State of the game: Rick Reilly commentary

[Zeus]

At some point, some jury will award millions to an injured student. When that precedent is set, the lawsuit floodgates will open.

That's just a matter of time. But if the school systems, municipalities and colleges/universities can't buy insurance against this hazard, they'll be be forced to take other measures by either changing how the games are played or banning them altogether.

 

[SEA_Pat]

It's like deja vu all over again! The thread during the off-season discussing this had quite a similar trajectory as I recall.

I won't get into how changing football will destroy the American way of life. But I would like to bring up the same points I did in the previous discussion but perhaps with a bit more time to reflect on it.

1. I cannot see any way that the game can continue indefinitely in its present form now that the CTE cat is out of the bag. Lawsuits are one thing, but a bigger issue is how parents and schools will start to reduce the flow of players into the sport. The best athletes will gravitate to other sports and the quality of the game will suffer at all levels. This will reduce interest, and have a multiplier effect as ratings and attendance drop at all levels. That takes even more money and interest out of the game. That's the biggest threat to the sport, not lawyers.

2. I don't see any way that different versions of the current equipment can reduce the impacts that cause CTE. The research articles all say that it's primarily the result of hundreds of collisions and that the cause is the brain sloshing around in the head and banging against the skull during those many collisions. So there can't be a vaccine and you can't pad the inside of the skull; this is a physiological result of the physics of impact. The only thing you can do is reduce the impact forces. That means getting players to not launch at each other so that you don't get the entire body to suddenly decelerate after going at high speed and to get them to stop hitting each other directly in or with the head.

3. This is why I brought up rugby in the earlier discussion. It's clear that you get a lot less concussions in rugby (although you still obviously do, usually when players break the rules but also simply within the flow of play). Rugby players don't launch when they hit because it's against the rules so they get penalized, but mostly because they put their own bodies in hazard when they do so because they're not padded anywhere near as much as NFL players are. Similarly, they don't get a lot of head on head hits because when both heads aren't in a helmet, those hurt like hell for both guys and either can end up with an injury. And rugby, despite these rules, remains quite an entertaining and passionate sport that I love to watch. One thing they certainly need to ascertain as a matter of urgency is "do rugby players have similar risks of CTE" and if so why or why not?

4. So why shouldn't we test alternatives to the current unsustainable path we're on? Dress the guys like rugby players - no helmets, light body armor. Make the line players engage without banging heads immediately - for example, everyone on the lines has their hands on their thighs rather than on the ground. Let's see what it looks like and how the rules and strategy would have to adjust based on this new reality. There's lots of lower level leagues where they could test this out.

5. Just to be clear, I am not advocating this because I want to see political change within the USA. I love football, MMA, ice hockey and other contact sports and have had a number of concussions as a result of playing them (not MMA though, after my time). I would really miss a lot of the aspects of today's game. But I just can't see how this can continue on without major changes. It's sad and I don't like it, but I'd rather have football in some way or another than watch the game decline and die along with many of its great players.

 

[Joker]

The NFL by decades....

The 60's.........

The 70's.....watch this you tube

**** Butkus Tribute - YouTube

The 80's....

The 90's......

The 2001-10....

THIS....this is OUR GAME....THIS is the game WE love....my next post is where we are headed..............

 

[Joker]

here's is what you all have in store as "entertainment" on Sundays the rest of your lives...after the PC Posse gets done "changing things for the good of humanity!!!!"...

 

[fnordcircle]

here's is what you all have in store as "entertainment" on Sundays the rest of your lives...after the PC Posse gets done "changing things for the good of humanity!!!!"...

I'll happily watch this version if it means less people are suffering debilitating injuries.

I don't know how you can be a fan of the game and think about guys like Mike Wright and then burp up cliched 'dey took our fubaaaw' comments. Mike's comments about not being able to think, watch TV, etc were nauseating to me.

