The Concussion Thread

[GP1]

Why then don't colleges and the NFL start looking at maximum weights for players?

Liability? If you admit that the bigger players you have been promoting are in fact killing themselves because of that same size, then you create a liability issue.

I not only think the game would be safer if they had smaller players, I believe it would be a more exciting game. There would be more room to have a running game if there weren't five 350 pound guys creating a wall of fat on the line and belly bumping against the other team's wall of fat. Linemen might actually be able to move their feet and create holes instead of leaning against one another and holding.

[MDZip]

The question is, what would we do if the testing showed that 6-12 inches of padding would be required to totally eliminate concussions. Would we be prepared to accept the visual oddity of BIG helmet football to protect football players from multiple concussions that ultimately result in irreversible brain damage? Or would we say, big helmets are for sissies?

Anyone remember this helmet that Bills safety Mark Kelso used to wear? It was specifically designed to reduce concussions with a layer of styrofoam underneath that outer shell. A couple players wore them but most wouldn't because they thought it looked stupid.

[Zipmeister]

There is only one solution to this problem.

How real men play football

[johnnyzip84]

The NCAA approves rule changes including moving kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line and placing touchbacks on the 25 instead of 20 yard line. This is an obvious attempt to reduce kickoff returns and the injuries (especially to the head) that can accompany them.

Part of me likes it, but part of me thinks if you really want to avoid these full speed collisions why not simply place the ball on the 25 after all TDs and FGs. But that takes away the onside kick for teams that are far behind, so maybe this is a good compromise after all.

[Captain Kangaroo]

The NCAA approves rule changes including moving kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line and placing touchbacks on the 25 instead of 20 yard line. This is an obvious attempt to reduce kickoff returns and the injuries (especially to the head) that can accompany them.

Part of me likes it, but part of me thinks if you really want to avoid these full speed collisions why not simply place the ball on the 25 after all TDs and FGs. But that takes away the onside kick for teams that are far behind, so maybe this is a good compromise after all.

Zips kickers under Ianello typically kicked the ball to approximately the 39 yard line (on average) so I doubt this will affect us much in the short term.

[GP1]

The NCAA approves rule changes including moving kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line and placing touchbacks on the 25 instead of 20 yard line. This is an obvious attempt to reduce kickoff returns and the injuries (especially to the head) that can accompany them.

Part of me likes it, but part of me thinks if you really want to avoid these full speed collisions why not simply place the ball on the 25 after all TDs and FGs. But that takes away the onside kick for teams that are far behind, so maybe this is a good compromise after all.

If they are going to promote touchbacks, eliminate the kickoff all together or do the following:

1. Kickoffs from the kicking teams own 45.

2. Any kick out of bounds or in the endzone gives the receiving team the ball on their own 35.

3. Any team that returns the ball and doesn't get it past the 20 automatically gets it on the 25. Five yard halo in effect for retuner until ball is caught. The halo rule is great for safety because it makes the players slow down or even stop.

A kick off is a free kick that once it goes 10 yards, anyone can get. These rule changes would allow that rule to be taken advantage of more often. They need to make the game more exciting again. Instead, the NFL (and it seems now the NCAA is following) is turning into:

1. Touchdown (exciting stuff if your team is doing the scoring)

2. Media timeout (restroom break at home)

3. Extra point (no excitement here because 97% are successful. a td should be worth 7 points with a nonkicking play from the 3 to get another point.)

4. Media timeout (how many times can you use the restroom)

5. Touchback (no excitment here)

6. Media timeout (quick nap)

7. First down

BTW JZ84, I read Scorecasting and it is a great book.

[johnnyzip84]

@CK

Good point. Recent kickers aside, UA has had a number of accurate PKs in my time following them, but I think you'd have to go back to Darren Alcorn to find a guy who could put it in the end zone from the 35 consistently.

@GP

Thanks for the book tip. I agree that moving the kickoff even more would be more effective, especially given CK's point regarding the Zips (and some other teams outside the BCS).

[GP1]

@GP

Thanks for the book tip. I agree that moving the kickoff even more would be more effective, especially given CK's point regarding the Zips (and some other teams outside the BCS).

Aren't you the one who recommended it to us? I thought someone on the board recommended it so I bought it off of one of the internet book services.

[johnnyzip84]

Aren't you the one who recommended it to us? I thought someone on the board recommended it so I bought it off of one of the internet book services.

