Thoughts on Weight Restrictions for Football

Hey wait a minute, didn't the REAL Greg Schiano float the idea to eliminate kickoffs and now this.....coincidence?

it would be like the under 5'7" intramural basketball league i participated in at michigan!

another way to help would be to make the field bigger, spreading people out and making it harder for those massive hits to occurr.  i for one, have long believed that the NBA court and rim height should've been changed a long time ago.

Plenty of concussions are caused by CBs and Safeties, some of the smaller players on the football field. I'm a wimp, but I bet I could give someone a concussion if I launched full speed at their head while wearing what is basically a suit of armor. The issue is how and where contact is made.

Honestly if it will help stop ruining the game, go for it. I'd like to see the average weight per position between now and say the 90s.

As a lineman who's high school career just finished, I can tell you that the two "diagnosed" major concussions I have had were from kids no bigger than 150 lbs. concussions can happen in many different instances. Both of mine were jarring angles at my chin. Seeing stars happens all the time on the line, heads are gonna hit its part of the game

I don't have journals of data in front of me, but it's my opinion that concussions don't become a huge problem until high-level college and NFL.  At this point it's play at your own risk.  Sure, we need to make it as safe as possible but football is one of the few sports were "big-boned" or overweight teens can really thrive.  

There's already a weight limit for the younger age groups.  I don't like the idea for high level football. Besides, if they were going to do it it should have been a a decade ago so I could have been an undersized, gritty lineman instead of a slow, undersized skill position guy.

You going to have Goodell weigh the players before the game like Ace Rothstein  weight the french performers? 

I doubt weight has any bearing on this.  How many of those players got their concussions by being hit by the heaviest players (OL and DL)?   I'm guessing its minimal.   I like the idea to ban the facemask or go back to leather helmets.  

It's a stupid idea. If anything, you want to make guys bigger and slower.

An object's kinetic energy = .5mv^2, so making the players smaller and faster is actually detrimental to trying to reduce the force of hits.

Also, think about which players cause and receive the most concussions. It's not the linemen that you'd be affecting by this change that get the most concussions; it's the LBs, DBs, WRs, and RBs. They don't need to drop any weight to get under your limit unless you make the limit something like 200 lbs.

First off, pedantic CoE grad, you mean to say mass restrictions.  Secondly force is mass times acceleration and momentum is mass times velocity.  Thus a mass reduction alone is useless if the result is just faster players.  I'd rather get hit by a Jake Long who was doing 20% of his top speed than hitting Denard who is moving at full throttle.  

Reducing the mass does likely reduce some forms of force can be exterted, but you can still get nast results for impulse (force with respect to time).  As mentioned in the other thread, there is an abnormally high number of injuries on kickoffs.  Those are guys moving at high speeds and even if you restrict kickoff teams to a set mass, they'll have a high velocity and thus a large potential change in momentum which means you still have a nasty impulse.  

It has to be across the board training restrictions of some sort.  Getting rid of the fat guys just to create a league full of guys who run a 4.2 and slam into each other at top gear doesn't get you anywhere in terms of reducing the punishment the human body takes.  

And if so, does this mean that Mangino can never coach in the NFL?  Bollocks I say!

While concussions certainly to contribute to brain trauma, recent studies have suggested that they are not the greatest factor in degenerative brain disease.  The real problem seems to be repetitive hits to the head (concussion level hits are not required).  This article by Jonathan Mahler talks about it:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-05/there-is-no-concussion-crisis-i...

Frankly, I think that these athletes assume the known risks with a playing a violent sport.

I don't think the problem is size.  There are a lot of concussions and spine injuries in Pop Warner going on right now.  Smaller populations don't have as much size and strength which create speed and force to do damage.  But, at the same time smaller populations don't have as much muscle, bony, and connective tissue strength to maintain joint structure that helps avoid injury, although I'm not sure that impacts concussions much.  But, both large and smaller populations have things that aid them in injury prevention as well as make them more succeptible to injury.  I mean if everyone was over 300 pounds how many high speed impacts would we have?  Concussions may go down with all very large athletes since they'd be slower and have more mass to brace impacts.  It's really only bad when a larger athlete collides with a smaller athlete and/or does so at high speeds.  

