OT- great article questioning the future of football
Here is a great article questioning the future of football in America and changing attitudes about the game- interesting poll results, views of the pros, etc.
Tell me what you think
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/ron_borges/2014/12/borges…
December 20th, 2014 at 8:40 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 8:40 PM ^
The game of football is resilient. It's quite different than it was 125 years ago, mostly for safety reasons. You can be assured that it will be different 125 years from now - for safety reasons - but it will still retain the main elements we are used to now.
December 20th, 2014 at 8:45 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 8:50 PM ^
One of the reasons for instituting the forward pass was for safety. It was suppose to reduce the amount of scrums and up the gut runs with massive collisions.
December 20th, 2014 at 8:57 PM ^
Thank you.
December 20th, 2014 at 10:20 PM ^
December 21st, 2014 at 1:49 AM ^
That doesn't change the fact that they did change the rules to allow a forward pass for reasons of safety.
It also doesn't change the fact that they can change rules again in the future to make the game safe and keep the sport alive. There simply is too much money and passion involved in this sport to have it die off without anyone trying to make it evolve with the cultural expectations of safety.
No true sport is 100% safe. What do we hear is the safe alternative to football? Soccer! Guess what? Studies are now showing that soccer can cause brain damage and some suggest at rates higher than football for youth. Some youth leagues are considering making it illegal to head the ball.
December 22nd, 2014 at 8:47 AM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 8:50 PM ^
growing by leaps and bounds. I'd have no problem with my son(if i had one) playing the sport. If you teach the proper techniques and continue to improve the helmet you can mitigate concussions.
One of my great regrets was not trying out for freshman football. The coach, the 8th grade biology teach told my dad that I ought to tryout.
Alas, I was much too timid to do so. I wish I had.
It would be presumptuous to think that football will always be #1. History says Americans change their sporting habiits(horse racing to baseball to football). But football is so ingrained in large parts of the culture(the South, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas) that it isn't going away soon.
Hockey has issues with concussions. Is that going away in Canada? How about the rise of mixed martial arts? If people are so concerned about head trauma why are people participating in MMA?
Much of the poll is driven by the high profile CTE cases. We haven't seen anything similiar in other contact sports like MMA, boxing, and hockey. I think if the case hadn't received so much publicity the poll numbers would be different.(I'm not saying that the case should not have been publicized. It's a legitimate concern. But the publicity does influence/bias the poll.)
December 20th, 2014 at 8:59 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
Both have constant hitting. MMA is particularly brutal.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:15 PM ^
It is a problem for hockey, in case you haven't noticed a renewed interest in getting fighting out of the game and a focus on blows to the head. Even then, the only people who are reporting brain issues are former enforcers. Most hockey players live to awfully ripe old ages.
As for MMA, it's brand-new, and yes, growing, but I wouldn't say by leaps and bounds; it's still not all that big. And MMA fighters don't alwayswin a match by literally knocking their opponent senseless the way boxers do. Frankly, MMA fighters spend a ton of their time not beating on each other.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:15 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 10:06 PM ^
December 21st, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^
practices without helmets to ingrain safer blocking and tacking skills.
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/12/04/helmetless-football-practice-university-o…
Makes perfect sense to me.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:40 PM ^
It may APPEAR brutal because it only takes a few clean punches with MMA gloves to get a KO/stoppage. But, the concussion issue is really more due to total head injuries versus "brutal" ones. It's much better for the KO'd party to get hit with one good shot and be done than get hit with shot after shot that KOs him on his feet so to speak. MMA is less harmful for the brain because the fighter is not allowed a chance to get his wits about him and have successive concussions. Typically if he has one his opponent will finish the fight and/or the referee will stop it because he can't intelligently defend himself. IMO that is not as bad despite it's appearence.
December 21st, 2014 at 3:53 AM ^
The game will undergo a radical change within twenty years. They will change the rules to not reward hitting and make it more of a game of skill. The main problem is the fans, who will scream about having "their football taken away from them." Most of those who will complain the loudest will be those whose never suffer the effects of any force or impact more significant than stubbing a toe on the way to the fridge or cupboard.