I posted a CNNSI story that discussed the book (I had forgotten the title, until I looked it up just now). But I've never read the book. It's on my list now, though.

[Sergeant Zip]

April 2012 Independent Football Veterans Conference Powerpoints from their panel on concussions and the lawsuits filed against the NFL and Riddell.

[Spin]

This is not going away anytime soon. it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.

[GP1]

Steriods

I'm not saying Seau took steroids, but it is unusual for a human to be in the type of physical condition he was in for 20 years as a professional. Guys take steroids to lengthen their careers. The longer the career, the more head injuries. The more head injuries, the more likely it is to have mental problems from the hits. Steroids also cause guys to be more violent on and off the field (Seau was arrested at one point for beating his wife). More violence causes more head injuries. The article above also shows the steroid abuse can lead to depression when players stop taking them.

The NFL needs to rapidly clean itself up and the NCAA needs to follow as quickly as possible or the sport is doomed. It's a sport, not cock fighting.

[ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net]

Size/weight limits, equipment changes, something has to change. I've said this in other posts, but I am increasingly uneasy about my own participation, just as a fan, in a sport that leaves behind a trail of carnage the way that football clearly does. Seeing heavy hits doesn't get me going anymore, they just make me cringe and feel a little guilty for essentially cheering the gladiators on toward their hobblings/deaths. If the college game and NFL instituted weight limits you'd see these players size down practically overnight. The power in the hits is the speed AND mass of these players. Reducing the mass would go a long way to reducing the forces involved. Equipment changes are also in order. When you spear someone the way these players do every single week, YOU should be injured. I've never seen old football video from the days of leather helmets and no face guards where the players were launching head-first in horizontal fashion at one another. A dude who is 6'4", weighs 275 pounds, runs a 4.5 and has been training since he was a kid to spear other human beings is not what we should consider a football player. He's nothing more than the embodiment of potential human suffering. Why do we cheer that? It reflects poorly on all of us.

[Dave in Green]

This is a really difficult discussion, but one that's really important to have. Everything in life is a balance of risks and rewards. Football is no different. It makes some lives richer than they might otherwise be, and it can also destroy lives. Everyone should be demanding fair and honest assessment of the odds on both the risks and the rewards so that we can each make our own informed decisions about where we stand on the issue. We all need to understand that some people on each side of every debate have vested interests that lead them to focus more on the pros or the cons, so not all published data is completely reliable. We have to try to dig through it all and find the data that we believe to be most realistic and objective.

[GP1]

Size/weight limits, equipment changes, something has to change.

I agree and I think I have a solution. The NFL should have a real PED policy. If it is about money, then make it about money...any player caught with a single PED in his system is suspended for 16 games. Second infraction and the player is out of the NFL for life. The size of the players will immediately begin to get smaller. The length of careers will get shorter and there will be less head injuries that cause people to kill themselves.

It is obvious when I watch a game that there are guys out there juiced up to no end. My team is the Steelers and James Harrison is one of the more juiced up players I have ever seen. The guy went from having a bad leg injury that was keeping him out of games to squatting 450 pounds in about four weeks...without juice, that is impossible.

[Dr Z]

My team is the Steelers and James Harrison is one of the more juiced up players I have ever seen.

[GP1]

Thanks for the video. I always struggle to watch really stupid people talk for that long, but I made it. At the end of the day, the guy sees the game as a way to give his family some sort of financial freedom..even if it means permanently hurting others. This is what the Romans used to do with Gladiators. It debases our football and society when cheap shot artists like Harrison are celebrated. It's a sport, not cockfighting.

[ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net]

Thanks for the video. I always struggle to watch really stupid people talk for that long, but I made it. At the end of the day, the guy sees the game as a way to give his family some sort of financial freedom..even if it means permanently hurting others. This is what the Romans used to do with Gladiators. It debases our football and society when cheap shot artists like Harrison are celebrated. It's a sport, not cockfighting.

Debase is the perfect word. I listened to Bill Romanowksi chatter with Colin Cowherd yesterday and he was such an idiot, spouting off about how the suicide was a wake up call for the NFL about head injury while simultaneously ranting about how terrible it was that coaches and players had been suspended by the NFL for bounties. These guys are idiots and the inmates can never run the asylum. Guys like Romanowski and Harrison are absolutely terrible for the league and for the sport. And remember, there are many, many coaches that teach and train players to get gigantic, fast and dangerous. The coaching culture needs to be changed as well.