 

[Fencer]

There really are two major kinds of collision in football: Blocking and tackling. Blocking rules have changed drastically over the years, and I don't think that's hurt the essence of the game, so presumably further changes could be accommodated as well. Offensive linemen have certainly been among the sufferers in the CTE wave -- Mike Webster! -- so blocking needs to be looked at; but I'm optimistic that blocking could become sufficiently safe on both sides of the ball so as to allow the game to continue.

Tackling is the harder one. It can happen at high speed. A lot of the game involves the offensive player ensuring he gets hit in different body areas and at different angles than the defensive player intends. That's where rugby and any other source should be scoured for ideas that allow the game to proceed.

It's like deja vu all over again! The thread during the off-season discussing this had quite a similar trajectory as I recall.

I won't get into how changing football will destroy the American way of life. But I would like to bring up the same points I did in the previous discussion but perhaps with a bit more time to reflect on it.

1. I cannot see any way that the game can continue indefinitely in its present form now that the CTE cat is out of the bag. Lawsuits are one thing, but a bigger issue is how parents and schools will start to reduce the flow of players into the sport. The best athletes will gravitate to other sports and the quality of the game will suffer at all levels. This will reduce interest, and have a multiplier effect as ratings and attendance drop at all levels. That takes even more money and interest out of the game. That's the biggest threat to the sport, not lawyers.

2. I don't see any way that different versions of the current equipment can reduce the impacts that cause CTE. The research articles all say that it's primarily the result of hundreds of collisions and that the cause is the brain sloshing around in the head and banging against the skull during those many collisions. So there can't be a vaccine and you can't pad the inside of the skull; this is a physiological result of the physics of impact. The only thing you can do is reduce the impact forces. That means getting players to not launch at each other so that you don't get the entire body to suddenly decelerate after going at high speed and to get them to stop hitting each other directly in or with the head.

3. This is why I brought up rugby in the earlier discussion. It's clear that you get a lot less concussions in rugby (although you still obviously do, usually when players break the rules but also simply within the flow of play). Rugby players don't launch when they hit because it's against the rules so they get penalized, but mostly because they put their own bodies in hazard when they do so because they're not padded anywhere near as much as NFL players are. Similarly, they don't get a lot of head on head hits because when both heads aren't in a helmet, those hurt like hell for both guys and either can end up with an injury. And rugby, despite these rules, remains quite an entertaining and passionate sport that I love to watch. One thing they certainly need to ascertain as a matter of urgency is "do rugby players have similar risks of CTE" and if so why or why not?

4. So why shouldn't we test alternatives to the current unsustainable path we're on? Dress the guys like rugby players - no helmets, light body armor. Make the line players engage without banging heads immediately - for example, everyone on the lines has their hands on their thighs rather than on the ground. Let's see what it looks like and how the rules and strategy would have to adjust based on this new reality. There's lots of lower level leagues where they could test this out.

5. Just to be clear, I am not advocating this because I want to see political change within the USA. I love football, MMA, ice hockey and other contact sports and have had a number of concussions as a result of playing them (not MMA though, after my time). I would really miss a lot of the aspects of today's game. But I just can't see how this can continue on without major changes. It's sad and I don't like it, but I'd rather have football in some way or another than watch the game decline and die along with many of its great players.

 

[Fencer]

Have we heard a lot from Mike Wright since 2011 articles like Mike Wright Still Feels Post-Concussion Symptoms Watching TV, Says It Was Time to End Football Season | New England Patriots | NESN.com ?

After trying to give it a go on the practice field last week, Patriots defensive lineman Mike Wright determined it was time to shut it down this season due to the post-concussion symptoms that are still haunting his everyday life. He still gets motion sick when he watches TV, surfs the Internet or reads a book or magazine.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

SEA_PAT is on the right track. In the ideal world somehow a modified version of the game with soft helmets, light padding and serious consequences enforced rules against head tackling would be tried out. I could see watching a rugby like modified version of football that was lifetime safer for the athletes. You could even make it better than todays NFL by allowing defensive contact past the 5 yard line.

