PBS Frontline: League of Denial (brain injuries)

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All helmets are designed to prevent skull fracture, lacerations, and traumatic brain injury. No helmet prevents concussion.
 
In my opinion, first thing is to completely outlaw helmet to helmet contact, even at the line of scrimmage. Second, make the only target hit area, between the waist and mid chest, penalties for hits to knees or above chest. Start it in junior football. The only way football survives is to completely eliminate contact with the head. Must start while players are young.
 
fjdad said:
In my opinion, first thing is to completely outlaw helmet to helmet contact, even at the line of scrimmage. Second, make the only target hit area, between the waist and mid chest, penalties for hits to knees or above chest. Start it in junior football. The only way football survives is to completely eliminate contact with the head. Must start while players are young.
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Agreed.
 
Watched it last night, what a great documentary. I was happy hearing them compare the cigarette industry being harmful and the NFL with head injuries.
 
Eliminating helmet to helmet contact won't eliminate helmet to helmet contact as strange as that sounds. Some of the worst shots I've taken were when I had good form during a tackle and someone else hit me as they hit the ball carrier to assist the tackle. There are many collisions that aren't intentional that can result in a head injury. It's also common to take someone to the ground and end up slamming your head into the ground.

Looking back, I'm sure I've suffered multiple concussions without knowing at the time. It sounds like it would be obvious but the culture at the time would be to call those "dings". I remember helping and having to help people back to the huddle because you're "blind" from a hit.

Making all helmet to helmet contact might cut down on things but it's still an inherently a collision sport.

P.S. I'm no pu$$y but kickoffs and kickoff returns are some scary sh!t sometimes. Lots of crazy stuff and try blocking someone who's got a 40 yard head start, trying to get down the field as fast as possible while you're trying to square off and get position to stop their momentum...dangerous! Or, be the guy running down the field at full speed and getting blindsided because you're trying to react to the ball carrier. I never backed off but I hated them.... takes a special kind of fool to like them (lol)
 
Frontline: League of Denial: The Concussion Crisis

This is on Netflix and it is a must watch.....if you want a glimpse of how sneaky and obtuse and just downright perfidious the NFL really can be, this will open eyes up even further.

It begins with Mike Webster, the guy in so much pain he asked people to tase him so he could sleep. And his brain tissue after he dies and Dr. Omalu who thanks to Mike Webster's brain, first discovered CTE in football players.

The NFL got their own doctors and formed a committee who went on the attack and tried to humiliate and disgrace Dr Omalu who was a Nigerian doctor and basically accused him in medical journals of not practicing medicine, but something akin to Voodoo....

It's astonishing stuff. He had a one-on-one meeting with an NFL doctor who interrupted him at one point to ask him "do you realise the implications of what you're doing? If 10% of American mothers were to stop their sons playing football, that would be the end of football...."
 
Roberto71 said:
This is on Netflix and it is a must watch.....if you want a glimpse of how sneaky and obtuse and just downright perfidious the NFL really can be, this will open eyes up even further.

It begins with Mike Webster, the guy in so much pain he asked people to tase him so he could sleep. And his brain tissue after he dies and Dr. Omalu who thanks to Mike Webster's brain, first discovered CTE in football players.

The NFL got their own doctors and formed a committee who went on the attack and tried to humiliate and disgrace Dr Omalu who was a Nigerian doctor and basically accused him in medical journals of not practicing medicine, but something akin to Voodoo....

It's astonishing stuff. He had a one-on-one meeting with an NFL doctor who interrupted him at one point to ask him "do you realise the implications of what you're doing? If 10% of American mothers were to stop their sons playing football, that would be the end of football...."
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I know that there is at least one thread around here somewhere where a bunch of people discussed that program right after it aired. I'll see if I can find it. It was a pretty eye opening piece, for sure.
 
Bumping thread for Roberto

*screw it, just went ahead and merged them.
 
Annihilus said:
I know that there is at least one thread around here somewhere where a bunch of people discussed that program right after it aired. I'll see if I can find it. It was a pretty eye opening piece, for sure.
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Steel Trap.

Cheers, bostonTim
 
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