December 21st, 2014 at 8:53 AM ^
...but there is a reason that MMA (and boxing) are not college sports.
December 20th, 2014 at 8:50 PM ^
and now, 10 years later, everything seems fine. we have been blessed with 5 sons, and they are football crazy, so the oldest are playing, with the youngers coming up soon.
so few play pro, and i won't push my boys at all to play at any level, but i have no problem with them playing at these ages.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:32 PM ^
Those are but a few. The reality is that those who never participated or were not athletic enough to play are now those trying to shut down football.
Football is king so it has now become a target.
Very sad.
December 21st, 2014 at 6:55 AM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 11:22 PM ^
Is football not a voluntary game? Are not the negative effects of football very well known? Are not the stories of guys in their 50's/60's having trouble walking stories we all have heard? I simply don't understand the impulse to change the game and discourage people from playing any sport whatsoever that is voluntary. As long as people know the risks of entering any sport I have no concern at all with the negative future impact on them. People should decide for themselves how to spend their time, and as long they know the risk involves possible brain trauma, then if they choose to play then I think that's all we need to know. Shaun White knows that he can break his neck in half-pipe, and if he does then I am sad for him and his family, but I would never attampt to stop him or anyone else from playing.
December 22nd, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^
and kids can make these decisions for themselves and god bless America and all. But if you lived in a country where all kids were measured by Football prowess would it still be the next CTE inflicted brain's fault?
I love skiing more than most, but I don't do flips. Stunts like White's kill people every year who try and emulate them. Every death has a waiver in small type on their lift ticket. There are no such waivers in a football helmet. Where is Steve Colbert to waiver his American flag when you need it.
December 23rd, 2014 at 1:04 PM ^
That it should not be up to the individual to decide how much risk they want to bear? Trying to warp individual choice into a God Bless America narrative is a bit far fetched and also besides the point. As much choice as possible should acrue to the indivudal unless he or she is hurting another, that is true in America, France, Russia (or should be) or anywhere else
December 24th, 2014 at 1:55 PM ^
People don't choose their lives and opportunities to the extent public health decisions should be premised on it. Football is not about crippling dotage. Just because people have presumed choice in their lives doesn't mean we shouldn't have seat belt laws or public health warnings.
The talent drain is real. There are only so many arms out there capable of hitting a 20 yard out (with guys who are now 33+% as big as they were in the sixties) bearing down on them. Privleged kids are playing supposedly safer sports - because they're parents have choice.
People aren't as free as you think - especially kids confined to a more and more fixed socioeconomic status. Choice doesn't justify avoidable injury not being avoided. We have a history of work place safety that was established from blood and tears of people who didn't have immediate choice to do whatever they wanted.
People wave the freedom flag to take away others opportunities. Does that make sense? You are saying if athletes have choice we can sign off on responsibility for their consequences. I'm saying not so much. Can we coexist? Seems unlikely without a little wavering.
December 26th, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^
to football players today. You mean it as a metaphor, but do you really want to make it? Gladiators be definition had no choice, more than that, were physically compelled to be in the arena. If you think football players don't have a choice to play the sport then I'm not sure what else I can say tp you. And workeplace safety is another difference, as once someone enters into a workplace, their is an impled contract that the conditions provided meet some safety standards.
I'm sure you think you are being nuanced in your argument, particularly bringing socioeconomic status into the mix. But actually you are providing complication where none exists. I'm not against rules for making the sport safer, but there is a point beyond which you change the game so much that it is no longer the same. And yes, if people make an informed choice, indeed some risk is acceptable from society's standpoint, IMO. People choose football for either A- pleasure, or B- the chance of money for something they are good at, or both. If they choose it knowling that they may be injured permanently, I have no hesitation whatsoever in allowing them to do that. Only people that (as often on your side of the argument IMO) that presume to know better than other individuals who make choices feel compelled to insert their judgement into the equation.
As as you might suspect from the above, I wear seat belts but believe a seat belt law (except for children) is an insult to an individual, not a benefit. Another law created by those who believe they know better than I about how I should drive alone in my car. It is an insult because the injury only acrues to me, which is the distinction I'm making (laws that prevent injury to others from my actions are wholly justified). Just as the injury from a snownboarder or football acrues only to them.
