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Post by mikecubs on Sept 12, 2014 22:01:21 GMT -6
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Post by mikecubs on Sept 12, 2014 22:07:28 GMT -6
Then this also came out today. Brain impairment begins youngerNFL players are likely to suffer chronic brain injury at a "significantly higher" rate than the general population and also show neurocognitive impairment at a much younger age, according to documents filed on behalf of the league in federal court Friday. Former players between 50 and 59 years old develop Alzheimer's disease and dementia at rates 14 to 23 times higher than the general population of the same age range, according to the documents. The rates for players between 60-64 are as much as 35 times the rate of the general population, the documents reported.
The figures, compiled by actuarials hired by the NFL, appeared to be the first public admission by the league that retired players incur brain damage more frequently than the general public. The report did not specify why the rates for retired players are significantly higher. The NFL's report, along with one filed by the plaintiffs, was prepared for U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody, who is presiding over the lawsuit in Philadelphia that accuses the NFL of hiding information that linked concussions to brain injuries. Brody sought the documents as evidence that a settlement the two sides reached in the case is sound. "These results validate that our assumptions are reasonable and conservative because when compared to prevalence rates among the general population, they are significantly higher," wrote The Segal Group in the documents prepared for and presented by the NFL. "Moreover, as anticipated, the model determines that players will first be diagnosed with qualifying diagnoses at a younger age than the general population, which is consistent with plaintiffs' allegations." Nearly three in 10 former NFL players will develop at least moderate neurocognitive problems and qualify for payments under the proposed concussion settlement, according to documents filed by the league and the players. The Segal Group estimates that 3,488 former players will make nearly 6,700 claims for payments related to brain injuries caused by playing football, according to the documents. Of those 3,488 claims, 94 percent would be for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease or moderate dementia, but the NFL's documents show that many, if not the majority of, players will be ineligible for compensation before reaching age 80. The settlement has come under intense criticism from several lawyers involved in the case, although it remains unclear whether that opposition could derail it. For months, many of those attorneys have been requesting the underlying actuarial data that negotiators relied upon to close the deal. After reviewing the documents, one prominent lawyer who represents several former players said the data refuted the claims of lead negotiators that the settlement provides adequate compensation for players with chronic brain damage. "They're going around saying what a great settlement it is, when the average Parkinson's player gets $320,000; that's utter nonsense," said the lawyer, who asked not to be identified for fear of upsetting Brody. "The average Alzheimer's guy gets $340,000. That's just utter nonsense." The players' actuary estimated that former players were at twice the risk for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease and dementia as the general population between the ages of 20-60 years old. After that, they estimated the ex-players' risk would be closer to normal. The NFL's actuary reported significantly higher rates of Alzheimer's and dementia for all age groups. Players younger than 50 were at least eight times more likely to develop those diseases, for example. In 2009, the NFL funded a University of Michigan study that showed that former players between 30-49 were 19 times more likely to have Alzheimer's and other mental disorders than men of the same age. But the league disavowed the study, saying that it did not specifically study dementia and was based on unreliable phone surveys. The documents released Friday have been sought for months by attorneys and media to understand how negotiators arrived at the settlement. The two sides announced in August 2013 that the NFL would pay $765 million -- $675 million designated to retired players with neurological impairment. One actuary who reviewed both reports for ESPN said he was struck by how similar the findings were. "It is common to have experts employed by each side wind up with substantially different conclusions," said Scott Witt, owner of Witt Actuarials and a frequent expert in damage calculations. "In this case, I was struck that both experts' reports are fairly harmonious." Numerous retired players and attorneys have questioned whether the money was sufficient to cover the growing number of players with confirmed brain damage. At the time the proposed settlement was first announced, Christopher Seeger, a lead co-counsel who negotiated the deal for the players, promised that "analysis from economists, actuaries and medical experts" would prove that the settlement will cover "all eligible retired