Antwaan Randle El wishes he had never played football

AzorianPats said:

I agree! But ive seen some violent headshots in Rugby and Aussie Rules. Im just wondering if those guys are coming out with the same issues..

Click to expand...

The town I live in has a lot of ex-pro Rugby League players and the biggest problems they all seem to have in retirement is with Knee & Back injuries.

A couple of players have retired recently due to concussions though. Lance Hohaia never really recovered from being punched twice in the head (one whilst he was already knocked out) and Daryll Goulding took an accidental shoulder to the head he never really recovered from.

In those cases helmets would have probably helped but there's other occasions where they would have caused problems.

SlowGettingUp said:

All the fans that whine about the "National P***y League" need to read this sad piece - at age 36 this former Super Bowl champion now he has to go down the stairs sideways and also has frequent memory lapses:

Super Bowl champion Antwaan Randle El wishes he had never played football

Better helmets might help a bit, but some of the NFL rules also need to change to reduce the need for players to play while injured or come back from injuries too soon. Bigger rosters (including bigger game day rosters) and more "designated to return" slots would help some. And I would force some of the current payments to players to be put into NFL-run long-term retirement plans.

Click to expand...

He's assuming that he would've beaten the very long odds of making a MLB team then being good enough to play 20 years. He picked the right sport. It's his own fault if he doesn't know what to do with his life now in retirement.

danmateus said:

It's his own fault if he doesn't know what to do with his life now in retirement.

Click to expand...

So his body is a wreck and his mind is a wreck. Guess your view is he should just get a single-story house with a big flat-screen, chill out and stop complaining to reporters.

It is weird how much more money MLB players make than NFL players. Bigger salaries that are actually guaranteed, combined with a much longer expected career.

“If I could go back, I wouldn’t” play football, Randle El told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn’t play baseball because of my parents. They made me go to school. Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now, I could still be playing baseball.”

Click to expand...

So the guy who wanted to play baseball to start with would now.....

play baseball to start with. I don't really see why this is national news.

Deus Irae said:

So the guy who wanted to play baseball to start with would now.....

play baseball to start with. I don't really see why this is national news.

Click to expand...

I think the phrase, "biting the hand that fed you", would be appropriate now.

Randel El's comment is symptomatic of a cultural problem in this country, is people don't take accountability for their own actions. When things go wrong, or even not exactly right, there is a need to BLAME someone or some thing.

Who was that QB Brady battled with at Michigan. Maybe Randal El should ask him how great his baseball career went. I suspect that if he had chosen baseball, he would have spent the better part of his 20's making $30,000 a year traveling in buses playing in the minor and wound up in a bar, complaining about how he should have chosen a football career.

Bart Starr got stem cells recently to repair some stroke damage to his brain. Maybe there will someday be helpful treatments for things like this. The NFL might be evil but doctors are pretty amazing sometimes.

It is an interesting read:
After stem cell treatments, Bart Starr ready for triumphant return to Lambeau Field

To me it's the subconconcussive hits that are the most problematic. Even if it's not a true concussion you can still end up debilitated.

patfanken said:

I think the phrase, "biting the hand that fed you", would be appropriate now.

Randel El's comment is symptomatic of a cultural problem in this country, is people don't take accountability for their own actions. When things go wrong, or even not exactly right, there is a need to BLAME someone or some thing.

Who was that QB Brady battled with at Michigan. Maybe Randal El should ask him how great his baseball career went. I suspect that if he had chosen baseball, he would have spent the better part of his 20's making $30,000 a year traveling in buses playing in the minor and wound up in a bar, complaining about how he should have chosen a football career.

Click to expand...

I feel bad that he may be suffering mental degredation, and I feel bad that he's got physical issues, but I sure as hell don't feel bad that he only made $X million in NFL dollars, instead of $Y million in speculative MLB dollars. We've all made decisions we wish we could have back. We haven't all made $22 million in the process.

I wish I'd never started watching NFL football. I too blame my parents.

patfanken said:

Randel El's comment is symptomatic of a cultural problem in this country, is people don't take accountability for their own actions.

Click to expand...

The NFL for years resisted the notion that CTE even existed, let alone that it was a real problem, so in some sense players of that era didn't know what they were signing up for. The NFL have now thankfully been bludgeoned into better behavior.

Football is never going to be risk free or even close to it. Players are going to end up with wrecked limbs and some with wrecked brains too. But things can at least change around the edges, as we now see with concussion protocols.

Is Peyton's likely use of HGH to recover from his injury really that much worse than the medical staff pumping a significant fraction of players full of Toradol before every game?