December 27th, 2014 at 2:47 AM ^
Choice does not validate unnecessary suffering. The NFL suppressed concussion research for over a decade. Where is the choice there? Who presumed to know best for whom then? We may both agree that there is a place for safety in the game but I don't think we both agree on where that place is.
Private and state sponsored "games" existed in and around Rome for nearly a millennium. I'm not going to pretend the metaphor is exact but, yes, I would say it is nuanced. Specifically I alluded to the line from the movie Gladiator where Russell Crowe remarks to the crowd and sponsor in disgust after he is unappreciated for the death he has wrought. The games in Rome far outlived their religious origin flamed by the political advantage and popularity the carnage fostered for their sponsors. Eight hundred plus years later It took a different religious uprising (and economic collapse) to squelch it and call murder for what it was.
The story that the OP is pointing out is true. But the game of football is in danger of becoming less than it was not from people "on my side of the argument" rather from people on yours. Socioeconomic status is already leveraged on football. It's going to become even more so before we die as the Terry Bradshaws and Troy Aikmans of yesterday’s glory spread the word to talented youth that there is more to life than CTE has to offer. The current science is not clear at all as to the risk involved in football (or lacrosse or soccer or many other sports for that matter.)
No athletes are signing waivers in Pop Warner wrt to possible CTE. Instead coaches with little to no training are coaching the kids not to lead with the head with little consequence to the occasional bell ringer or perhaps even more damaging less noticeable yet constant trauma that is endemic to the game. Adults stand aside and say - hey the kid wants to play - who's to stop him. On the college level, athletes like Denard are given an education that he would not reasonably be able to attain any other way, first in his family to graduate from college. Where is the choice there? On the pro level, we are paying guys more and more to do more and more damage. They have a choice. I guess that justifies it. If the NFL had gotten out in front on CTE - I'd almost buy that.
Read the OP. Kids with parents who know (what little there is to know) or families who don't need football money are choosing not to play. Meanwhile fans are lining up for more and more violent sports - football included - with the OK to watch validated by the athletes presumed choice. There is more than choice in this equation. Football as we know it is going to suffer in the long run. As I said before - there is only so much talent out there. It won't be the same.
87 - wear you seat belt. I don't want to have to pay for your medical bills when some drunk runs you off the road. Wait, you say, you can afford your own bills. Maybe someone else, maybe most everyone else can't. That is why we take choice away when it comes to public health. In the long run it works out best for everyone. Maybe in this case it will work out best for the sport we both love - football.
December 27th, 2014 at 10:56 AM ^
if asked, would advise others to wear them too, regardless of whether there is a law or not. What I object to is the government sustituting their judgement on a purely personal choice over mine or anyone else's. This is the same reason (warning, politics, but nothing controversial) that I am laissez-faire on social issues-if the choice is either individual or between two consenting adults, the government should have no say. I could make your sealt belt/increased medical bills for society argument to argue that people that engage in certain sexual behaviors that are riskier to health should not be allowed to engage in them, but I would be against that for precisely the same reason I'm against seat belt laws.
I also have no argument with parents keeping their sons from playing football, although it makes me sad because it is the best game there is IMO, and I want it to thrive in future. I also believe that based upon what I have read, there are major questions remaining about whether or not CTE or other brain issues actually occur at much greater rates in football than in any other sport, or life in general. However, once again, the decision should be the parents. And if they decide to let him play, no one should have any say, nor any say should they refuse.
It comes down to this for me: I actually have great confidence in my opinions on many issues, and if I was in position of power I think i'd do quite well. But I'm not willing to substitute my judgement for what's right for an individual for theirs. I think that's the humility the government should operate under.
December 28th, 2014 at 2:53 AM ^
Laissez-faire is doing wonders for Sierra Leoneans as we blog... joy to your world. If I thought a law requiring condoms would help reduce the dangers of risky behavior I'd be all for it. It couldn't be any worse than Pope Paul VI's encyclical not to use them. Even the church backed off that position in the face of Aids - in the small subset of souls called male prostitutes at least. But you would not enter into that fray, would you, in deference to someone else's right to choose their path.