players." But Seeger and the NFL refused to produce the information. Some attorneys speculated that the NFL was withholding the data because it contained potentially damaging information: the league's own estimates of how many players are likely to suffer brain damage. That information goes to the heart of questions about the long-term health effects of tackle football. Despite mounting evidence about the link between football and brain damage, scientists have not yet established the prevalence of diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which has been discovered in dozens of NFL players following their deaths. In January, Brody refused to provide preliminary approval for the deal. She ordered negotiators to turn over all documentation used to support the settlement, including the analysis by actuaries and economists, noting her concerns that not all qualifying players would be paid. The plan would pay up to $5 million for players with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease; $4 million for deaths involving CTE; $3.5 million for Alzheimer's disease; and $3 million for moderate dementia and other neurocognitive problems. However, only men younger than 45 who spent at least five years in the league would get those maximum payouts. The awards are reduced, on a sliding scale, if they played fewer years or were diagnosed at a more advanced age. The players' data therefore predicts the average payouts, in today's dollars, to be $2.1 million for ALS, $1.4 million for a death involving CTE, and $190,000 for Alzheimer's disease or moderate dementia. The average ex-player being diagnosed with moderate dementia is expected to be 77 with four years in the NFL. About 28 percent of all retired players are expected to be diagnosed with a neurocognitive injury that is eligible for compensation under the plan. But only 60 percent of them are expected to seek awards, based on prior class-action litigation. espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11513442/data-estimates-3-10-nfl-retirees-face-cognitive-woes
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Post by mikecubs on Sept 12, 2014 22:23:23 GMT -6
Like Bruinsfan I'm worried about the very long term future of pro football. For sure Goodall has to go. If he had his choice he wouldn't punish Adrian Peterson either. Only reason he switched gears on Ray Rice was the video went public. Goodall is by far the most inept commissioner I've ever seen. Doesn't punish criminals, can't get a team into LA, thinks it's a wonderful idea for the Raiders to build a 59,000 seat minor league stadium. Biggest problem though is even without Goodall is you can't solve concussions without making the game flag football. So NFL is screwed. You keep the game ruff you get sued. You make it like flag people won't watch. Here is an interesting very long article on the possibility of pro football actually coming to an end some day. It's definitely worth a read and something to think about. grantland.com/features/cte-concussion-crisis-economic-look-end-football/
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2014 1:02:26 GMT -6
Goodall is by far the most inept commissioner I've ever seen. John Ziegler's handling of the Jim Schonfeld incident in the 1988 NHL playoffs was far worse.
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Post by Bruinsfan on Sept 13, 2014 8:25:58 GMT -6
my solution to fixing american football, it will hurt the product.
(this one will never ever happen) 1 remove the padding. Only soft padding. Its a dangerous game already but iv always thought the pads made it worse they make you feel invincible and rugby players will tell you, you dont go head first in rugby....no padding means id allow shirt grabbing to block.
Now what could happen
No arms penalties. Its a rugby rule that you must attempt to rap a player to tackle him, 5 yards from spot of foul.
YOu fire goodell immediately. now. You hire Condi rice or a female to run the league...you send a message that we are fixing the moral fabric of the league.
Every player signs an agreement disclaiming liability for head injuries, do what the ufc and boxing does. you consent to the contact. the nfl pays future medical bills.
If football dies another violent sport will rise in its place, most likely rugby.
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Post by phillymike on Sept 13, 2014 10:48:34 GMT -6
Leave the league the way it is. I love it! Goodell is staying.
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Post by mikecubs on Sept 13, 2014 23:33:32 GMT -6
^^^ I think you are right unfortunately. NFL owners will hope all this blows over and keep Goodall.
I actually think the current league is too soft and has too much scoring. I miss old fashion Bears football. Football is a ruff game and I don't think it's possible to change that without turning the sport into something drastically different. No use trying. If lawsuits destroy the game so be it.
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Post by Bruinsfan on Sept 14, 2014 7:29:23 GMT -6
Accept it for what it is sign away liability disclaim the risks. They doit in combat sports
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Post by Bruinsfan on Sept 17, 2014 18:38:17 GMT -6
as soon as the sponsors speek up ap gets the yank again.