How you'd get whomever to try this out is a quandary. Were I a billionaire NFL owner I'd discuss starting 21st century football farm teams or sponsoring college leagues with this evolved game to test what works best. If the owners simply attempt to hold the line, they are going to get blindsided by a precipitous loss in value. Unfortunately, most owners aren't that bright or forward looking. They're focused on revenue chimeras like International teams.

 

[MassPats38]

I'll happily watch this version if it means less people are suffering debilitating injuries.

I don't know how you can be a fan of the game and think about guys like Mike Wright and then burp up cliched 'dey took our fubaaaw' comments. Mike's comments about not being able to think, watch TV, etc were nauseating to me.

fnord-

I offered a response on page 10, in response to your lack of conscience statement, but why watch the game if these stories bother you this much or if you feel that you, as a fan of the sport, are somehow to blame? Do you weep for boxers, MMA fighters, NHL hockey players, professional rugby players (given the contact, any claim of "no effects" is ridiculous) as well? If not, then what is different with football that causes you this crisis of conscience?

These guys are not forced into the sport. They are not slaves cast into the arena, or prisoners forced to fight for freedom. They play professional football for the prospect of fame and riches that for the vast majority of the players would be otherwise unattainable through other career prospects, and some suffer (of the 1600+ on the active roster per year multiplied by the history of the sport, I have never heard a statistical count of how many that might be) serious physical effects in the process.

We knew the physical effects from boxing (see Ali). MMA is the same. I suspect professional hockey is the same if they were to study it. I suspect rugby is the same (argue it's safer, but not safe - do those rules change frequently to eliminate contact?). If you take out the physical component of the game, then guys like Mike Wright don't play and earn the $4 million plus he earned during his NFL career (he may be fine now, or he may not - Frank Gifford left the NFL for more than a season after a concussion from the Bednarik hit in 1960). Wright had to fight his way onto the team from undrafted status, and he could have just walked away after the draft. He chose to stick around and play, despite the NFL's position that he was not worthy by rejecting him in the draft. After he, as an adult, doggedly pursued that goal through hardcore, physical play, as did Ted Johnson, you lose sleep over his decision to play the game as he chose to? I feel sympathy for him and for Ted Johnson, but they did not have to play the game as they did. They chose to do so and made their current situation that much more probable.

People will not pay to watch frisbee football. You are kidding yourself if you believe that as the contact makes the performances impressive. Lose the fan base, then there are no salaries and no prospects, because people pay to be entertained rather than to watch a golf equivalent played out on a football field out of a sense of charity for displaced freakishly large dudes. I suspect most of the players, with freakish size and speed, are not mensa candidates who forego academic stardom in expounding on the wonders of quantum mechanics for sports. If you run the "what if's" of supporting the sport, ask "What if Michael Oher didn't have football?" "Where is Michael Oher now in life, after you saved him from this violent sport?" I referenced the book The Blind Side because guys like Oher may be dead instead of possibly injured because football is the societal "way out" for some people. The epilogue to the book offered a reference to another talented athlete like Oher who was gunned down, querying whether he could have been saved if someone helped him along and tried to advance an athletic career. From his living situation in a lawless project the police wouldn't visit because of gun play, Oher would probably be a criminal enforcer, and quite possibly dead or in prison. But hey, societal intervention would have saved him from the concussions in football.

 

[SEA_Pat]

There really are two major kinds of collision in football: Blocking and tackling. Blocking rules have changed drastically over the years, and I don't think that's hurt the essence of the game, so presumably further changes could be accommodated as well. Offensive linemen have certainly been among the sufferers in the CTE wave -- Mike Webster! -- so blocking needs to be looked at; but I'm optimistic that blocking could become sufficiently safe on both sides of the ball so as to allow the game to continue.

Tackling is the harder one. It can happen at high speed. A lot of the game involves the offensive player ensuring he gets hit in different body areas and at different angles than the defensive player intends. That's where rugby and any other source should be scoured for ideas that allow the game to proceed.