I hope you realize that by condoning parents who prevent their sons from playing football you also approve of those who allow it. Yeah - that is what you are thinking - unfortunately. Maybe that is why you are wavering in your position that football causes CTE as well. Where previously you said...
Is football not a voluntary game? Are not the negative effects of football very well known? Are not the stories of guys in their 50's/60's having trouble walking stories we all have heard?
Now you are saying that you aren't so sure football causes brain trauma. Hmm... that's convienent in all laissez-faireness to your real argument.
Let's go back to the article the OP pointed toward to begin with. Let's allow Terry Bradshaw to speak out whether he thinks football causes brain trauma...
Seems to me he's got a pretty good take on this.
If you love football as much as I do (and I'm begining to wonder if you do love it as much as your professed laissez-faire attitude) then maybe you will grow a pair and support changes to the game and discourage the talent drain. Something tells me you are happy to let the best athletes wander and the sport demean itself before that happens.
I choose football. That is the difference between you and me. The time for flag waving is over. Unless of course it's a maize and blue flag... then by all means Go Blue!
December 28th, 2014 at 10:07 AM ^
support changes to the game or it dies. If that choice were in fact true, then I'd support it. But more importantly, where is the evidence that I don't support more changes? Specify what they are and we may have a good conversation about it. Until then you are simply taking an absolutist postion for effect.
Of course I support parents choices either way--and find it curious that you don't. Or is that a talking point?
Let me be clear since you continue to subtly mis-state my arguments--hard hits to the head that cause damage can lead to problems, including CTE. That is a fact. What is also a fact, not an opinion, is that CTE rates in a reliable study (more studies are in the works) were not appreciably higher in football than other sports. Now maybe future studies will change that, but as of today that is the state of the research.
As for laissez faire, since you don't appear to like that much--do you support government taking an interest in people's personal lives? If so, that's a real position, but one that is pretty anti-thetical to most people's notions of freedom. So to you, my position that gay marriage should be legal, is equivalent to Sirrea Leone and the health crisis? Um, ok.
December 30th, 2014 at 6:40 AM ^
I'm not taking an absolutist position you are (!??) by putting your respect for free will before concern for the athletes and the good of the game. Certainly in your most recent posts you are saying that you would change the game to make it safer but not so in your initial post. Here is the evidence that you don't support changes to the game... your own words...
I simply don't understand the impulse to change the game and discourage people from playing any sport whatsoever that is voluntary.
If that is subtly misstating your argument then thanks for wasting my time by posting your argument to begin with. It is likely I wouldn't have even commented had you qualified that statement with a willingness to change the game. There is no willingness in those absolutist words.
Why is it curious to you that I would not support parents either allowing or preventing their kids from playing football? I don't. I personally think there is enough anecdotal and scientific evidence to question any parent who allows their kids to play football. That, 87, is a judgment call and not an absolutist position. That is my point in responding to your post to begin with.
Am I asking my representative in congress to legislate that kids not play the game... no I am not. Not because I respect their rights but rather because it's just not feasible. The evidence is not clear enough for people to understand and change their behavior. Contrary to what you have read or believe, hard hits that cause damage do not likely lead to CTE rather repetitive hits do following soon after hard hits (and what constitutes "hard" is very much in doubt) which pretty much summarizes the game of football. Sooner or later the evidence will, I think, bear this out.
There is no test for CTE other that autopsy. The NFL has obstructed the post mortem studies of scientists who sought to bring data to bear on the incidence of CTE in professional football players. With the lack of data comes interpretation and bias. Football is a cultural, economic and social bulwark of our time that resists change for many reasons (not unlike the carbon producing energy and transportation sectors.) It's likely we will never have consensus on CTE and sport - just like we will never have consensus on global warming. Instead individuals will take action in their personal lives and some public policy will be instituted where feasible.
Changing the game of football which has been changing every year since its inception anyway - is a feasible and active pursuit. Moving the kickoff, the forward pass, helmets and pads are all examples of this. The fact that players have choice to participate or not does not obviate this change.
When professional players say they wouldn't let their kids play the game. We need to listen.
Governments protect our freedom as well. It's a fundamental part of our own government. When people start waving freedom flags though... that is where freedom often takes a hit.