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Post by mikecubs on Sept 24, 2014 12:02:11 GMT -6
Paul Oliver's Family Sues NFL Over His SuicideThe wife and sons of former San Diego Chargers defensive back Paul Oliver sued the NFL for wrongful death, blaming sports-related concussions for his suicide last year. The suit was filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the league, the Chargers, the New Orleans Saints and the corporations that own several helmet manufacturers. It also alleges fraud and negligence. It says that Oliver, 29, shot himself to death in front of his wife, Chelsea, and two sons last September at his home in Marietta, Georgia, about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta. The suit alleges that his death was a "direct result of the injuries, depression and emotional suffering caused by repetitive head trauma and concussions suffered as a result of playing football, not properly appreciating football's risks with respect to head trauma" and using defective helmets. The suit claims that Oliver suffered "mood, memory and anger issues" associated with repetitive head trauma and that after his death, a pathologist confirmed that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy. That is a progressive degenerative brain disease found in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma, according to the CTE Center at Boston University's medical school. The suit contends that the NFL and others knew for decades about risks associated with such injuries but concealed the information, leaving Oliver ignorant about the risks of play when making football decisions "from his first snap of youth football to his tragic death." It also claims the NFL encourages players to disregard the results of violent head impacts and glorifies the "brutality and ferocity" of football as a marketing strategy. The Saints declined to comment. Messages left for representatives of the NFL and Chargers weren't immediately returned after hours Tuesday night. The NFL has proposed a $765 million settlement of a different concussion-injury lawsuit that could affect thousands of athletes. Earlier this month, in a report prepared for the federal judge handling that class action case in Philadelphia, the NFL released actuarial data estimating that nearly three in 10 former players will develop debilitating brain conditions, and that they will be stricken earlier and at least twice as often as the general population.abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/paul-olivers-family-sues-nfl-suicide-25714853
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Post by mikecubs on Sept 24, 2014 12:05:30 GMT -6
Does football create some monsters?
Brain-altering violence could play role in behavior NFL has been unable to controlFootball has gotten too big and too strong and too violent, and maybe the collateral damage can't be controlled or governed, not even by the most punitive commissioner in the history of sports, who this week was reduced to a public piñata by his league. America's favorite bloodsport continues to sell the nobility and strength of the human spirit while every limping week, as bodies pile up on the sidelines, we learn a little more about how the sport has outgrown the limits of the human body and the human brain. Football trains and strengthens and emboldens and rewards dangerous and violent men ... and has these dangerous and violent men collide into each other for gladiator glory in a way that alters their brain chemistry and might make them yet more dangerous and violent ... and then doesn't know how to react by matter of policy when all that danger and violence occasionally spill over the sidelines and out of the stadium in ways that leave the bleeding and scars out in public.
The solution -- Punish! Punish! Punish! More! More! More! -- hasn't appeared to work at all, but now the angry mob gathers to pressure the impotent commissioner to punish, punish, punish some more, more, more. This can seem like a reasonable and unreasonable question to ask today, given that we're screaming about football anyway: While America's most popular game is making profit and commercials and record ratings, is it also making the occasional monster? It is important to note for perspective that many more football players behave than misbehave, and football's domestic-abuse problem pales, numerically and empirically, compared to America's. Even though news screamers are using flash phrases such as "epidemic" and "league in crisis" at the moment, what has happened the past few weeks to trigger the headlines and howling isn't much different than what has for years been business as usual in this workplace. We just had videos and pictures this time. The actions were basically the same; only our reactions were different. That's where poor, rich Roger Goodell, who makes more than $44 million a year, got surprised and undressed. He has been dealing with this for years without us ever getting this sickened and upset about it. That's kind of amazing -- the most punitive commissioner ever in huge trouble for not being quite punitive enough -- but not quite as amazing as his inaction making this a bigger story than Ray Rice's actual action. In terms of punishment, the crime wasn't as problematic as our witnessing it. We see more than ever now -- to our horror. Cameras everywhere. Coverage everywhere. The elevator doors don't even need to open to reveal how Rice hit his fiancée in the head. The photographs show us the open wounds Adrian Peterson leaves when disciplining his 4-year-old boy. We've gotten scared and started screaming recently, but the failing and flailing Goodell became famous -- to much applause, at first -- for being an iron-fisted dictator out to eradicate these kinds of problems more furiously than any sports leader ever. That he has failed at this becomes harder to overlook when Rice and Peterson put us in a place where we feel like we are almost literally having to hide the women and children. But Goodell might be failing because it is not possible to succeed. Yet something somehow still seems unseen here, hard as this is to believe in a game examined this much: Are any of the criminals also victims here? Is football, the game itself, the violence, the culture, the altered brain chemistry, the drinking and drugging to self-medicate, the depression and darkness that comes with guaranteed pain, in parts creating the very behavior it is trying without success to police and punish?Millionaire entertainers make for very bad martyrs, especially the misbehaving ones, and this particular workplace dismisses all explanations as excuses. There is no winning argument on the other side of that Rice elevator video or a photo of a beaten 4-year-old or the visceral and sick reaction America had to