all, US courts tolerated the buying and selling of baseball players as chattel for a century. Almost 100% of modern american football players would be avid to sign away any and all rights they might have for redress of injuries, just for the chance to play in the NFL.

kind of interesting to think of all the brain damage O.J. Simpson was probably living with for the last 30 years

Football in 1905 didn't look much like today's game. What about 1945 or 1950?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:00 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

football in 1905 didn't look much like today's game because the forward pass was invented to stop people from dying so much

I think the comparable sport here has to be boxing. It's not dead, but it's nowhere near as popular as it was last century, and I think football will head that way as people get turned off by the dawning understanding of the physical toll. (I'd like to see radio/tv numbers for how popular boxing has been over the last century.)

boxing was never as popular as football is right now tho

even in boxing's heyday i don't think it compares to football right now

it's hard to compare eras like that regardless

but I do think that, the two paths are either cad's high scoring touch football or wmc's game that's viewed as less family friendly and more masculine a la boxing etc. like your mom won't be organizing the super bowl party.

two other things that affect its future are going to be what happens to streaming video / cable / broadcast advertising etc and what happens to the american university system over the coming decades.

The biggest factors in the demise of boxing were first, overexposure, next widespread corruption, and lastly, unbridled greed that broke up the "world championship" titles into fragments. The NFL is flirting heavily with overexposure, but there is no hint atm that the games are fixed or the refs have been bought, and the NFL's central management is keeping conflict within the league from causing overt problems.

Aimless OTM. I don't think brutality means a thing.

MMA has picked up ground on boxing because the UFC acts as the central body with the true champs, doesn't protect up and comers to the degree of boxing, etc., despite being viscerally more brutal. (though, actually, I'd rather have my kid take up MMA than boxing - less dangerous to his or her brain).

oops, didn't edit - I don't think brutality was key in boxing's decline - that goes mostly to corruption and the way corruption screwed up the heavyweights. Plus better money in other sports and a cultural emphasis on team sports.

football in 1905 didn't look much like today's game because the forward pass was invented to stop people from dying so much

Should have been the forward kick.

Speaking of football, I wonder if they limited substitutions like in soccer, would that change on-field behavior?

Junior Seau's family is suing the NFL.

Looking forward to that suit being tossed ASAP. Frivolous.

• Esquire on football injuries
• Franco Harris: 'I'm hoping that if I eat my blueberries every day and do my memory exercises, I'll be okay.'
• Dave Duerson
• CTE found in living ex-NFL players

thanks for the links mookie

The NFL's Response to Brain Trauma: A Brief History

2002 - Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steeler center Mike Webster dies. Towards the end of his life Webster was living out a pick-up truck, using a Taser to ease back pain, and applying Super Glue to his teeth.

Obama not sure he'd allow a son to play football

sure have been a lot of /www.nflevolution.com/ commercials during the super bowl

is this really the only ongoing super bowl discussion thread? (i have noticed that my twitter feed is more brit-twitter being confused than american-twitter being enthused.)

no, the other thread is on I love the nfl

it's not super active tho

IT'S SUPER BOWL XLVII: HARBAUGHWL (aka harbl?)

yeah, my 'this' is a link to that thread! (which i can't really see myself, i guess i should change stylesheet.)

lol i don't have that board on SNA so i didn't see that. thanks.

that ta-nehisi coates article is horrifying. and the comments are actually quite informative.

watching "Head Games" on Netflix thanks to the comments on that article now, checking it out

Coates article also links to this re Mike Webb, although turns out he's just the beginning (taser for back pain?!)
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/research-finds-football-lead-brain-injury/story?id=8838451&page=3

Cumulative effects of subconcussive hits

How does this measure up to Aus Rugby League and AFL, where no one wears any kind of head protection? I know there's been League players here in the news for similar concussive cumulative injuries but I would have thought yr helmets prevented all this? (wusses ;P)

Actually I'm being a little spurious: some players do wear small leather headgear things.

as far as i'm aware, Aus rugby league, AFL & rugby players all know how to tackle properly, ie not just using their head as a battering ram (tbh, i say this without knowing much about AFL and Aus rugby, but i'm guessing it's more like rugby than Am. football). that probably reduces the chances of concussions.

On a postcard-perfect Southern California morning, George Visger is pissing blood. This comes as a relief. For me, mostly. But also for him. Things could be worse. He could be having a seizure. Or slipping into a coma. Which means I could be jamming a one-inch butterfly needle into a thumbnail-sized hole in the side of his skull, trying to siphon off excess spinal fluid while avoiding what Visger calls "the white stuff."

The white stuff being brain tissue.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/George-Visger/george-visger-damage-done

a+ lede

i have started to think tho that the "parents will stop their kids from playing football" thing is a bit overplayed.

