rolling American football death spiral thread

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.

I would think that if the NFL starts paying multimillion dollar settlements or penalties to the suing players, it won't be much longer before their insurers start getting spooked?

I think high school football programs might be shut down sooner by activism or administrative decisions than by lawsuits, on like case-by-case bases. idk. speculation.

Something's gotta give though, this is a story that's been building for a couple of years now.

Rawlings football helmet disclaimer:

WARNING: NO HELMET CAN PREVENT ALL HEAD OR ANY NECK INJURIES A PLAYER MIGHT RECEIVE WHILE PARTICIPATING IN FOOTBALL. Do not use this helmet or faceguard to butt, ram, or spear an opposing player. This is in violation of football rules and such case can result in severe head or neck injuries, paralysis or death to you and possible injury to your opponent. Contact in football may result in CONCUSSION/BRAIN INJURY which no helmet can prevent. Symptoms include: loss of consciousness or memory, dizziness, headache, nausea, or confusion. If you have symptoms, immediately stop playing and report them to your coach, trainer, doctor and parents. Do not return to a game or practice until all symptoms have resolved for an extended period of time and you have received written MEDICAL CLEARANCE. Ignoring this warning may lead to additional and more serious or fatal brain injury including potentially fatal second impact syndrome. No helmet system can protect you from serious brain and/or neck injuries including paralysis or death. To avoid these risks, do not engage in the sport of football.

Lest we forget football's unsung heroes:
Cheerleading: sports' most hazardous event?

Cheerleading produces a larger number of catastrophic injuries — concussions, skull fractures, cervical spine injuries, paralysis and death — than any other sport, male or female. Kids get hurt in gymnastics, softball, soccer and basketball, but there are twice as many severe casualties in cheerleading as in all the other female sports combined.

Just saw an advert for the LFL (women's gridiron, scantily-clad. Very scantily-clad). Fucking hell :(

I mean, I love the fact that women are increasingly playing major team sports and I'd love to see more women making men's teams on merit, but this feels sad, grisly and exploitative, so much so that I'd wonder whether those qualities are intrinsic to the nature of gridiron.

I'm pretty sure Lingerie Football League is more of a marketing phenomenon than a sport.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/sports/201309/junior-seau-nfl-death-concussions-brain-injury

New York High School Football Player Dies After Helmet-to-Helmet Hit

way more teenagers die from car accidents than playing football, but I wouldn't let my hypothetical teenagers drive, either.

mentioned upthread, just seeing this now, but rugby is safer for the skull via:

1) no helmets/armour
2) backwards passing, so contact is at more oblique angles
3) premise/rules of the game create less of an incentive to drive people backwards when tackling them
4) you can't tackle/block someone who doesn't have the ball, so fewer hits on people not prepared for them

more neck injuries in rugby though i think, but that's just the scrum. you could get rid of that without fundamentally changing the entire game.

5) oxbridge educated captains ensure safety and good spirt

cool silby

"Three days later, as the Western New York community of Westfield was praying for his recovery, he died."

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about the first part of that sentence. It goes without saying that if someone is in the hospital, people will be praying for that person to recover. So does including that he died as(?) the community was praying for him somehow mean that praying for him was stupid? Meaningless from the start? Shows that God doesn't exist? Just a very strange sentence.

League of Denial Frontline episode

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/league-of-denial/

bump for daytime, really affecting documentary imo. Ann McKee is my science hero. Can't imagine what it's like to be the parent of a 21 year old who hanged himself and had the same brain-damage as pro players with 2-decade careers.

Slightly unexpected, in that this is illustrated by David Squires -- normally doing (the other kind of) football, this is his first specific one about the American version I can think of:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2023/sep/06/david-squires-on-eric-smith-and-the-nfls-toll-on-one-players-mind-and-body

Completely wrecked by this feature.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/16/us/cte-youth-football.html

wow

that was tough to get through

One thing that happens in that video happens to me, tho obviously I don't have a son, nor one that plays football—

but whenever I pass by a football field, and see all these young men and boys tackling each other, I am overwhelmed with sadness and anger. Just seems so senseless.

i *almost* played football in high school. several of the PE coaches saw me running track and tried to recruit me to play wide receiver, which in retrospect feels more like recruiting a kid for the military. i actually really enjoyed playing football casually at local parks, where my friends and i were definitely tackling each other, but we were also not beating the hell out of each other. but HS football was a different trip. i didn't want to get hit head-on while catching a pass, to get a limb snapped during a tackle, it just generally seemed like a bad idea. i'd seen enough clips of gritty chicago bears wideout tom waddle getting assassinated in the red zone by opposing safeties to know i didn't want that to happen to me.

I played in high school and have heard the comparisons to the military before, twice by teammates who wound up enlisting. I guess its mostly in the way they really do try to break you down and convince you that the only virtue is to give more than your body can handle, and that anything less is not only shameful but also an act of cowardice that lets down your teammates. Well they don't quite say it in those words but still. I played basketball too and it definitely was not like that. But football is a very different sport, I mean if you play you will get hurt, simple as that.

I don't think I was really ever at 100%, but especially after 5 games or so, you get one side of your body hurt, so you overcompensate and get the other side hurt as well, and there's a certain point where after the 2nd quarter you just want it to be over. That kind of made me wince when they decided to extend the NFL schedule by a game, I mean it's those last few that really suck for these guys. I played about half at tight end, which made you susceptible to some really big hits, and after a couple of those you just really really did not want the ball to come your way. I also played on the OL which gets you hurt in a different, more mundane sort of way. The soreness I felt the morning after some of those games...yeesh. Sometimes I'd be lined up against a guy who not only had 30-40 pounds on me but was faster than me as well. Those games were hell, especially since the only reason I was in that position is because my school was small, so we just kinda had who we had. There wasn't really anyone who could help. I think one game I basically held on every single play, because if I didn't the QB was gonna get killed, and we were already on our 3rd one. I'm proud to say I only got flagged twice but only because even holding didn't slow the guy down much.

That said I'm still glad I played, I mean some of it really was fun and I think the bonds you make really are something special. But yeah at the end of every season I just thought "fuck this, I'm not playing next year", and then I'd kinda get pressured into doing it anyway, not that it would take much. I guess I'm lucky nothing serious ever happened.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/39212869/kirby-smart-laments-fsu-opt-outs-georgia-orange-bowl-rout

College football coaches are the worst people on Earth. Can’t believe these shithead kids didn’t risk their futures on a meaningless game!

College bowl games have very rapidly lost their whole reason for existence. The possible exceptions might be for a few of the smaller Division I college teams from the off brand conferences - most of whose players will never sniff an NFL contract, so that a trip to some place like Chattanooga or Gainesville to play a game in mid-winter sounds like a fun break. The truly small college divisions already get to have a meaningful playoffs.

Smart was mostly being a gracious winner in those comments. He isn't calling out the players. He's pointing out how the bowl system is broken and that FSU was a good team this year, whatever the meaningless bowl score.

We might also treat non-playoff bowl games similar to a pre-season scrimmage. Some fans will still be interestwd. So long as people don't treat the scoreboard as unweighted data about who was actually good this year, it's fine.

narrator: people continued to treat the scoreboard as unweighted data about who was actually good this year

A similar story to the NYT one above about young injuries - the detail about the NFL player (Dave Duerson, mentioned above) who specifically shot himself in the heart so that his brain could be studied wrecked me.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/cte-impact-young-football-players-1234804580/