Anways...that's wasn't my point.  My point was that I think our culture is the problem.  It's the fact that so many guys put their head down, lead with the helmet, tackle high (especially when tackling a smaller opponent or coming across the middle), and go for the big hit.  It's part of our culture to show up the opponent, to beat the opponent, to get the big head, etc.  There just isn't a lot of cultural significance around things like good sportsmanship, fair play, etc.  It's not the American way.  The observation is purely anecdotal, but it sure seems like way more guys are leading with their head, going high, and looking for the big hit than did 30 years ago.  A big hit is more of a priority than actually making the tackle for some weird reason.

The physics of the brain rattling around the skull (the cause of concussions) is largely unchanged by better helmets.

 It maybe more the number of hits people take rather than the severity that causes the biggest problem.  If you get a concussion you don't play simple as that, and that can take care of the severe concussions.  But if you are "Seeing stars happens all the time on the line"  and "heads are gonna hit its part of the game" you have a much bigger problem.  If you are getting sub concussed on a regular basis you are in for a life time of problems and not even think much about it.  It is like small doses of radiation, you can't see it,  you can't feel it and one small dose probably won't hurt you.  But many exposures will kill you.  Large hit probably can't be stopped, that much energy just can't be absorbed but the small contacts maybe can be.  Rule away the huge hits, and tech away the small ones and maybe football can be saved. 

If you want a 350+ line you would have to sacrifice on other positions.  That could be a lot of fun to see implemented and would add another layer of strategy.

I'm surprised no one mentions mouth guards and the lack of enforcement of wearing them. Proper mouth guards have proven to help prevent concussions. That and having helmets fit properly and are packed with adequate air. Helmets are way too loose. All this being said, nothing will completely eliminate concussions from the game.

... I'd be in favor of a weight limit for fans in the stadium.

It is easy to forget that once a huge monster player was someone who was 6'4" and weighed 245 lbs. If you look at the big NFL players of the late 1960's and early 1970's that was pretty big. Now, it is about average for some LB's let alone DT and DEs. The NFL and NCAA may want to bury their heads in the sand but there is some other factor (e.g. PED) at work creating the large numbers of supersized players. There was also a few very big players in the past - Roger Brown of the Lions from their Paper Lion era was one of only two 300 lbers in the NFL. Now, high school lines have been fielded where everyone is 300 lb+. Making the field wider and bigger (like in the CFL) may not help. As others have noted, it is not just the size but the speed - these new big players aren't just chunky but really fast. So it isn't just their Mass but their Velocity squared which is dangerous.

Making the players more conscious of their vulnerability may help - ironically lessening the amount of equipment might decrease the false sense of invulnerability. Do top flight rugby players have the same concussion percentage? (not a regular fan of rugby but perhaps there are MgoBlog fans here who are).

Single platoon with only limited substitution (think of it like a baseball game - once a player is subbed, he's out for the game) would make multi-talented players very important, but still allow running and passing of all sorts. It would place a natural brake on speed - the players would have to save their strength and energy. It would also allow small schools to compete more readily with big schools. Often small schools have a few talented players but can't fight the depth of a big school. We'd see more NCAA MBB tourney style upsets. BUT of course, this won't happen - too much money, and the increased specialization and speed is too entertaining on TV. Few QBs would develop to the degree they have today, if they also had to play DB. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady probably couldn't run well enough to stay on defense. Devin Gardner, Denard Robinson and for those remember, Nolan Cromwell would have been OK as DB/QB. All of the discussion about where to kickoff, the ease of field goals and such would become moot - no one would field a specialist kicker. So we'd probably not see many 40-50 yard FG attempts and more squib kickoffs.

Perhaps once upon a time, eliminating the unlimited substitution rule and forcing teams to play single platoon style might have worked (this was largely how the game was played in Yost's time I think) As recently as the 1960's this issue was actually still be debated. Just too much money today to take a step in that direction.

I think this is an interesting topic.  I'm not sure why the OP is getting so many negative votes.  Even if you personally disagree with this idea, I think it's worthy of discussion.  

I think football players probably would be healhier overall, both during and after their careers, if they weren't so huge.  Especially linemen.  It's just not that healthy for your body to carry 300+ pounds.  Concussions are just one issue.  All that weight puts a lot of pressure on your joints, not to mention your heart.