The size and speed of the players have outgrown the rules of the game. To knock heads with 340 lb running refrigerators at full speed will result in 33% of current NFL players getting chronic traumatic encephalopathy by the nfls own estimate. The cost is too high for the players and they are figuring it out. Who wants to die in total pain, not knowing your name at an early age? The usa will have a world class soccer team in 20 years as a result and baseball may enjoy a time when more great athletes play it again. "Stick ur head in there" is how they used to coach us up.The Golden age of the NFL is ending. When i see young kids on draft day I wonder if they know the meat grinder that awaits them in the nfl. it beats them down, finally injures them in a way they don't fully appreciate and realize for years to come. Then they are replaced and forgotten.In my postcollege fling w the NY football giants" piece of meat" was the over used clich?,and there was certainly an element of trueth to it even then. Nothing like now.The biggest lineman on the giants in 1975 was probably 265-270. jethro pugh made all pro dt at 245.its like a car wreck at the end of every play now.Borland wants to keep his brain intact. He is smart and watching whats going on around him.Good luck NFL
Borland and many young NFL players showing sense by retiring
- Thread starter edludes
- Start date
Great points, Ed, but let me ask this, as an outside observer and former football player in my youth, when there were no facemasks and hardly any padding in helmets till today's equipments standards, did we hear of suicides and concussed problems for former NFL players before all this scientific study stuff?
Just saying!
If you think a head dinger is going to curtail your career, don't sign up for football!! Period, end of story!
Football has always been a violet sport, the players are bigger, stronger, faster than yesteryear, so all we hear now, is the ramifications from concussions!! Give me a break!
When most of us in our 50's or older were kids, did we hear of ritalin? When kids were autistic in special ed classes in our schools we attended, we were told they were skitzo or they were not allowed in school to be mainstreamed with other students in a school.
All this crap science is throwing out there for sports and the news on the human body, is enough garbage to strike a nerve and get some air time to make people wanna say hmmm... That's it!
:banghead:
I wonder when Dick Butkus is going to come out and say he's a victim of concussions! Or Jim Brown. Or Roger Staubach, or Fran Tarkenton.
Enough already!
Don't play football and put on a dress or go work in an office, but don't get into the game of football if you think it's going to hurt your career or brain!
Just saying!
If you think a head dinger is going to curtail your career, don't sign up for football!! Period, end of story!
Football has always been a violet sport, the players are bigger, stronger, faster than yesteryear, so all we hear now, is the ramifications from concussions!! Give me a break!
When most of us in our 50's or older were kids, did we hear of ritalin? When kids were autistic in special ed classes in our schools we attended, we were told they were skitzo or they were not allowed in school to be mainstreamed with other students in a school.
All this crap science is throwing out there for sports and the news on the human body, is enough garbage to strike a nerve and get some air time to make people wanna say hmmm... That's it!
:banghead:
I wonder when Dick Butkus is going to come out and say he's a victim of concussions! Or Jim Brown. Or Roger Staubach, or Fran Tarkenton.
Enough already!
Don't play football and put on a dress or go work in an office, but don't get into the game of football if you think it's going to hurt your career or brain!
mike Webster was as manly as they come. if you saw him at the end or spent time w jim McMahon who doesn't know his name, or tony dorsett who is in constant pain, or junior seau who shot himself maybe ud understand, maybe not.concussions in my day were much more rare and its no coincidence that the bigger players then were 80 fuckin pounds lighter and not as fast.Dick Butkis played against MUCH smaller linemen and couldn't bench 220 once! no shit! he couldn't play now because they'd pass him silly.jimbrown was the exception to all rules. it s physics..... mass times speed equals punch drunk.
seems I recall reading that before they started wearing helmets,concussions were infrequent.......I believe jack and ar182 played back then...maybe they`ll weigh in?.....
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I'm not a doctor, but I truly wonder if it's in a person's DNA if they are going to develop the type of depression and act totally off base if they suffered one or more concussions.
I saw a special on TD, Junior, Dave Duerson, etc., they played like that in college, so I can only assume they played like that in HS or even youth ball. If you play and make a brunt of hits with your head, then you are bound to suffer some serious brain trauma and end up like the latter names. Mike Webster was not a real big player for his position with the Steelers, I believe he was like 6'2 and 255 coming out of college, that's about the same size Junior Seau was with the Chargers. McMahon was an itty bitty built guy and Dorsett was 5'11 and a buck 150 coming out of Aliquippa HS before attending Pitt and a lot of his injuries came by getting squashed in those 2nd and 3's or 3rd and 1's when the lines and backers would jam the front.
