Concussions and other type of injuries occur with many sports. Hockey players get concussions. Baseball players get hit with a ball. LAX players get hit with the stick (and yes... can suffer a concussion). Football, IMHO, is in the front and center of a “controversy” simply because it is truly American and masculine.
It could be, and you could be right.
But it could also be that the game really has changed to the detriment of the human body.
I do know that they used to tackle, not as battering rams but grabbing the legs and pulling the guy down. That seems less injurious to me, but just as effective.
It is American, it is GIGANTIC!!!! It is HUGE!!!! It is SUCCESSFUL!!! is is masculine, and 50,000 times more Americans watch it than do soccer, so it must be punished.
It also has the deepest pockets of any professional sports league and a large pool of former players that are barely making ends meet because the era that they played in did not have huge contracts. A lot of modern day players do not have huge contracts, either, and only last 3-5 years in the game. $500-600k over three years may not be worth a lifetinme of chronic headaches and other symptoms of nervious system trauma or damage to organs such as the spleen, kidneys, or lungs.
Note that the lawsuits are coming from former players, not the women’s groups, or some lib lawyer agenda mill like the ACLU or SPLC. This is not the homo, estrogen, or lib lobby trying shut down the game; it is equal parts a money grab and legitimate concern by people that played the game over the long term health effects. Bottom line I see another few years, the owners and Player’s Union are going to get pinched pretty hardin the wallet and there will be lot of new equipment and rules to try and reduce long term nervous system/internal organ trauma.
This is coming from the perspective of a man that has loved the NFL, NCAA, and all forms of football since I was 8.