The biggest scourge on professional sports isn’t steroids or human growth hormone abuse. It’s the damage that is done to player’s longterm health caused by brain injury. Concussions are incredibly dangerous and shockingly underreported. I think part of the problem is that our hyper-masculine culture won’t acknowledge perceived weakness inside of sports.
I remember how DONAVAN McNABB was lauded for playing a football game on a broken leg. His effort became heroic and legendary. When my Jets had KEN O’BRIEN under center he was chided for not being able to withstand the crushing hits from defensive linemen and linebackers.
The thing is this… Today’s athletes are fucking machines that are so well conditioned they can run laps around the players from yesteryear. Football players wear so much equipment that they are veritable weapons in polycarbonate armor. If the league REALLY wanted to protect players they would remove all the body armor and put flags in the offensive players waistbands.
There isn’t any other way to prevent these athletes from knocking themselves silly unless you remove the equipment that enables them to propel themselves thru the air with reckless abandon. The number of players suffering from concussions is getting ugly.
It’s time again for the players to just be plain ugly.
I think its’weird that a few concussions in one particular week spark this controversy. I dont think the fault lies with the players doing their job.
Them concussions that happened with them recievers. . . you have to blame the coaches for running plays that tell the recievers to run routes over the middle AND in zone coverage. If you are in an LB/DB’ zone, be expected for them to play their zone hard. It’s the defensive players’ livelyhood on the line.
For the kickoff at Rutger, it’s sad, but the risk is always there. Eric LeGrand knew he was risking his life to get a free education and/or a ticket to the league as do many other players in college. If they want to make the kickoff safer allow the kicking team(not the kicker) to start 10 yards closer, from a dead start only once the ball is in the hand of the returner
This “We want to protect the players” line from the NFL seems like BS. If they wanted to protect the players, they wouldnt want to expand the season to 18 games. They shorten it. The only reason I think this is an issue NOW is because of the NFL is looking to market to women.
Your Jets? What happened to YOUR Cowboys? LOL
damn thats a messed up grill
It’s funny that they go all in to “prevent injuries” but still want to add games. This is a reputation move plain and simple.
i suffer from post concussion syndrome. at 23. shit is NO JOKE
i had a mild concussion before you lose a couple seconds after the hit. i was playing a game and i was just at the qb and bam. next thing i know i am on the bench. never saw the hit coming i felt good after a couple minutes but i was told. that i would have to sit out the rest of the game. for safety reasons shit i was young i was pissed i wanted to play. the coach called my mom and she was all worried about me she took me to the hospital. the doc was like how do you feel i said fine i wanted to keep playing. he said are you still dizzy i said no he said did you get knocked out. i told him i saw a white light and then i was on the bench. he said you are walking and talking fine no headaches and you got back to normal pretty quickly. he said you had a mild concussion take it easy in fact if you can just don’t do anything. my mom was flipping so he gave me some pain meds and told me what to do. if you feel like your losing your balance, hard to talk hard to move. loss of memory come back and he told my mom to keep a close eye on me. i was fine but i listened to the doc i didn’t want my body to be fucked up.
out of all those hits the one merryweather put on heap that was just uncalled for.