seeing them. But is it at all possible at least some of these crazy criminals being handcuffed in football are, in fact, being made crazy and criminal by all these brain-altering collisions? Before you dismiss that football itself might be an accomplice when it comes to some violent and erratic behavior you don't see with the same regularity in other sports, before you rail with judgment about personal accountability and those millionaire punks, remember that old warriors such as Junior Seau and Andre Waters and Dave Duerson killed themselves to stop all the pain and darkness, with their choice seeming rational to them amid their evidently altered brain chemistry, ending life a better idea than living it, suicide as solution. If late linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend and killed himself in the Chiefs parking lot in front of his coach and general manager this week instead of two years ago, the timing and recent NFL news cycle might make you more open to considering what football itself might be doing to its colliding employees. While in college, mind you, Belcher was part of Male Athletes Against Domestic Violence. Yes, many people who don't play football do these kinds of things. Yes, many football players behave just fine amid the collisions. But mad as you are about today's behavior, is it possible some football players are being driven a different kind of mad? Hall of Fame center Mike Webster suffered from amnesia, depression and dementia before he died at 50. He played at 255 pounds. The average center today weighs 50 pounds more than that; 255 is the average weight of a tight end. If the players are bigger, and the collisions are bigger, and more plays are being run, doesn't it stand to reason brain chemistry might be altered more quickly because of it?We don't do nuance so well in sports. We take sides like we do on the scoreboard and make complicated issues and complicated people into either 100 percent good or 100 percent bad without degrees. So someone such as Rice goes from community hero to being defined by his worst public act in all the time it took his unconscious fiancée to hit the floor. But you have to wonder: If Goodell punishes people like no sports leader ever, if he has done more to eradicate these problems than any commissioner ever, but the problems persist and arrest rates don't actually go down despite unprecedented consequences, is it possible what is happening here is so ingrained in football's fabric that it can't actually be controlled, never mind fixed? Take Duerson, for example. He was a charitable man. Was once named the NFL's Man Of The Year. But a few months before he left us for good, before he shot himself in the chest so his brain could be studied, he gave an interview to Rob Trucks of Deadspin in which he said, "My biggest regret? My wife and I had an argument in South Bend, and you know, I lost control for three seconds. That was a one-time event. The most disappointing of my entire life, but one that will never, ever be repeated." Maybe he killed himself because of money problems and his mother's death, but he was pretty clear-headed in his suicide note in asking that his football-damaged brain be studied. Maybe he decided to harm himself so his demons wouldn't nudge him toward harming others. Small sample sizes and random violence make studying this feel noisy and unscientific. But the violent newsmakers of the past week (Rice, Peterson, Jonathan Dwyer) were running backs. That's the only position in the sport in which guys retire early because of how much it hurts, and it is the only position in the sport that all 11 defenders go to hit. Causation, correlation or coincidence? Dwyer's domestic-abuse charge came with details that he was reportedly sending his wife photos of a knife and threatening to kill himself. Is his brain altered, or is that just marital melodrama? Maybe Cardinals outside linebacker John Abraham, the NFL's active sack leader, has three alcohol-related arrests because he is an irresponsible lout or maybe because he is a self-medicating alcoholic or maybe because he has played for a long time and concussions put him on injured reserve this week as he mulled retirement. The players and game appear to have reached a literal breaking point. On the field, 55 players left the field and didn't return because of injury in Week 1, and another 35 were lost in Week 2. Off the field, the NFL tried to make some things go away with a $765 million concussion settlement that seemed large until you consider Anheuser-Busch pays $1.2 billion to be the NFL's official beer. When you merge the violence of the sport with the profit it generates -- and throw in head trauma, too -- it can make things difficult to see clearly. Take, for example, the curious case of wide receiver Davone Bess. He arrived in Miami as an undersized and humble kid from Hawaii who turned into a community pillar. He had very sure hands. You never heard a bad word about him. You could count on him. But then the hits started piling up for a small possession receiver who took an unholy beating. Next thing you know, his family is hospitalizing him against his will, with six deputies needed to restrain him in his home as he reportedly screams, "Hide the guns!" and "Where is my weed?" and "I want to get in the end zone -- throw me the football!" according to the incident report. The Dolphins managed to somehow keep this quiet. And traded him to Cleveland a month later. Bess all of a sudden became a lot less sure-handed. Dropped passes. Muffed punts. Maybe he had a drug problem caused by reckless irresponsibility, another bum throwing away the high life. Maybe the drugs eased the pain and the noise in his head. Or maybe his brain wasn't right. Bess put up a photo of himself naked on Instagram. He put up another of himself evidently smoking marijuana. He was arrested at the airport. Several passengers reported strange behavior. Singing. Dancing. Pants falling down. He allegedly spilled coffee that wasn't his on a police officer and assumed a fighting stance while taking off his shirt. Back to the mental facility -- this time of his own will. Cleveland had language put in his contract that allowed the team to save $3.067 million when it waived him earlier this year. He was put on the reserve/non-football related illness list last December. Non-football related illness? How can we be sure? espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11558730/does-football-contribute-bad-behavior-nfl-prevent
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Post by wolfmannick on Sept 24, 2014 12:09:55 GMT -6
How does Ray Rice get an indeffinate suspension and get cut from his team for one punching a woman who ended up marrying him and defending him but Peterson beats his kids and is still playing.
