Aaron Hernandez had CTE

[theeedude]

Yeah, in right wing mind, biggest problem in football is not that it's killing players, but that players are kneeling.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Yeah, in right wing mind, biggest problem in football is not that it's killing players, but that players are kneeling.

It's killing players and it's being used to train up little kids, but hey! I know you appreciate some good ole political manipulation of children by a trusted adult.
https://www.cbssports.com/general/n...-the-anthem-in-response-to-st-louis-protests/

 

[zinfamous]

No he doesn't, i actually had to look up his name, i don't watch much pro football. Is that your Dad or your Mom? Anytime.

ah, so you don't know shit about shit, but felt the need to comment anyway?

that's Falwell, your fantasy boyfriend. He created your people, from extremely homophobic books that were actually ghost-written by this one dude who, at the time, was a self-hating, closeted, gay clergy dude (lol, it's true!--he also created Pat Robertson--man, do you think the hateful conservatives that follow those diseased shitheads would implode if they learned that all of the gay hate fed to them was actually from the pen of a gay dude?).

The founder of Liberty University, where all of your favorite assholes and dickscarves of the world claim to have learned something, but really just went on to Washington to suck republican chode and take a big shit on this country. And you vote for them.

He is why you live, he is what keeps you going. He's dead now, probably from eating too many Chik-Fil-A sandwiches, but he didn't die soon enough. Because sick fucks like you are still around, sucking up his sloppy seconds and vomiting fascism all over this forum and all over the public.

 

[Thump553]

I assume that's not directly related to his tendencies to skirt the law, which he had done even in high school and college. You wouldn't give Boxers and MMA fighters that as an excuse to go on a rampage.

Actually in high school he was pretty much a poster boy for good behavior. He began his downfall in college where he played for a big time school.

I'm wondering when the studies about CTE and ex-college players start to come out-or why they haven't already. I'm sure there are ex-college players who never went to the NFL with more CTE than the general population. Personally I can't believe the problem arises when a player enters the NFL. It has to do with the dangers of the sport as presently played. But that is why it is popular and why colleges and NFL owners, advertisers, etc. make boatloads of money off it.

 

[sdifox]

Actually in high school he was pretty much a poster boy for good behavior. He began his downfall in college where he played for a big time school.

I'm wondering when the studies about CTE and ex-college players start to come out-or why they haven't already. I'm sure there are ex-college players who never went to the NFL with more CTE than the general population. Personally I can't believe the problem arises when a player enters the NFL. It has to do with the dangers of the sport as presently played. But that is why it is popular and why colleges and NFL owners, advertisers, etc. make boatloads of money off it.

We don't have any technology to detect it in living person. Unless you want to slice up their brain while they are still breathing.

 

[thilanliyan]

Tell them to take off all the padding and helmets, then let's see if they go head first into a tackle. There are ways to tackle without going head first, look at Aussie Rules football for example.

 

[abj13]

Actually in high school he was pretty much a poster boy for good behavior. He began his downfall in college where he played for a big time school.

I'm wondering when the studies about CTE and ex-college players start to come out-or why they haven't already. I'm sure there are ex-college players who never went to the NFL with more CTE than the general population. Personally I can't believe the problem arises when a player enters the NFL. It has to do with the dangers of the sport as presently played. But that is why it is popular and why colleges and NFL owners, advertisers, etc. make boatloads of money off it.

In the most recent CTE study, 48 out of 53 college football players had CTE. It is a biased population (player had to die and then his brain was donated for study), but still, that is a frightening number.

 

[kage69]

Yeah, in right wing mind, biggest problem in football is not that it's killing players, but that players are kneeling.

Aren't their priorities great? The right wing outrage addicts are consistently on the wrong side of history, and I don't expect that story to be any different.

Colin should walk from the NFL with double birds in the air, taking some comfort in knowing he'll be cutting his own likely case of CTE.

 

[Ajay]

Steroids do not build muscle. Steroids allow you to heal faster after a workout which means you get more gains during a workout. If you take steroids and stop working out, you will lose muscle.

OK, that kind of a fine point, but you are correct.

 

[fskimospy]

Tell them to take off all the padding and helmets, then let's see if they go head first into a tackle. There are ways to tackle without going head first, look at Aussie Rules football for example.

Yep, this is the answer. First, I would ban football in high school. Second, I would at a minimum replace their current helmets with something much softer or maybe nothing at all. Good technique now is to lead with your head a big percentage of the time and removing helmets removes that incentive.