I think it would affect both rushers and blockers, and quite profoundly. I honestly have no idea who would have the advantage, but suspect that the defense would because there would be more space. So this would give a big advantage to mobile QBs who will be able to evade a quick rush from someone breaking through. I think the defense needs an advantage because they're not going to be able to take running backs down as easily as they can now because they'll have to wrap rather than just hit.


For downfield tackling, it would give a big advantage to the offense because the receivers wouldn't have to worry about guys flying at them when the ball arrives. But after the catch, the tackling is quite similar to rugby.

But the everything would evolve including strategy, schemes, rules and players. I suspect the linemen would all lose a lot of weight because they'd have to be more mobile. This would also be a good thing for the players health-wise. I agree with everyone who is unhappy about the prospect of change, it sucks. But I would still watch this game.

 

[SEA_Pat]

SEA_PAT is on the right track. In the ideal world somehow a modified version of the game with soft helmets, light padding and serious consequences enforced rules against head tackling would be tried out. I could see watching a rugby like modified version of football that was lifetime safer for the athletes. You could even make it better than todays NFL by allowing defensive contact past the 5 yard line.

How you'd get whomever to try this out is a quandary. Were I a billionaire NFL owner I'd discuss starting 21st century football farm teams or sponsoring college leagues with this evolved game to test what works best. If the owners simply attempt to hold the line, they are going to get blindsided by a precipitous loss in value. Unfortunately, most owners aren't that bright or forward looking. They're focused on revenue chimeras like International teams.

I like the idea of contact allowed outside of 5 yards as it would eliminate the big advantage I'd see for receivers. I reckon these guys would figure out how it could best work pretty quick, they're amazing athletes. As you say, they'd just have to play and see how it goes.

But I agree with you that they'd be hard-pressed to get someone to try this and that they better do it or something similar before its too late. I just don't think you can put a bandaid on this one unfortunately. And it could be a black swan. So when you consider how much money is involved, why wouldn't these guys try something?

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

I like the idea of contact allowed outside of 5 yards as it would eliminate the big advantage I'd see for receivers. I reckon these guys would figure out how it could best work pretty quick, they're amazing athletes. As you say, they'd just have to play and see how it goes.

But I agree with you that they'd be hard-pressed to get someone to try this and that they better do it or something similar before its too late. I just don't think you can put a bandaid on this one unfortunately. And it could be a black swan. So when you consider how much money is involved, why wouldn't these guys try something?

Funny, I almost wrote about a black swan in my post. (Loved the book) But this swan isn't a surprise as it can be seen coming by the owners. I think that the downside is so awful that they're in denial, like the rabbit paralyzed as the snake approaches. That $20B revenue goal to Goodell from the owners for the 2020s is profoundly threatened. History is littered with business that utterly failed to make needed radical adaptations as their environment changed.

 

[Tunescribe]

There really are two major kinds of collision in football: Blocking and tackling.

No, there are three. The head hitting the turf probably is the worst concussion impact of all.

 

[SEA_Pat]

No, there are three. The head hitting the turf probably is the worst concussion impact of all.

Ah yes! I forgot that one. That was going to be another part of my likely changes, and one in my opinion that's long coming. The field has to be changed to something softer, no more artificial turf that's basically concrete like in Philly.

I can't believe they can't come up with something that would be better, and of course there should be much more heated and well maintained natural turf fields. With the mega-bucks they're making from the game, to have crappy fields like that is a travesty. Besides, who doesn't love a good mudbowl?

 

[mb6592]

It's like deja vu all over again! The thread during the off-season discussing this had quite a similar trajectory as I recall.

I won't get into how changing football will destroy the American way of life. But I would like to bring up the same points I did in the previous discussion but perhaps with a bit more time to reflect on it.

