A helmet article from the Wall Street Journal?

[John Adams]

A few concussion and helmet articles recently highlight the growing concerns over brain dementia and football--no matter the level and no matter the head protection. Today's WSJ has this:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...icle-outset-box

by REED ALBERGOTT AND SHIRLEY S. WANG

 

Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon who has conducted brain research for the players' union, says the NFL should change the rules so linemen aren't allowed to go into three-point stances before plays—a rule that would prevent them from springing head-first into other players. He says he would also stop all head contact in football practices. Dr. Cantu, says brain injuries could be reduced by enforcing rules already on the books in the NFL—especially helmet-to-helmet hits, which are not always called by officials. "There have to eventually be some hard sanctions for referees," he says.

 

...

 

In the past, attempts to create a better helmet haven't met with much success. Robert Cade, who is better known as an inventor of Gatorade, created a shock-absorbing helmet that was used by a number of NFL players in the 1970s. In the late 1980s, Bert Straus, an industrial designer, came up with the ProCap, a soft outer shell that fits over helmets to help absorb blows. It was also used by some NFL players but also never caught on.

 

Nonetheless, the strongest argument for the helmet may turn out to be an economic one. The NFL is shaped around the notion that players can run into each other at high speeds without consequence. It's the same sort of idea that has made Nascar the nation's most popular form of motorsport. And beyond all this, there's the very real question of whether the prospect of serious mental impairment later in life will ever discourage people from playing the game—let alone watching.

 

This follows Malcolm Gladwell's sobering article on the link between playing football and dementia. It's not concussions that give you dementia, necessarily, it can just be all the hits. I rate this article as "must read" for parents of football kids.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10...currentPage=all

In the meantime, late last month the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research released the findings of an N.F.L.-funded phone survey of just over a thousand randomly selected retired N.F.L. players—all of whom had played in the league for at least three seasons. Self-reported studies are notoriously unreliable instruments, but, even so, the results were alarming. Of those players who were older than fifty, 6.1 per cent reported that they had received a diagnosis of “dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other memory-related disease.” That’s five times higher than the national average for that age group. For players between the ages of thirty and forty-nine, the reported rate was nineteen times the national average. (The N.F.L. has distributed five million dollars to former players with dementia.)

 

...

McKee got up and walked across the corridor, back to her office. “There’s one last thing,” she said. She pulled out a large photographic blowup of a brain-tissue sample. “This is a kid. I’m not allowed to talk about how he died. He was a good student. This is his brain. He’s eighteen years old. He played football. He’d been playing football for a couple of years.” She pointed to a series of dark spots on the image, where the stain had marked the presence of something abnormal. “He’s got all this tau. This is frontal and this is insular. Very close to insular. Those same vulnerable regions.” This was a teen-ager, and already his brain showed the kind of decay that is usually associated with old age. “This is completely inappropriate,” she said. “You don’t see tau like this in an eighteen-year-old. You don’t see tau like this in a fifty-year-old.”

[Corp000085]

Like the NHL with on-ice headshots, nothing will be done till someone dies as a direct result of brain damage on the field.

[Mr. WEO]

Other than the league requiring players to use an as yet to be developed much safer helmet, there is nothing that can be done to avoid hits to the head. They are routine and it is the cumulative effect over a career that causes the damage.

 

Throwing flags on every helmet to helmet hit will do nothing to decrease their frequency, nor will fining them. Most of these, though they look vicious, are not intentional (the hitter is subject to the same force as the target, afterall).

 

None of this will keep many from playing football.

[GG]

A few concussion and helmet articles recently highlight the growing concerns over brain dementia and football--no matter the level and no matter the head protection. Today's WSJ has this:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...icle-outset-box

 

 

This follows Malcolm Gladwell's sobering article on the link between playing football and dementia. It's not concussions that give you dementia, necessarily, it can just be all the hits. I rate this article as "must read" for parents of football kids.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10...currentPage=all

 

This is the critical line, but it doesn't fully address the fandom's bloodlust in a particular sport.

Nonetheless, the strongest argument for the helmet may turn out to be an economic one. The NFL is shaped around the notion that players can run into each other at high speeds without consequence. It's the same sort of idea that has made Nascar the nation's most popular form of motorsport. And beyond all this, there's the very real question of whether the prospect of serious mental impairment later in life will ever discourage people from playing the game—let alone watching.