[GP1]

The coaching culture needs to be changed as well.

Thanks. The coaches are as stupid as the players. They are former players.

I didn't like Goodell when he started as commissioner, but I understand why he is doing what he is doing and why it is needed. He needs to get bums like Harrison and Vilma out of the league before someone gets killed by their stupidity. The players are mostly morons who happen to be really good at playing football. Ray Lewis is one of those morons and we celebrate his silly, phony, pre-game rants for some reason. There is a good career in pro wrestling waiting for him when his NFL career is over (He's mostly a hanger on now anyhow).

The ncaa needs to stop worrying about tv contracts and builing ADs resumes and get around to protecting the players from themselves.

[Spin]

This is a really difficult discussion, but one that's really important to have. Everything in life is a balance of risks and rewards. Football is no different. It makes some lives richer than they might otherwise be, and it can also destroy lives.

This is a tough decision.

The medical professional side of me says that something needs to be done. We've seen so much evidence of head injuries in all sports, not just football.

The firefighter side of me says that an adult who chooses to take part in something dangerous, should already know the risks. Whether it's skydiving, or scuba diving, or getting in a plane or boat, or on a motorcycle, or getting on a back road in a fast car and laying the wood to it. As a veteran firefighter I sometimes ask myself if going into an unoccupied burning structure (especially one that has long been abandoned) is bravery or thrill seeking. I think everybody would have an answer that is somewhere in between.

And now, since we know the effects of concussions and cumulative head injuries, does the modern player have any legal recourse against the league and equipment manufacturers? If you know the risk is there and you still suit up and play, isn't that implied consent?

Sometimes I question whether I want to even watch football anymore. But that is ignorant to the number of head injuries (especially concussions) in other sports like hockey and soccer. Thinking back to post-crash interviews of race car drivers, are they suffering concussions? What about baseball? Boxing has not been brought up, and the whole idea of boxing is to CAUSE a concussion. We can pretend it's to throw more punches and get more points, but come on. They really want to lay down a knock-out.

Not an easy decision for sure.

[GP1]

Bissinger

Good article, but his conclusions are all wrong. I guess he addresses it some in the article in relation to the situation at Maryland, but the problem isn't college football itself. It's the Athletic Directors who spent the last 10-15 years spending money like drunken sailors who have bankrupted the sport in college. Maybe the book exists, but I would like to see a book analyzing the past twenty years of spending on facilities in college athletics and what the returns have been. My guess is the biggest returns come in the form of athletic directors building something, putting it on their resume and then running to the next job before they have to actually pay for what they have built. There was a housing bubble and I think in the near future, we are going to see a facilities bubble. Athletic Directors are as bad as bankers.

[GP1]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in college football as well.

This is why we need to stop playing the BCS game and have a spring league of our own.

[Dr Z]

Ban College Football?

Safety, exploitation at center of debate on college football ban

[Dave in Green]

Deja vu:

The NCAA was founded in 1906 to protect young people from the dangerous and exploitive athletics practices of the time.

The rugged nature of early-day football, typified by mass formations and gang tackling, resulted in numerous injuries and deaths and prompted many college and universities to discontinue the sport. In many places, college football was run by student groups that often hired players and allowed them to compete as non-students. Common sentiment among the public was that college football should be reformed or abolished.

President Theodore Roosevelt summoned college athletics leaders to two White House conferences to encourage reforms. In early December 1905, Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken of New York University convened a meeting of 13 institutions to initiate changes in football playing rules. At a subsequent meeting December 28 in New York City, 62 colleges and universities became charter members of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). .....

NCAA History

[GP1]

Ban College Football?

Safety, exploitation at center of debate on college football ban

Thanks for the post Dr Z. Safety should always be the #1 priority of any organization. Too bad, for too long, it wasn't a priority in college football. Builing stadiums and "facilities" was the priority and now we are where we are. The NFL is way ahead of the ncaa in terms of safety at this point. The exploitation in college comes from the fact schools are using humans to bankrupt their universities in order to pad the resumes of athletic directors. There is a huge case that most schools lose money with a football team. If that is a given, who benefits?...The ADs and extremely highly paid coaches are the ones benefiting. The players are being exploited to make money for the coaches, ADs and TV networks. They are the only three making money at this point. It's hard to say the universities exploit them when they lose money on football programs.