1. I cannot see any way that the game can continue indefinitely in its present form now that the CTE cat is out of the bag. Lawsuits are one thing, but a bigger issue is how parents and schools will start to reduce the flow of players into the sport. The best athletes will gravitate to other sports and the quality of the game will suffer at all levels. This will reduce interest, and have a multiplier effect as ratings and attendance drop at all levels. That takes even more money and interest out of the game. That's the biggest threat to the sport, not lawyers.

WTF is so special about football? Boxing produces much more consistent trauma and no one is whining about killer boxing gloxes or proposing 20lb pillows be placed over the gloves? If less parents want to let kids play football, so be it. If it gets to the point that high schools and colleges remove it as a sport, well that's a problem. But didn't I read somewhere that heading a soccer ball produces a lot of trauma? And what about wrestling, lot of banging the head in wrestling too. I guess we just ban all those sports?

This is why I brought up rugby in the earlier discussion. It's clear that you get a lot less concussions in rugby (although you still obviously do, usually when players break the rules but also simply within the flow of play).

It won't matter, less concussions still produces a significant amount - too many to bear in our increasingly risk adverse society.

 

[Tunescribe]

Ah yes! I forgot that one. That was going to be another part of my likely changes, and one in my opinion that's long coming. The field has to be changed to something softer, no more artificial turf that's basically concrete like in Philly.

I can't believe they can't come up with something that would be better, and of course there should be much more heated and well maintained natural turf fields. With the mega-bucks they're making from the game, to have crappy fields like that is a travesty. Besides, who doesn't love a good mudbowl?

Your line of thinking reflects mine. I don't want to see the game change. But change is coming and SOMEONE with vision needs to get out in front of it, or else it will just fall apart.

 

[captain insano]

we need to get rid off all cars and vehicles that people use to get around in. they are to dangerous and cause far to many people to die and get injured. we need mass public transit for all people.

 

[mb6592]

I like the idea of contact allowed outside of 5 yards as it would eliminate the big advantage I'd see for receivers. I reckon these guys would figure out how it could best work pretty quick, they're amazing athletes. As you say, they'd just have to play and see how it goes.

You bring up an interesting point. One wonders how much the changing of the game to satisfy the fantasy crowd has crept into this issue. Cornerbacks, like TY Law, would use their hands much more and there was much more wrestling with receivers. Now, after 5 yards, your only weapon is to try to dislodge with a hit. I've hated the offense favoring direction the NFL has taken and this just gives me one more reason.

 

[Tunescribe]

You bring up an interesting point. One wonders how much the changing of the game to satisfy the fantasy crowd has crept into this issue. Cornerbacks, like TY Law, would use their hands much more and there was much more wrestling with receivers. Now, after 5 yards, your only weapon is to try to dislodge with a hit. I've hated the offense favoring direction the NFL has taken and this just gives more one more reason.

Yup. This probably is a topic for another thread, but fantasy football has negatively impacted the game itself. Of course, owners encourage it for obvious reasons. I think the game peaked about 10 years ago. Peyton Manning and Rivers both have completion percentages above 70 percent. That is ridiculous.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Yup. This probably is a topic for another thread, but fantasy football has negatively impacted the game itself. Of course, owners encourage it for obvious reasons. I think the game peaked about 10 years ago. Peyton Manning and Rivers both have completion percentages above 70 percent. That is ridiculous.

And just after that the post 5 yard contact rule became a point of emphasis.
Thanks Bill Polian!

I'll say it again, my suggestion is that Neo-football (what football evolves to) allows contact beyond 5 yards. This will put an interesting to watch dynamic between athletes into that game, compensating for the eliminating of launching at your opponent which looks like is going away.
Lighten up the body armor.
Soft helmets to reduce the dv/dt impact of both another body/helmet and contact with the ground. I think this would be a substantial health gain.
Experiment with line play starting with upright hands on hips position, moving towards more sumo like contact. Not thrilled with this but it might help reduce line play concussions.
You'll still have collisions of a receiver crossing in one direction getting hit by a defender from the other but heck, that happened to us all the time playing sandlot football without any gear.