I can see that. What about liability-scurred schools stopping them, though? Any parents sued schools yet for football injuries? I guess the real problems don't show up until years later tho ...

my understanding is that a lawsuit would have to show that the defendant knew of the dangers and concealed them? i don't think a high school would be in that position and it will be hard to prove the nfl was.

Rudi Johnson RIP

Nbd, this former NFL player with CTE slaughtered two workers and four members of an extended family.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/us/phillip-adams-cte.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pU8.Qi_d.x7lxPWmfYcl-&smid=url-share

Ban football.

NFL football vs the 2nd Amendment - I’m not sure which is the immovable object and which one is the unstoppable force, or which one is the rock and which one is the hard place, but this is the country we were born in. I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas.

tbf by this logic, ban cars! and alcohol!

tbf by this logic, ban cars! and alcohol!

a completely voluntary sport that has led to a collective psychosis wherein a national pasttime consists of mostly Black men destroying their bodies and brains for the benefits of billionaire owners and idiot fans only to be left high and dry when they are too broken? sure exactly like driving a car or drinking alcohol.

Ban football.

I'd agree with banning full contact football for kids. This paragraph disgusted me:

In Rock Hill, tackle football starts at age 7.

“Your son, who’s 7 now, looks so adorable and real cute in that jersey and huge pants,” Katie said. “But you know what could happen? That 7-year-old could turn 32 and walk a quarter of a mile down the road and kill six people. That’s the danger of football.”

The NFL has changed a lot even since 2015 which was Adams' last year in the NFL. I think it will be a while before we see whether these safety measures pan out - especially considering some kids may already have been seriously concussed multiple times before they ever even make the NFL.

Nah, this is the contemporary Coliseum and the players are the gladiators, it's barbaric and ridiculous, ban football.

No that's MMA

remember that slap fight league that dana white or whoever started, i think they had to stop because literally EVERYONE was getting concussed every time (surprise).

The slap fight league is still going but it's such a gross freak show to 99.9% of the population that it got cancelled from TV and moved to Youtube. Pretty sure it's surviving as a money laundering deal for the Saudi PIF at this point.

not on board with paternalistic moralizing about football, though

said like a true Texan

is it paternalistic moralizing if it is 100% true?

If you accept my premises completely am I not right?!?!

But yes, your posts would still be paternalistic if they were 100% true.

cool, people are dying terrible deaths and harming others because of a sociopathic commitment to a violent game. ban football.

i've noticed more players than ever wearing guardian caps during games this year. it still only seems like a few guys on each team but i think the stigma around them -- that they look stupid -- appears to be wearing off slowly. i think there is some data suggesting that they have helped prevent concussions in practice settings (altho teams also practice far less and less hard than they used to) but will be years obv before we have any hard data on how they may be helping in full game settings

however there is something about the mental environment of football and how it requires you to dehumanize the individual in front of you in order to physically punish him that is not the same in other sports and probably leads to people who are otherwise prone to violence succeeding in football where they may not otherwise be able to in other sports or walks of life. tyreek hill's reaction to having his leg torn apart the other night -- smiling and laughter -- felt dark and sociopathic to me given his history as a domestic abuser

his response while on the cart was odd and sorta disturbing to me, too. beyond brave cheerful acceptance into weird thirsty celebration. was he impaired? was he glad to be relieved of some greater suffering inherent to his role in regular play? was he misunderstanding as to his injury? i didn’t/don’t get it.

its a pretty normal reaction to finding out you don't have to play for the Dolphins anymore

not gonna judge a dude who was clearly in shock (and maybe on morphine) for being weird on his likely final exit from football theater.

but yeah of course ill judge him for his past as a scumbag

i just looked for and saw the posterior vs the lateral cam view of that. now i am embarrassed that i was the one lacking understanding of the incident. whoa, ok.

these stories are currently on ESPN's top NFL news stack:

Broncos WR Bryant in hospital, has movement
Sources: Chiefs fear Minshew suffered ACL tear
Hand injury latest ailment for Vikes QB McCarthy
Olave: Weighed retirement due to concussions
RB Judkins has dislocated ankle, fractured fibula

it's pretty crazy how this is just a standard week for american football

I watched a bunch today while cleaning the house and wrapping presents and repeatedly thought “woah how does someone survive a hit like that more than once?” It’s absolutely brutal.

The ACL tears are out of control this year

the ACL tears are going to happen

(lol i tore mine while playing on a legit high-level basketball court when i was used to everything being dusty)

but 'player in hospital, has movement' and dudes getting their third concussions of the season being par for the course is fucked up

The coverage tries hard to downplay the violence now. Compilations of ESPN coverage from the ‘00s are incomprehensible. The talking head shows would need everyone stopping to say YOUR KNEE IS FUCKED in unison now.