 

Boxing faced a similar dilemma and many rules were added to increase boxers' safety, while the sport in general was quietly ushered into backrooms from stadiums and arenas. And from those ashes, MMA was born. So, wishing a problem away could be more dangerous than confronting them upfront. The NFL should absolutely invest in better player equipment, but they should be careful in turning the league into a two hand touch outing.

[John Adams]

This is the critical line, but it doesn't fully address the fandom's bloodlust in a particular sport.

 

 

Boxing faced a similar dilemma and many rules were added to increase boxers' safety, while the sport in general was quietly ushered into backrooms from stadiums and arenas. And from those ashes, MMA was born. So, wishing a problem away could be more dangerous than confronting them upfront. The NFL should absolutely invest in better player equipment, but they should be careful in turning the league into a two hand touch outing.

 

MMA is the perfect model for how little people "needed" boxing.

 

Helmets face a lot of obstacles. Big helmets would protect brains but necks can't support them. There is not likely a way to keep brains from getting rattled in football as long as the rules are the way they are. The WSJ article makes a good point that Auissie Rules Football has much of the same contact--minus the heads (except for inadvertent hits).

 

It's one thing to say men can do what they want with their brains but it's sobering to see how the hits kids take drive their dementia rates through the roof. And the kids get 1/100th the medical attention of a college or NFL player.

[dave mcbride]

This is the critical line, but it doesn't fully address the fandom's bloodlust in a particular sport.

 

 

Boxing faced a similar dilemma and many rules were added to increase boxers' safety, while the sport in general was quietly ushered into backrooms from stadiums and arenas. And from those ashes, MMA was born. So, wishing a problem away could be more dangerous than confronting them upfront. The NFL should absolutely invest in better player equipment, but they should be careful in turning the league into a two hand touch outing.

I dunno. Practically everyone I know has been reading those NY Times articles and the NYer article, and the basic response has been as follows: "I may have had doubts before about my kid playing football, but now I know -- that ain't ever happening." It's a constant topic of conversation among the many people I know who care about sports.

 

It's very odd how the NFL's "institutional media" (Jerry Sullivan's apt term) -- Peter King, John Clayton, etc. -- aren't touching the issue other than to assure us that Goodell cares a lot and that the league is thinking about. It's other outlets whose bread isn't buttered by the NFL that are going to town with this story.

 

Long term, this is a huge problem for the league, and even I'm having some difficulty enjoying it lately (the state of the Bills hasn't helped either). For instance, late in this past Monday night game, there was a completely needless, deliberate, and vicious helmet-to-helmet hit by James Harrison on Correll Buckhalter (less than two minutes to go in a game that was out of reach). Gruden, who I now actively dislike, celebrated the hit, crowing about how much he loved Harrison. Then ESPN rolled out a highlight reel of Jack Tatum's most vicious hits (all helmet-to-helmet), with Gruden going on and on about how great Tatum was. His boothmates said virtually nothing, and of course no one mentioned that "They Call me Assassin" Tatum nearly killed someone on a football field. That hit on Stingley wasn't accidental, and Tatum undoubtedly shortened Stingley's life by decades. It was a truly wretched and disgusting display.

 

The NFL is going to remain popular, but you'll see fewer and fewer families allowing their kids to play football in years to come. Heck, I wanted my son to play tackle football, and he did for one year. That'll never happen again. He can play flag, basketball, and baseball. That's plenty.

 

In sum, the stuff that's coming out is going to have an impact long term, and while the NFL is understandably denying everything (the lawsuits would crush them), the evidence is pretty freaking overwhelming that the sport is really, really bad for you.

[KD in CA]

Ironically, the best solution would probably be to ban helmets altogether. Guys aren't going to instigate many skull to skull hits.

[fairweather fan]

It is hard to believe, but probably true that abolishing helmets, or going back to leather would cut the problem. In the days of bare knuckle fights, fights went 20 or 30 rounds, because one could do less damage with a bare fist than a heavily padded hand, just as a heavy plastic helmet can do more damage than no helmet. My two sons were injured playing tackle football in high school, and while one has back problems from those days, the other one's concussions are causing him problems as he is just hitting forty, and will probably cause him a shorter lifespan. If I had known, but I didn't, I hope that other parents of todays children are better educated than I was about football injuries. My brother in law, in his sixties, suffers every day from playing sem pro football out of high school.