But again, I wonder if these players, and there aren't tons of them like they have been saying on tv that are retiring early and so forth, but are they pre-dispositioned to have problems if they were to suffer any type of concussion. Each person is built a little differently and so on and so forth.
Interesting stuff.
My biggest point is, if you fear of an injury like that, don't play the game. Stay out of football!!
WildBill, I agree about the helmets but the BIG difference is the size and speed of these guys. It's a joke at how big these guys are now compared to the past. And I'm not talking about the 300+ guys, they really don't do that much damage. It's the 245 lb LBers and 230 safetys. Just not much the NFL can do about it but I don't really think they have to. People will continue to play.
hasn`t somebody tried designing a helmet with internal AND external padding(thought I remembered it being discussed)?...that`s something my brother mentioned years ago and I remember laughing...now not so much......maybe try and design the outside padding with some sort of coating that`s slippery to keep the padding from grabbing and causing neck injuries...
may not be foolproof but it would seem to have to mitigate the impact at least to a certain extent...you wonder if aesthetics would be a problem(and that would be ridiculous)..
may not be foolproof but it would seem to have to mitigate the impact at least to a certain extent...you wonder if aesthetics would be a problem(and that would be ridiculous)..
I was just talking to my dad and he brought up a great point. He told me when he was young he and my grandfather listened to all of the big boxing fights on radio. He said he would go to the gym, spar and train and always wanted to be a boxer. But then he started playing football in school and didn't have time for boxing. Even though he stopped training he said he still loved it and even once I was around we watched a lot of fights together. That ended once the HW division got to what it is now. You would think with the money that someone like Money makes that these young guys would want to box but they don't because they see guys like Ali and think it's because of boxing, whether right or wrong. It may take a while but boys like my son(11 year old) see things like this in the news and I do hear he and his friends talking about it. Most of the moms tell their sons they're not playing because it's too dangerous. I think you're going to see a generation come along that doesn't hold football on the same pedestal that we do, much like boxing to our fathers. I may be wrong but not many things last forever.
Good stuff Layin & GW and Ed.. Appreciate the feedback and input!!
Today's society is so much different than back the eras before the issues with concussions was brought forth with all the media coverage and trajedies that've happened to some high profile NFL players.
Media coverage blows everything out of proportion as it is anywho!! :142smilie
Today's society is so much different than back the eras before the issues with concussions was brought forth with all the media coverage and trajedies that've happened to some high profile NFL players.
Media coverage blows everything out of proportion as it is anywho!! :142smilie
I agree that football is and always has been, always will be a violent game. But I hate when I hear people say...."you know the risks"
I can't imagine what playing...and even practicing in the NFL is like. The speed and strength of the game has to be unreal. I played in high school and I played Club Football in college.....I can't even imagine what college football must be like. But esp the NFL....and you know there's steroid use all over.
Yes, there will always be risks, definitely gonna be concussions. I've had a couple...one was in flag football lol....dude took my legs out and my head landed on a rock--at least that's what they told me lol.
At some point though, with the "you know the risks" mentality.....its as if fans and/or former players will watch a guy catch a pass, be set on fire, hit multiple times with a baseball bat, and stabbed....and still go "he's getting paid millions, he knew what he was getting into"....meanwhile a flag is thrown and some fan that never touched a football yells out....good god, what is this, flag football?? And stuffs another nacho in his fat face.
Yeah, football is brutal and that's why we love it. But its a brutal game. Not an actual war.
I can't imagine what playing...and even practicing in the NFL is like. The speed and strength of the game has to be unreal. I played in high school and I played Club Football in college.....I can't even imagine what college football must be like. But esp the NFL....and you know there's steroid use all over.
Yes, there will always be risks, definitely gonna be concussions. I've had a couple...one was in flag football lol....dude took my legs out and my head landed on a rock--at least that's what they told me lol.
At some point though, with the "you know the risks" mentality.....its as if fans and/or former players will watch a guy catch a pass, be set on fire, hit multiple times with a baseball bat, and stabbed....and still go "he's getting paid millions, he knew what he was getting into"....meanwhile a flag is thrown and some fan that never touched a football yells out....good god, what is this, flag football?? And stuffs another nacho in his fat face.
Yeah, football is brutal and that's why we love it. But its a brutal game. Not an actual war.
One of the other things we have to consider is the sample size of former players has gotten bigger. There are more teams now so you have more players. Football is a relatively new game in the grand scheme of things so maybe it's just hitting that phase where enough men have come and gone that we'll start seeing more stories of the repercussions of playing.