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Post by mikecubs on Sept 24, 2014 13:24:14 GMT -6
Well at least Peterson isn't playing anymore. He's on some type of reserve list with a fancy name that I forget. He's done for the season. The team buckled when Radison hotel canceled their sponsorship.
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Post by mikecubs on Nov 18, 2014 14:56:10 GMT -6
When the DEA is investigating the NFL, it’s time to ask what all we’ve become numb toWhen the DEA asks to see what’s in a team physician’s bag, when drug investigators sense NFL-employed doctors and trainers might not be obtaining and distributing pain medication in accordance with federal law, it’s possible Roger Goodell’s league may once again not be acting like a good corporate citizen. When agents bypass the workplace examination tables at team complexes and stadiums, instead choosing to launch surprise interrogations of those physicians and trainers and search their belongings at airports — as they did to several visiting NFL teams after Sunday’s games — it’s a good bet they feel strongly those teams might be hiding something — might be, in fact, more worried about camouflaging the problem rather than fixing it. From Seattle to London, the NFL has become adept at masking the pain Thursdays through Mondays, hasn’t it? What Toradol or Vicodin can’t mask, Brady-vs.-Manning television ratings can. The league masks its business with the next one-week-referendum on the soul of a reeling team, most of whose fans don’t much care what their battered, modern-day gladiators take or do — as long as they can walk bow-legged to midfield for the coin toss. It masks the pain with unfurled, field-sized flags. League honchos love bathing themselves in Americana so much they’ll invite the man who killed Osama Bin Laden to talk to their team and sit in the owner’s box. The NFL masks the pain in 100 different ways, but it can no longer hide the truth: Its product is a health hazard. That it continues to be our most popular and profitable sport might say more about us than anyone in the NFL, which now acknowledges that a third of its retired players develop long-term cognitive issues much earlier than the general population.
“ We’re not just talking about people limping at the age of 50. We’re talking about brain injuries that are causing horrible, protracted, premature death,” the New Yorker writer and author Malcolm Gladwell recently told Bloomberg News. “This . . . is appalling. Can you point to another industry in America which, in the course of doing business, maims a third of its employees?”The DEA investigation came about because of a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in May by more than 1,300 retired NFL players, who allege that NFL medical staffs regularly violate federal and state laws in convincing hurting players to pop addictive narcotics and sleeping pills and painkillers to ensure they keep their jobs and suit up for that week’s game. Between concussion litigation and the devastating personal testimony of former players and their families recently, the ugly underbelly to the league’s next-man-up culture is being exposed as more Neanderthal than noble. They are all disposable heroes to their teams, commodified until their bodies are used up. This kind of pain and how to make it go away does not build character; it builds neurological diseases that often manifest themselves in some of the strongest, most agile super-humans in the world one day being unable to pick up their own child. There is nothing healthy about it. For anyone to put this simply on the adult choices of the players involved is beyond callous; it’s uneducated. There’s treating injuries, and there’s masking injuries. It’s a fine line and a difficult clinical challenge, but there is nothing in the league’s structure or protocol that helps either the doctors or players make good choices: everything from non-guaranteed contracts to lean active roster sizes of 53 to network contract demands that allow severely banged-up players barely any healing time during a Sunday-to-“Thursday Night Football” work week. Goodell and the owners can preach safety all they want, but it looks like hypocrisy when an 18-game regular season is pushed for, along with regular transcontinental flights to London. How many Cowboys needed Ambien to sleep on the plane and a stimulant once they landed at Heathrow to get themselves going again? Who knows what Tony Romo’s fractured back needed to make that flight and play that game? Really, what Dallas fan even wants to know? Was genuine medical treatment happening or criminal masking? It’s important the DEA gets to the bottom of this and the NFL cops to the truth. There is a prescription painkiller epidemic in this country, to the point that there are now studies in which drug overdoses are now leapfrogging traffic accidents as a cause of death in America. Because the NFL is not good at policing itself, federal investigators are going to show whether this is a culture-wide, top-down, rotting fish head of an issue, whether Goodell’s league is creating more addicts than Pro Bowlers. The league’s midtown Manhattan