[Ramius]

Ironically, the best solution would probably be to ban helmets altogether. Guys aren't going to instigate many skull to skull hits.

 

Agreed. Minimize the padding. No more robotech armor. Indirectly, padding makes people care less about their bodies.

[Bmwolf21]

I dunno. Practically everyone I know has been reading those NY Times articles and the NYer article, and the basic response has been as follows: "I may have had doubts before about my kid playing football, but now I know -- that ain't ever happening." It's a constant topic of conversation among the many people I know who care about sports.

I can tell you I am leaning the same way. My wife doesn't want him to play football at all, and right now I am on the fence at best.

[John Adams]

I can tell you I am leaning the same way. My wife doesn't want him to play football at all, and right now I am on the fence at best.

 

Encourage him play a million other great team sports where long term dementia is not only probable but highly likely if he plays for any length of time.

[Bmwolf21]

Encourage him play a million other great team sports where long term dementia is not only probable but highly likely if he plays for any length of time.

That's what I am leaning towards - baseball, basketball, hockey (might be a tad too expensive for us, though)-- heck, even soccer. It's tough for me - I played in HS and had a lot of fun, I've worked around high school and college football, and I'd love for him to have the same experiences. But not at the expense of his mind.

[LongLiveRalph]

In the meantime, late last month the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research released the findings of an N.F.L.-funded phone survey of just over a thousand randomly selected retired N.F.L. players

 

The fact that this study was NFL-funded is significant, even if it was a simple, error-prone phone survey. For years, the NFL has denied results of numerous other studies under the guise of, "Our own internal efforts to study this very serious issue are ongoing. Thus far, we have shown no direct correlation between playing football and decreased cognitive abilities blah blah blah blah blah."

 

There are hundreds of current and former players who are enrolled in a decades-long study where their cognitive functions will be tested yearly throughout their playing careers and on into their retirement, with further brain study after their death. Although it may take a while, that is going to be the one that blows this thing open.

 

The NFL acknowledging the results of the phone survey is a step in the right direction, even though it basically has them admitting what everyone in the world outside of the NFL already knew: Tackle football injures brain.

[Peevo]

I think whats sad, yet interesting is the public response to studies like this. I'm not a father, in fact no where near the child rearing age of other posters above here. However, it seems the only hard effect this study will have on parents and their kids. Elite athletes that actually have an NFL shot will continue to take hits as long as they think it will equate to dollar signs and maybe a "better" life.

 

Ultimately, sports fans don't care. Baseball fans don't care that an entire generation of its players cheated with steroids and HGH. I'm sure there's plenty of NFL or other contact sport athletes doing the same thing.

 

We don't care that Leonard Little killed somebody. We don't care that Ray Lewis was accused of accessory to murder and ultimately admonished on a technicality. Mike Vick got 24 months of federal prison time for killing dogs, yet Donte Stallworth gets loaded and kills a person and gets 30 days in jail. It doesn't make sense. But after all the hoopla and "public backlash," we still turn the games on tv on Sundays. And that's really all that the tv stations and NFL is concerned with, the almighty dollar. Profits before people, right? Capitalism!

[John Adams]

The fact that this study was NFL-funded is significant, even if it was a simple, error-prone phone survey. For years, the NFL has denied results of numerous other studies under the guise of, "Our own internal efforts to study this very serious issue are ongoing. Thus far, we have shown no direct correlation between playing football and decreased cognitive abilities blah blah blah blah blah."

 

There are hundreds of current and former players who are enrolled in a decades-long study where their cognitive functions will be tested yearly throughout their playing careers and on into their retirement, with further brain study after their death. Although it may take a while, that is going to be the one that blows this thing open.

 

The NFL acknowledging the results of the phone survey is a step in the right direction, even though it basically has them admitting what everyone in the world outside of the NFL already knew: Tackle football injures brain.

 

Decades of billions of dollars in income. The NFL official line is still "We're looking into it." I don't care that much about the NFL. The small number of NFL players are men and they know what the deal is with their brains. I'm a lot more concerned about the huge numbers of kids who will grow up to dementia.