Two former NFL players describe loose prescription drug practices

Bobsyouruncle said:

They should make football voluntary.

Click to expand...

This

These former athletes should have had the option to do something safe. Something that leads to them being in the top 1% of earners, something where they have a chance to become a household name.

Like join the Army or something. Crying shame that these weren't options for these young men and now they have to suffer some memory loss and pain.

Just because athletes make great money that's no reason to lack compassion for their struggles later in life. The truth is that many of us engaged in activities that take a toll on us as we grow older we just didn't make big money for it. I beat the sh!t out of myself in a variety of ways I just never got paid for it, we just did crazy sh!t for the fun of it and thrill of it and I have not only the breaks and tears and scars to show for it but also multiple surgeries coming right up to deal with the more recent ones. I feel bad for the athletes dealing with post concussion effects and I'm grateful that's the one area that I didn't do much damage to.

Jangles said:

This

These former athletes should have had the option to do something safe. Something that leads to them being in the top 1% of earners, something where they have a chance to become a household name.

Like join the Army or something. Crying shame that these weren't options for these young men and now they have to suffer some memory loss and pain.

Click to expand...

So you cheer for them on Sunday and hope like hell Gronk and Edelman and Hightower etc will be available next week but then say tough sh!tt when the games are over?

That's pretty f.cking callous imo

SlowGettingUp said:

The NFL for years resisted the notion that CTE even existed, let alone that it was a real problem, so in some sense players of that era didn't know what they were signing up for. The NFL have now thankfully been bludgeoned into better behavior.

Football is never going to be risk free or even close to it. Players are going to end up with wrecked limbs and some with wrecked brains too. But things can at least change around the edges, as we now see with concussion protocols.

Is Peyton's likely use of HGH to recover from his injury really that much worse than the medical staff pumping a significant fraction of players full of Toradol before every game?

Two former NFL players describe loose prescription drug practices

Click to expand...

Please I played most of my football in the mid 60's to early 7o's and I knew (as did all around me) that running head first into a 210 lb RB going full speed was NOT good for your long term health. And it doesn't take a genus to realize if you make those collisions between guys who are both bigger and faster, as they are today, it isn't going to bet better.

Let us not go there to pretend that even guys from my era didn't know that if they chose to play professional football that ran the risk of long term injuries. But they also knew, even then, if they were good enough to make it, they would be well paid for the risk (I wasn't good enough). Clearly NOT at the levels they make today, but over double what you could make back then in 6 months, vs what you could get in 12. and that didn't count the perks.

I don't doubt CTE exists. But the fact is, if football was even close to the dangerous game we are being led to believe, then Millions upon Millions of adults would be walking around the streets addled from it. Because pretty close to 10% of American males played football for a few years at some point in there lives. 99% of them don't have CTE and until there is a long term study of dead people's brain we won't know that 10+ years of violent collisions at the NFL level causes CTE, or its just a genetic disorder.

I know it can't help, and the anecdotal evidence is powerful and needs to examined. But at least one of the Dr's from the Concussion study believes strongly that playing football at the HS and college level isn't dangerous. Certainly less dangerous than letting teenagers drive a car.

That is my main worry. Why scare parents from allowing their kids to play a game that can be a powerful teaching experience over a fear that won't really exist until they reach the professional level.

patfanken said:

we won't know that 10+ years of violent collisions at the NFL level causes CTE, or its just a genetic disorder.

Click to expand...

Likely it is the case that some people are simply a lot more susceptible than others. Tedy Bruschi certainly got beat up an awful lot over the years, and he seems fine (from what we can tell).

We've already come a good way at the NFL level - consider the way Ted Johnson claims he was treated a few years back:

'I don't want anyone to end up like me' - The Boston Globe

SlowGettingUp said:

So his body is a wreck and his mind is a wreck. Guess your view is he should just get a single-story house with a big flat-screen, chill out and stop complaining to reporters.

It is weird how much more money MLB players make than NFL players. Bigger salaries that are actually guaranteed, combined with a much longer expected career.

Click to expand...

Life isn't fair.

Ivan said:

So you cheer for them on Sunday and hope like hell Gronk and Edelman and Hightower etc will be available next week but then say tough sh!tt when the games are over?

That's pretty f.cking callous imo

Click to expand...

I don't want anyone to get injured obviously. But I don't feel bad about them being in pain later in life. That's the price they pay to be famous millionaires.

SlowGettingUp said:

Super Bowl champion Antwaan Randle El wishes he had never played football

Click to expand...

After watching their "performances"(snicker) on Sunday, I wish that Marcus Cannon, Cam Fleming &
Josh Kline had never played football.