I am a huge football fan (GO EAGLES) but the sport has to change. All the available evidence shows what they are doing now is causing irreparable damage to, at a minimum, a large percentage of players.

 

[VRAMdemon]

The thing that people are more or less ignoring with all the focus on concussions is that it's not concussions that cause the majority of the problems. It's the small, non-concussive impacts that accumulate over time and cause the issues. That's why soccer players are at risk from heading the ball a lot- not many concussions from heading the ball.

American football linemen and linebackers are at particular risk for these kinds of impacts, as they're taught to break the other guy's charge with their heads- bighorn sheep style. So literally every play in practice and in games, they accumulate another one of those little hits.

Common wisdom would have you think that Troy Aikman with his history of concussions would be at greater risk than say.. Mark Stepnoski, but in reality, Stepnoski is probably at as high risk, or even more so, due to playing center rather than quarterback.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Yep, this is the answer. First, I would ban football in high school. Second, I would at a minimum replace their current helmets with something much softer or maybe nothing at all. Good technique now is to lead with your head a big percentage of the time and removing helmets removes that incentive.

I am a huge football fan (GO EAGLES) but the sport has to change. All the available evidence shows what they are doing now is causing irreparable damage to, at a minimum, a large percentage of players.

Big Eagles fan...born and raised in King of Prussia (philly burbs) Wentz looking good, I don't know for how long though. The O-line is horrible so far...

 

[fskimospy]

Big Eagles fan...born and raised in King of Prussia (philly burbs) Wentz looking good, I don't know for how long though. The O-line is horrible so far...

The O-line hasn’t been great, sure. The NFC east seems to be garbage this year though so maybe we can make the playoffs. I wasn’t into football when McNabb was a rookie so it’s hard to calibrate my expectations.

I used to work at the Sears in the King of Prussia mall when I was 18-19, back before Sears became super sad.

EDIT: also going to the game on October 29th. GET HYPE.

 

[VRAMdemon]

The O-line hasn’t been great, sure. The NFC east seems to be garbage this year though so maybe we can make the playoffs. I wasn’t into football when McNabb was a rookie so it’s hard to calibrate my expectations.

I used to work at the Sears in the King of Prussia mall when I was 18-19, back before Sears became super sad.

EDIT: also going to the game on October 29th. GET HYPE.

Yeap...the east is up for grabs it seems like so far. Second job ever was working the stockroom at Bloomingdale's in the early 90's, lasted a whole 2 months lol. I now live in FLA...Head home every year for thanksgiving. Scored tickets to the Nov. 26 Bears game. Fly Eagles Fly!

 

[VirtualLarry]

There's a big difference between "taking risks" and being almost sure that you will end up being brain-damaged. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of players don't realize the facts about this stuff, and of course the facts are still being brought to light. That is, if the NFL doesn't hide them away.

It does raise an interesting question about the parents and kids though. If it is shown that contact in pre-adult ages is enough to cause this (as I think I read one study presented), then would the parents not be responsible? Perhaps even legally? Kids don't make a choice to play football, parents make those choices yay or nay. Not that I think things would go this way, cynically there's way too much $ involved and as someone said, we do love our blood sports. I probably won't watch if some of these studies are borne out, but that's just me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-football-brain-youth.html

 

[realibrad]

Eagles, horrible team, horrible city.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Tell them to take off all the padding and helmets, then let's see if they go head first into a tackle. There are ways to tackle without going head first, look at Aussie Rules football for example.

Yes, look at it

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/concussion-a-concern-from-elite-to-schools-20130227-2f6c2.html

 

[thilanliyan]

Yes, look at it

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/concussion-a-concern-from-elite-to-schools-20130227-2f6c2.html

Concussions are not absent from Aussie rules but they also don't go head first, and the rules are such that the head is to be protected.

I'd be curious to see the prevalence percentage wise of concussions in Aussie rules players vs NFL players...my bet is it would be lower in the Aussie rules players.

 

[zinfamous]

Concussions are not absent from Aussie rules but they also don't go head first, and the rules are such that the head is to be protected.

I'd be curious to see the prevalence percentage wise of concussions in Aussie rules players vs NFL players...my bet is it would be lower in the Aussie rules players.

I feel like I've been saying this for about 12 years now, but exactly this. American football players don't know how to tackle. Aussie rules and Rugby--that's tackling. grapple the waist and legs and bring down. Too often in football, you have a dude that just wants the big hit. He wants impact so that people will go oooooo. But that often leads to a broken play. You either miss the dude or he sheds you off and breaks free for more yards, because you are aiming for impact and not containment.

