[righttackle44]

I don’t buy your claptrap. A good friend of mine, with two superbowl rings, played fullback for two different NFL teams. He knows me—he does not at all remember a very close friend of ours. My friend is in an NFL-University based program that is examening the effects of concussion on the lives of players. The results at this project are limited at the moment, but at least there is hope. I hear the great howls of how football players should be left alone to clobber one another, from FReepers who have never played the professional game. I haven’t either, but I have friends who have. Their stories about how a teammate came off the field, put on his civies, then couldn’t find the team bus or his family or car, are very frightening.

[gov_bean_ counter]

I read an interesting article a couple of years ago in Sports Illustrated (I think) about how much more punishment a running back takes a couple of years into their career because they lose a half step (split second) in getting to the hole. In the NFL for running backs, time is not their friend.

[Alberta's Child]

I've played hockey and gotten a couple of pretty serious dings over the years. None of them was serious enough to knock me out, but there's no question that many years of that can have an impact on you. I would expect hockey to be more of a problem than football in that regard, since hockey players travel much faster on skates than any human being can run.

Interestingly, I believe the effect of a "whiplash" injury may be more serious in terms of brain injury than an old-fashioned hit on the noggin.

[ilovesarah2012]

I never said concussions weren’t serious - I said you probably can’t blame all suicides on them. It was hardly “claptrap”.

[ilovesarah2012]

I never said concussions weren’t serious - I said you probably can’t blame all suicides on them. It was hardly “claptrap”.