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Should the NFL scale back the intensity of the game due to head injuries?

Should the NFL scale back the intensity of the game due to head injuries?


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    13

radcen

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Should the NFL scale back the intensity of the game due to head injuries?

By passing rules to discourage, or even outlaw, certain types of hard hitting.

Poll is simple. Expand in comments, if desired.
 
Should the NFL scale back the intensity of the game due to head injuries?

By passing rules to discourage, or even outlaw, certain types of hard hitting.

Poll is simple. Expand in comments, if desired.

You want to discourage head first hitting? Reduce the pads to practically nothing and eliminate the helmet. Rugby doesn't have this problem.
 
Should the NFL scale back the intensity of the game due to head injuries?

By passing rules to discourage, or even outlaw, certain types of hard hitting.

Poll is simple. Expand in comments, if desired.
I love football. And I don't want it to become rugby. But I won't let my kid play it. Something needs to be done
 
Should the NFL scale back the intensity of the game due to head injuries?

By passing rules to discourage, or even outlaw, certain types of hard hitting.

Poll is simple. Expand in comments, if desired.

the helmet and all the pads invite extreme hitting... what Pirate said.
 
the helmet and all the pads invite extreme hitting... what Pirate said.

You don't have to completely get rid of the helmets. Just bring back the old leather helmets and see who wants to go head to head.

43_helmets[1].jpg
 
No. We are not going to start pussifying professional sports.

What should be done is pumping more money into research to make padding and such better.
 
No. We are not going to start pussifying professional sports.

What should be done is pumping more money into research to make padding and such better.

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The NFL is in quite the conundrum.

If they "dial it back" I think ratings would tank because it would have a tremendous effect on the way the game is played. If they let things stand I think more and more parents will not let their kids play football which will also adversely effect play on the field once the talent pool is depleted.

Football right now is in grave danger of going the route of professional boxing, I think.
 
You want to discourage head first hitting? Reduce the pads to practically nothing and eliminate the helmet. Rugby doesn't have this problem.

Another difference is rugby players play both ways. There's no payback when a safety uses his brutal angles to destroy a wide receiver if the safety isn't playing wide receiver in the next play.
The same principle applies to hockey. You dish it out, you'd better be braced to take it. Doesn't apply in football, though. I've been saying for awhile that football players should play both ways.
 
You want to discourage head first hitting? Reduce the pads to practically nothing and eliminate the helmet. Rugby doesn't have this problem.
Actually rugby is addressing similar difficult questions around concussion because it’s not just about head-to-head contact but also the simple sudden movements due to the impact of tackles. It’s ultimately due to players on average being fitter, faster and stronger than they were in the past. I’ve no idea what could be done to deal with all this though :(
 
Actually rugby is addressing similar difficult questions around concussion because it’s not just about head-to-head contact but also the simple sudden movements due to the impact of tackles. It’s ultimately due to players on average being fitter, faster and stronger than they were in the past. I’ve no idea what could be done to deal with all this though :(

Maybe play the game on spongier surfaces which could reduce the speed of the players.
Slower speeds equal fewer high-speed impacts.......maybe.:shrug:
 
Maybe play the game on spongier surfaces which could reduce the speed of the players.
Slower speeds equal fewer high-speed impacts.......maybe.:shrug:
Good point. There will have been all sorts of developments in pitch surfaces and footwear which I guess will play a major role in the increased impact speeds in both games. You see very few first class rugby games played in the classic mud baths of the past. :)
 
No. NFL players are adults. And they are compensated with millions of dollars. They're capable of determining if the risk is worth the payout.
 
They already have rules about the worst of the hits. Maybe they should enforce them better and/or make the penalty worse.
 
You don't have to completely get rid of the helmets. Just bring back the old leather helmets and see who wants to go head to head.

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The difference between then and now is the guys are bigger, the hits are harder. Make the penalty worse for the head hits.
 
The difference between then and now is the guys are bigger, the hits are harder. Make the penalty worse for the head hits.

Yeah, the physics are different when you're talking about monster sized players moving at higher speeds.

I played football as a kid and teenager, and wouldn't recommend it to my own kid, assuming that i have one. Good way to get hurt. At the very best, you have to deal with the testosterone fueled aggression of other pumped up immature males with questionable hygiene. It was fun for a minute, and then it really wasn't.
 
No. We are not going to start pussifying professional sports.

What should be done is pumping more money into research to make padding and such better.

I don't think you quite understand this.

More padding will not help. The head injuries that are the concern in football are a result of the brain bouncing off the interior of the skull while experiencing rapid deceleration, because the brain doesn't completely fill the skull; it sort of floats in a bath of cerebrospinal fluid. The intent of this is specifically to prevent such contact with the skull, but if you ram your head into something with all your strength (which is something no human would do under normal circumstances without the false sense of security of a helmet, so such behavior is rather outside the range of what evolution has prepared us for), that's not going to be enough to prevent injury.

And you will recover from this, sure. But if you do this countless times over the course of a long career, eventually you wind up with significant brain damage. Your body can recover from this kind of injury if it happens rarely, not if it happens over and over and over again for decades. If you hit your hand with a hammer once, it will heal. If you do it hundreds of times for 20 years, eventually you will lose the use of it.

You could have 6-inch thick helmets, and it wouldn't do anything to stop these injuries if they were still hitting each other at the same velocity. The injury is caused by the brain impacting against the skull, not the skull against whatever it's hitting.

There is no way to prevent this other than to change the way they play.
 
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The NFL is in quite the conundrum.

If they "dial it back" I think ratings would tank because it would have a tremendous effect on the way the game is played. If they let things stand I think more and more parents will not let their kids play football which will also adversely effect play on the field once the talent pool is depleted.

Football right now is in grave danger of going the route of professional boxing, I think.
Completely agree. Scale it back, lose fans and profit. Keep it "as is", players get hurt and the league loses lawsuits and public image.

In my honest assessment, I believe... but cannot prove... that the NFL would prefer to pretend it's not happening and go on their merry way raking in the cash, but public opinion and potential legal remedies are forcing their hand. I say that because their efforts to address this have been slow and, well, uninspiring. Getting them to admit it even is an issue has been tough.
 
Completely agree. Scale it back, lose fans and profit. Keep it "as is", players get hurt and the league loses lawsuits and public image.

In my honest assessment, I believe... but cannot prove... that the NFL would prefer to pretend it's not happening and go on their merry way raking in the cash, but public opinion and potential legal remedies are forcing their hand. I say that because their efforts to address this have been slow and, well, uninspiring. Getting them to admit it even is an issue has been tough.

They will make as much money as they can for as long as they can. And then they won't. But I do love football
 
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