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22 Comments
- mbraynard, on 10/17/2009, -0/+14I've been in the NFL for 10 yreas and had raeepted cosunocinss with no sgin of brian dgaame.
- ThePerkins, on 10/17/2009, -2/+9Give me a multi-million dollar contract and I'll endure the horrors of increased susceptibility to concussions. And gladiators? C'mon. I love football as much as the next guy, but banking enormous salaries while slapping on pads and throwing a ball around is a far cry from slaves fighting to an almost certain death. I'd much rather be thrown to the Detroit Lions than actual lions.
- fant0m, on 10/17/2009, -1/+7When you have passion about something so much, like many of these guys do, you don't worry about it.
They could get killed on their way to a game in traffic, too. Just can't let the fear of death run your life. - commentposted, on 10/17/2009, -2/+8You mean to tell me that playing football could give me a serious injury? This is important news that I have never heard of or considered before!
- inactive, on 10/17/2009, -1/+5To hard tackle is like running full force into a brick wall at 15-20 mph. That may not be too terrible in a car. But imagine running straight into this wall with your body.
- inactive, on 10/17/2009, -1/+4They know. And they care. But it is a conscious risk they are willing to take. Firefighters know they could be killed every time that alarm rings. But they do it. Some do it for the rush. Some do it for the hero factor, but some do it simply because it pays the bills. NFL players know that if they can beat hte odds for just 8 seasons or so, they are financially well off and can retire at age 30 as long s they are smart with their money.For them, it is worth the risk.
- diggaligg, on 10/17/2009, -0/+3A more potent statistic: the life expectancy of an NFL player is in his 50's. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Life_expectancy_professi ...
- smacksaw, on 10/17/2009, -1/+4This article really falls short. It fails to mention how the NFL refuses to acknowledge this issue in anything resembling a serious manner. It also fails to mention how the current players are not taking care of the ones who came before them. The union needs to account for the pension and medical care of all players, past and present.
Finally, both the players and the league could go a long way by hiring independent physicians to assess players. Every player I've spoken to, none of them believe the team doctor is 100% honest. And they are right - the doctor works for the team and the league, and if they wish to continue to do so, they had better make the person paying them happy. If you ever meet an NFL player and want to see the schism between players and owners, ask them about how their injuries are treated by the team.
When you add all of that up with the article, you've got a big mess that is hard to clean up. Hopefully the league will go further in the new CBA in stopping this. If you actually suspend players who lead with their helmets, you'd go a long way to stopping this sort of thing. You can hit someone with your head up. Just ask a hockey player. - TomKWS, on 10/17/2009, -0/+2Well-written article in last month's GQ on this very subject, and the refusal of the NFL to recognize a link between the sport and brain damage:
http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/200909/nfl-playe ... - BassMasterP, on 10/17/2009, -0/+2unfortunately, in today's world, fear and sensation run a good portion of most people's lives.
- SirCharge, on 10/17/2009, -0/+2"NFL players suffer dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other memory-related diseases at much higher rates than the general population. About 1.9 percent of ex-players ages 39 through 49 suffered such diseases, or 19 times the national average. Among those over 50, the figure was 6.1 percent, or five times higher."
Insane. - Dinner, on 10/17/2009, -0/+2Read the fantastic Malcolm Gladwell article on this that was just on Digg instead:
http://digg.com/football/Football_Dog_Fighting_and ... - gankige, on 10/17/2009, -2/+4So, sustaining a bad-enough head injury can cause brain damage?
I wasn't aware there were people who didn't know that. - Daggorath, on 10/18/2009, -0/+1This surprised anyone? It's a man's sport, injury comes with that, and atheletes know it. Live a life of fame and fortune and have an increased chance of dementia when I'm old and gray? Next they'll be telling us soldiers and police officers might get shot on the job. I'll take fame and fortune everytime. Better to burn out then to fade away.
- Gojirra, on 10/17/2009, -1/+1Agreed.
- Desmos, on 10/17/2009, -1/+1There is a much larger point that needs to be driven. Researchers had found signs of CTE in a 18 year old high school football player. It is very likely that many athletes in junior and varsity sports are at risk of the degenerative brain disease in addition to the obvious risk for permanent brain injuries. This is a vastly different situation than a few high payed individuals suffering damage as a side effect of their chosen profession.
I played football from the third grade through high school. Where I grew up, football is a big part of the community. Football started off as something I really wanted to do, then it became something I had to do. I didn't know much about the brain when I was in third grade. However, I am a intelligent person and I knew at some point that football was causing me permanent damage. The last three years of football I remember wanting to quit, but figured that I only had a couple of years left so why let down my friends and family. It was silly of me to give into peer pressure like this, but I was young ( into girls etc. ).
I have lingering pain in my right leg from torn ligaments, but my leg isn't what worries me. I am in my last year of college at a top university, and most things I derive enjoyment from involve using my brain. To think that something I decided to do at a young age can cause degenerative lasting damage that I will not know about until a couple decades down the road when I am at my "intellectual" job is worrisome. To think that hundreds of thousands of uninformed children and teenagers are being pressured by their families and communities to risk their quality of life and future is unfathomable. - Gojirra, on 10/17/2009, -1/+1Buried for utter retardedness.
- illujun, on 10/17/2009, -1/+1This just in, water is wet!
- TecK415, on 10/17/2009, -1/+1Hmmm, brain damage.....Millions of dollars...brain damage....MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. And how are injuries surprising in a sport that involves pummeling the hell out of each other?
- bds85, on 10/17/2009, -4/+3i heard the best quote about this the other day on NFL Network when they interviewed Ted Johnson(former NFL player on the Patriots who suffered multiple concussions and permanent damage)
When asked if he would relay this information to rookie players he said "No, the worst thing an NFL player can do is play with fear, they won't be in the league very long if they play with fear"
its a mans game screw pussy liberal studies - barc0001, on 10/17/2009, -4/+2Not even close to the same thing. There was another article a couple of weeks back about this that went into far more detail about the damage. This isn't caused by one or two or even a few dozen big hits. This is cumulative damage being caused by repetitive hits over and over again, and an alarming number of ex-NFLers are having serious brain function issues as a result. The NFL is stonewalling over this issue because they're terrified of being found liable for these peoples' deterioration. The pathologist who first stumbled onto this, Bennet Omalu, wanted to work with the NFL to find a way to protect players and figured they'd be thankful he found out about it. Instead they insinuated that he was incompetent and was seeing things that weren't really there.
Can't find the original (very long) article, but here's a shorter one that goes into more detail:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...
"The proteins appear when the brain is hit, Omalu said, but disappear as the healthy brain cells devour them, leading to recovery. Yet when the brain suffers too many blows, the brain cells can't keep up with the protein and eventually give up and die, leaving just the red flecks.
"No brain of a 40- or 50-year-old should look like this," Omalu said. The only people who would have such markings, he added, were boxers, very old people with Alzheimer's disease or someone who had suffered a severe head wound. Webster was only 50. "
This appears to be something that players are prone to, and to not even warn them, let alone try to look for ways to prevent it is criminal. Sure you can't let the fear of death ruin your life, but that doesn't mean you go and cover the interior of your house in asbestos, does it? - inactive, on 10/17/2009, -11/+2all that padding and a helmet and these people still manage to hurt themselves?
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