offices have woken up to a glut of bruising headlines over the past couple of years: domestic violence on video by one star running back; child-abuse charges leveled at another; a name-change movement in Washington; another class-action lawsuit that could cost many more millions to settle. As usual, the NFL says it is complying. It purports to care. After another former player charged with domestic violence was shown recently in the New York Times to have received favorable treatment from the Miami Dolphins, his employer at the time, the victim’s quote said it all: “I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “The players are the only ones they care about.” Even that notion is unclear today. Because the more Percoset, Vicodin and Ambien that’s unlawfully prescribed and administered, the more federal agents have to investigate whether the boundaries of good medicine have been obliterated, the more the NFL contributes to an unhealthy nation. Other than their own profit margins and their crisis-management PR campaigns, it’s unclear what Goodell and the league’s owners truly care about anymore. It’s time they stopped masking the pain and begin to genuinely deal with the lasting hurt they have caused. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/when-the-dea-is-investigating-the-nfl-its-time-to-ask-what-all-weve-become-numb-to/2014/11/17/7b185c56-6e7e-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html
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Post by mikecubs on Nov 18, 2014 15:07:57 GMT -6
This is from over a year ago but still revelant The Beginning of the End for Football?A new poll shows one-third of Americans are less likely to let kids play football due to the link between the sport and brain trauma In their fantastic new book "League of Denial," Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru quote Joe Maroon, a neurological consultant for the National Football League's Pittsburgh Steelers, saying, "if only 10 percent of mothers in America begin to conceive of football as dangerous, that is the end of football." Perhaps, then, the end is nigh, as a new HBO Real Sports/Marist poll shows that 33 percent of Americans "say the link between head injuries in football and long-term brain trauma would make them less likely to allow their son to play football if they had to make that choice." Thirteen percent, clearing the 10 percent threshold Maroon laid out, say they wouldn't let their son play, period."Historically, youth football has fueled the NFL," said Dr. Keith Strudler, Director of The Marist College Center for Sports Communication. "Parents' concern about the safety of the game could jeopardize the future of the sport." Even Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson says, "Knowing what I know now, if I had to do it all over again, I would not, because it's really not worth it."
Now, 85 percent of Americans would still let their son play, so saying that football is on its deathbed is obviously very premature. The sport is still the most popular in America: millions of people tuned into this week's putrid Monday Night Football matchup between the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings, who had combined for one win in 10 games. It's actually expected that Americans will choose to watch regular season NFL games over the World Series, the championship of the country's supposed national pastime. But more and more information is coming out regarding the real brain damage that occurs from playing football, and with so many other sports available to American youth, asking whether football can survive years of this sort of bad press is legitimate. (The National Basketball Association is even bragging about its growing popularity at the high school level, and soccer is not going away anytime soon.) In their book, Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru liken the NFL to Big Tobacco – claiming that it covered up evidence of how dangerous the sport is and circulated bogus research regarding the damage done by concussions. Well, a record low percentage of Americans now smoke, and the most effective way to get them to put away the cigarettes is not through education about the health effects of smoking, but via making them dislike the tobacco industry. Smoking, once ubiquitous in American society, is now something done only by a distinct and shrinking minority. Is the NFL headed in the same direction? The NFL, of course, is trying to spin the Marist poll as indicating that the league and its game are just fine. And it's hard to argue with the league's popularity. But as the concussions pile up – and they already have this season, in particular – and more research comes to light, as more of the game's former stars question whether the beating they took was worth it, the sport will face an existential crisis and it's far from clear that anyone in the league's leadership knows what to do about it, other than throwing money at the problem and hoping it goes away. www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2013/10/24/new-poll-shows-the-nfls-concussion-crisis-is-growing
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