Laissez-faire policy doesn't support freedom. It advocates letting things take their own course. That is not the same as freedom. Sierra Leone is a case of laissez-faire gone awry.
Where did you get gay marriage out of all this? Unprotected sex applies to all sexual proclivities.
December 31st, 2014 at 10:01 AM ^
Thanks for engaging moistly in a respectaful debate. In honor of all things Harbaugh, have a happy Harbaugh new year.
December 31st, 2014 at 11:12 AM ^
GoBlue!
December 31st, 2014 at 11:12 AM ^
GoBlue!
December 20th, 2014 at 8:50 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 8:53 PM ^
Aiken and Bradshaw have no problem cashing that check they receive for their pregame/halftime shows and play by play announcing.
From stats I've seen, you are twice as much likely to receive a concussion from soccer than football.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:01 PM ^
Football isn't going anywhere. There is way to much money to be made.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 9:26 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 21st, 2014 at 2:56 AM ^
can you get a concussion from falling while roller blading? Yep
can you sustain the same kind of lasting brain damage you'd get from being hit in the head repeatedly week in and out for ~13 years minimum?
December 20th, 2014 at 9:09 PM ^
December 20th, 2014 at 9:14 PM ^
When have we fallen behind in track and field? US sprinters and field event athletes can and still compete with the best in the world, and usually win (okay, with the exception of one Usain Bolt). And in the longer races, American runners, both male and female have become competitive and are actually beating Kenyan and Ethiopian runners, FWIW.
But there is a strong point to be made about individual sports needing Americans to win for Americans to care.
December 20th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^
December 22nd, 2014 at 9:45 AM ^
coverage we have thrust down our throats. If that implies less interest then I would take issue.
On the flip side I find myself watching less Michigan football recently regardless of expanded coverage.
I'm not sure which side sounds better to me here.
December 22nd, 2014 at 10:08 AM ^
I skipped the broadcast version of the Olympics altogether in 2012, largely because of this. The online feeds showed the events themselves; NBC shows an edited version designed to showcase prospective marketing assets.
December 21st, 2014 at 3:09 AM ^
Americans were not always obsessed with heavyweight boxing exclusively... in between Ali and Tyson, middleweights were king and Hearns, Hagler and Leonard were household names. It's not like there weren't American heavyweight contenders in those years, between Ali vacating his final belt and Tyson claiming his first there no fewer than 12 heavyweight champions and 11 of those were Americans.Therein lies the problem... there were 12 heavyweight champions in a 7 year period and only Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks managed to hold their titles for more than a year.
Boxing died partly because it was too diffuse to follow, particularly without lightning rods like Ali and Tyson, and partly because they stopped showing it on network TV because it was too violent.
December 21st, 2014 at 6:59 AM ^
December 22nd, 2014 at 10:15 AM ^
On a PPV channel you don't have a timeblock you're trying to fill.
Events with a pre-determined timespan are easier for a network to handle. There are some other sports, like baseball, where you don't know in advance how long the game is likely to last, but boxing has the additional problem that there's no lower bound (well, besides zero). It's awkward for a network to block out time for a major event and then have it unexpectedly end in a couple of minutes. Imagine a two-minute Super Bowl.
December 21st, 2014 at 11:43 AM ^
It seems the article's point is that just as Americans outgrew boxing, so Americans might be starting to outgrow football.
The 1946 Joe Louis - Billy Conn heavyweight rematch was perhaps the most hyped sporting event of the era. The Robinson - LaMotta series, among other such series Robinson had in his long career, were also highly popular events. Regardless of whether any American fighters are prominent in the sport today (maybe there are, but I don't know of any) none would ever reach the stature of these 1940s - 1950s era fighters. American culture has moved on. Interestingly, Joe Louis suffered from "paranoia" late in his life. Robinson had Alzheimer's, and Muhammad Ali, as we know, labors under similar mental difficulties.
As more retired NFL players (let alone college players) report similar problems --- and they undoutedly will --- Americans might move on from football as well. Maybe the only football that future generations play will be the "soccer" variety. But that's okay too --- as we already know, the Big House can be converted into a soccer pitch without much difficulty! :>)