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Posted on 02/15/2012 5:36:05 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
If the sport of football ever dies, it will die from the outside in. -- Jonah Lehrer
If an increasing number of economists and trend analysts are to be believed, we may one day look back at something like Colt McCoy's concussion against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2011 as one of many galvanic events that blew football apart, and reduced the country's most popular sport to a marginal pastime. It's unlikely that such a colossal financial concern as football could be killed off entirely, but as Malcolm Gladwell first wrote in the New Yorker in 2009, it's not crazy to think that an increasing number of player concussions -- and the NFL's real lack of concern about those injuries despite its public face -- could have Americans looking at football very differently down the road.
Gladwell's article, which compared football to dogfighting and revealed some truly horrifying information about the effects of concussions on the minds and bodies of football players...
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
This is a vane attempt to back door America with the other “footbal”soccor. What do you think would happen if they outlaw football? Talk about revolution!
Soccer has a secret ~ broken ankles ~ broken so bad kids are maimed for life. Then there’s iceskating ~
I admit to relishing the vicarious thrill of football and admiration of men that damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
I think they're nuts ... but I admire the attitude and determination.
There are just as many cuncussions in soccer.
My niece had to quit after suffering 2 in one season. She is 12.
n 50 years, the “National Football League” in the USA may be playing what most of us call soccer today.
Actually, I could see the NFL do like so many other industries have done over the last several years when the government along with the nanny starters start over regulating:
The NFL will offshore their product and just televise into the USA.
“What do you think would happen if they outlaw football? “
If MSM first spent a decade talking nothing but injuries, concussions, medical costs, and egregious human suffering, plus grossly overpaid people, most Americans would give football up.
They can’t just turn it off, there is too much money (above and below the table) being moved.
I sense the hands of the progressive movement here. Someone wins if someone else loses, high salaries, people looked up to as heroes, safety issues- all things the Left wants to change.
like this thing
A nephew of mine was taken out by an opponent in a soccer game by a head blow to his face so severe that he had to give up the game, and still has a plate in his face to this day.
Wouldn’t have happened if they wore helmets the way they do in real football.
The concussion rate for girls’ soccer is half that of boys’ football, surprisingly.
http://www.momsteam.com/health-safety/concussion-rates-high-school-sports
"What's most disturbing, perhaps, is that these cognitive deficits have a real-world impact: When compared with similar students without a history of concussions, athletes with two or more brain injuries demonstrate statistically significant lower grade-point averages."
All well and good, but what was the grade point average comparison BEFORE the injuries? Is it possible that - I don't know - football doesn't attract the smart, nerdy types?
Once again, we could be in the "correlation is not causation" territory that has plagued modern "studies."
IMO, concussions will not “kill” football, but they could lead to a scaling back of the violence of the game. Too many NFL players and college players are essentially taught to maim or injure the players on the opposing team. This isn’t a sport, it is a version of Christian versus the lions from ancient Rome.
A sport that requires the type of protective gear that football requires needs some re-evaluation. I don’t believe that toning down the violence of the game will take away the enjoyment, in fact just the opposite. I think it will make the strategies more interesting.
Changes could easily be made in the rules to eliminate the human guided missile effects. And I wonder if changes to bring back the old substitution rules, playing both offense and defense, would also improve the long term health of players. I don’t care how big your frame is, weighing well over 300 pounds is not good for long term health. Forcing players to play every down would eliminate the excess weight.
So how is Colt doing these days?
And I wonder how Roger Staubach is doing today. That guy took some big hits back in the 1970s.
And get rid of the shoulder pads too.
Better still - Rugby!!!!
Surprisingly, there was not any reference to soccer in the article or any attempt to indicate that any particular sport would or should “replace” football.
Soccer is very much a socailist type sport. Will never catch on like football, even if football were to suffer greatly from concussions.
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