Zippy

After the release of medical data on Aaron Hernandez https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/s...cte-brain.html , should we consider full contact football for youngsters and teens. This is a very touchy subject with many people, as many of us follow a college and/or pro team with a great fervor. The report says that the level of brain deterioration was some of the worst ever found, could this have ben the real reason for his horrible behavior? Might he have been truly insane brought on by continuous head trauma?
I have seen on the news that a good many parents won't let their children play tackle football in favor of flag football and soccer (Alt-football )
What do you think?

dlq04

Head injuries are an issue in hockey as well. A long time player and announcer for the Red Wings blames the increase in violence in the game on the increased speed of the game and size of the players but he also believes the so called safety improvements in equipment (helmets, etc.) make the players think they can give and take hits as hard as they possibly can.

Emil St-Hilaire

Go Habs Go...

Zippy

I have been hearing this about football for a while. concussions and very serious injuries were a much, much smaller problem in the days of leather helmets and nearly no pads, but as with hockey, football has armored their players with a gamut of "super-strong" space age materials that are way stronger than human tissue. Helmets are the single worst offender because the players think that they are safe when they run head first into another player.
Take away the pads and put leather helmets on them....just my opinion.

zdave87

Legal Bill

The day before Hernandez there was a story in the Boston Globe about a newly released study showing that kids who play football through high school are X times more likely to have every brain and joint related problem known to man. I turned to the people I was eating with and said: "Let it be remembered, on this day, I declared the demise of football in my life time."

I think moms and some dads will see stories like this and just decide their kids are not doing it. No football, period.

If the sport continues, it truly will become the modern equivalent of the Roman Colosseum. All the educated and well to do citizens in the stands will be watching all the athletes from the low income backgrounds killing each other.

dlq04

Ken, that's one I can support. To bad we can not turn back the clock.

Bill, as I have heard you say more than once.....'follow the money'. With that in mind, it won't happen in your lifetime.

ralper

It just might. I've read that some high schools are no longer playing football because they can't get enough players to fill the teams. Couple that to the fact that boys and girls have grown up playing soccer and now know the sport well enough to teach their children. It is quite possible that in the very near future soccer will bypass football as America's favorite sport. I've also heard that baseball is making a comeback. I think that football is in trouble.

The Los Angeles Chargers are having trouble filling a 27,000 seat stadium. Some of that, of course, is the bitterness about their move from San Diego, but some might also be because of dwindling interest in football. The New York Jets are having trouble filling Met Life Stadium. Some of that might be because the team is awful, but the team has been awful for a long time but in the past the stadium was always full. There just seems to be less interest in football.

I think that there are too many injuries and too much brain damage for football to continue to be America's favorite sport.

dlq04

^ Don't tell that to the Steeler's Nation, they are not buying it.

hecash

I'm with you on that. A nearby friend of mine, also an attorney, has been involved with youth football for many, many years. He's telling me now that parents are doing what I did with my son 30 years ago, banning them from playing football. His league has only 25% of the kids and teams that he had 10 years ago when the population of our town was 5,000 less than it is today.

Regarding my son, I'm a little guy and have dealt with a football back injury all of my adult life. Although my son is much bigger than me, I did not want to risk having him suffer that sort of pain. Today, he thanks me for that.