The goal in US Football style tackling is impact: hitting and "injury" basically make it tough for that person to play the whole game, all the while innocently proclaiming that you don't want to hurt anyone. Obviously, no one believes that. The goal with rugby is to stop the play. It's actually game-based. US football style is actually poor defense overall, and leads to worse outcomes for the team from a defensive perspective, but our heads are hard and we demand blood, so I have doubts that will really change. Meaning, when it is forced to change because it will, we will lose interest as fans because "That's NOT FOOTBALL!" and the game will slowly die.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Concussions are not absent from Aussie rules but they also don't go head first, and the rules are such that the head is to be protected.

I'd be curious to see the prevalence percentage wise of concussions in Aussie rules players vs NFL players...my bet is it would be lower in the Aussie rules players.

When I was in college I played DI football and intramural rugby. And this was in the days when football players were taught primarily to tackle rather than "hit" which the game is now. I would have bet everything that there was a giant difference between football and rugby and I laughed at people who thought rugby was rougher due to the lack of pads. Those people had clearly never played either sport. I was in way more pain after a football game than a rugby game and it was due to the pads. With a helmet and shoulder pads players were taught to go in head first and to use the upper body as a weapon. Stick your shoulder in a ball carriers ribs as you wrap him up and the perception was that it would hurt his unpadded mid-section a hell of a lot more than your own armored head and shoulders. And if you took a shot from another player on the lower back, the stomach or the thighs it hurt like hell, so that belief was reinforced. Using your pads to inflict pain was effective and it made tackling easier to go in head first, so everyone led with their heads because we felt safe and because it was worse on the receiving end. And in rugby, job 1 was self-preservation. You couldn't approach rugby anything like football. You were always aware of where your head was and you learned how to keep it safe, how to tackle rather than hit, how to take a carrier down from the side rather than head-on. It seemed both intuitive that rugby was safer due to not leading with the head and it seemed real because football FELT much worse to my body.

But it turns out not to be true. It turns out that concussions are pretty easy to get and even trying to protect yourself in an un-helmeted sport like rugby or Aussie rules football you still knock your head hard enough to get concussed a lot. A LOT. You don't hear about it much here because this is football nation, but rugby and Aussie-rules are dealing with the same issues now. Their players are suffering concussions by the buttload and are also winding up brain damaged due to repeating head injuries. And even soccer is getting some blowback on this too. Simply heading the ball greatly increases concussion risks, especially at youth level. The human head was just not designed for contact sports and putting a helmet on it makes very little difference. If you're in any sport where blows to the head are common you're probably doing significant damage to yourself.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Too often in football, you have a dude that just wants the big hit. He wants impact so that people will go oooooo. But that often leads to a broken play. You either miss the dude or he sheds you off and breaks free for more yards, because you are aiming for impact and not containment.

Pro-American Football is not really a sport anymore, it is entertainment. It is a show, and that is what they are really going for, spectacle. A technically good game is a boring game. Football, when played right, is a game of inches. You grind the ball down the field a few yards at a time. But the NFL does not want that, they want the big plays. They want a play to end in either a big crushing hit or a man triumphantly running down the field at full speed while the audience stands and screams. So the players are taught to use techniques intended to improve the chance of that happening. Just like the gladiators of old who were taught to not kill their opponent but to bleed him slowly so the audience got a show, our football players are taught to make big hits, all for the entertainment value.

Meaning, when it is forced to change because it will, we will lose interest as fans because "That's NOT FOOTBALL!" and the game will slowly die.

We are going to go one way of the other, either we will accept Football and other sports as gladiatorial games and accept the human toll our entertainment costs or we will change the games to be more humane. Although I seriously doubt we will choose the more humane path, just look at how popular MMA has become, and there is no doubt in anyone's mind the sort of damage that sport is doing to it's practitioners. People love it because of how brutal it is.

I doubt that football will die either way. People want sports. We want to identify with a team. It will take a hit for awhile, but over time it will build up a following again.

Or maybe I'm wrong and Esports will gain prominence, but I doubt it simply because it does not play to the lowest common denominator.

 

[bshole]

Tell them to take off all the padding and helmets, then let's see if they go head first into a tackle. There are ways to tackle without going head first, look at Aussie Rules football for example.

Yea I heard that helmets were the biggest cause of CTE because players were given a false sense of security from them.