> Leonetti recently spoke to retired players alongside EarQ at a meeting of the Chicago chapter of the NFL Players Association. When Leonetti asked how many players had experienced concussions during their career, they all raised their hands. When Leonetti asked how many have experienced hearing loss approximately 25 percent raised their hands. When he asked how many have tinnitus approximately 50 percent raised their hands.
I would never let my child play contact football. The data is beyond clear that this sport causes irreparable life altering damage to the brain.
A lot of football players also suffer from mental health issues which, not to state the obvious, is likely not helped by banging your head all the time.
I am surprised by the otherwise intelligent and caring parents I have met who had their elementary schoolers playing tackle football. I don't understand that decision at all.
Same here. When did Boston University start publishing about the CTE/football connection? 10 or 15 years ago? A couple I know, one with a public health degree from an Ivy, still let one of her kids play through all of that, and he played at the college level, too.
At the same time, a lot of parents (myself included) steered kids to other sports. That had another effect: there was even more pressure on parents who didn't care about CTE (and their kids) to get into football because kiddie leagues and especially high school teams were short of players. This happened to a friend whose two boys were strong hockey players, the coach at their school pushed them to try out for football the following season.
Unless it’s actually banned below a certain age, what are you going to do if that’s what they want to do with their life?
If they don’t play and everyone else does, their development will be many years behind their peers which makes it unlikely they could play at a high level.
Yes, I think parents who see tackle football as an unsafe sport for their children are okay with not setting up their kids to play it at a high level.
And like any responsible parents, they presumably also don't just defer to what they're elementary aged children "want to do with their life" nor feed into the exaggeration that "everybody else" does anything at all, let alone play tackle football.
If you disagree with the dangers of the sport or are afraid of shaping your children's life choices for their own benefit, that's fine for you, but the rhetorical and snide way you presume others should share that view seems strange.
If they don't play a game which damages their brain when they are children, they won't be able to go into a career which damages their brain as an adult. Hmmm.
Tackle football is basically the only sport my kids are not allowed to play. I don’t talk about it because I don’t want it to become something forbidden and therefore cool, but if they naturally find their way there and start getting pushy about it, it’s one of the few things I’m prepared to put my foot down about with no compromise.
As someone who has had multiple concussions in other sports, the impacts in youth football are absolutely sufficient to cause concussions and more minor (but still cumulatively damaging) trauma. The fact that they're a repeated part of the game and not occasional incidents is very, very bad.
Requiring a child to play football should be actual child abuse, and even allowing it should be frowned upon the way that letting a child play with a blowtorch is.
Certainly, football isn't the only thing people do that leads to head injuries.
But if it is significantly worse than other sports, why not single it out as the worst thing ever?
Several sports increase the risk of CTE, but football has been more studied, I think because the incidence of obviously impared former players is higher than in other sports.
Due to the number of concussions per minute played. It could be worse (boxing), but it's not difficult to see how some sports are far riskier than others
Sure but the quality of gear you get in the NFL is much higher than what your typical kid gets. I regret the two years of football I played in high school.
It's well established that the effects of repeated head trauma are cumulative, with progressively longer healing periods, worse symptoms, etc. And that sub-concussive impacts also accumulate along with the concussive impacts.
From the article:
The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn’t occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level ... and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daneshvar.
Alosco et al. (2017) – Age of First Exposure to Tackle Football and Later-Life Cognitive Impairment and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (Translational Psychiatry)
[https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2017.197]
I haven't watched an NFL game in years. I can no longer enjoy seeing people trade their brain function and lifespan for money that way. For that matter I recently revisited an extreme skiing video I bought long ago. Several of the people in the credits are dead now.
All sports carry some risk. I ride a road bike. I wouldn't tell others how to weigh the risks of their sports of choice. I just wouldn't pay to watch someone fly a wing suit, knowing how some of those people have died.
> For that matter I recently revisited an extreme skiing video I bought long ago. Several of the people in the credits are dead now.
As someone who has been doing backcountry snowboarding for a long time all I can say that adrenaline is a hell of a drug and in general it’s not that hard to guess which of your friends will die (have died) doing this stuff. Avalanches just don’t care about how cool your line is.
Though nowhere near as bad as my friend who also does parachuting (wingsuits mainly these days). Once people get into base jumps and/or proximity flying end never seems to be that far away.
I also stopped watching football several years ago, for various reasons including excessive violence. Occasionally I miss the sport's competition and rivalries and excitement but I went deeper on satisfying alternatives, For example, I watch and travel to see pro and college basketball and women's professional golf.
The number one change they could make to the game to make it safer is going back to leather helmets. Players would be far more cautious.
Or with technology we have today, not allow any helmet contact to any part of the body. You could outfit the helmets with a sensor and a light so the refs know it happened.
Yes, this would drastically change the game and how it is played. But it would probably still be entertaining enough to draw in the crowds they hope to draw in.
I remember in an eight grade game coming back to the huddle and the lineman who played next to me was talking about his sister's homework. He clearly had a concussion and we (the players) sent him to the sideline where the coaches berated him for coming out of the game and sent him back (this was in the 80s).
Already at the JV level I saw multiple concussions in games. Not kos but guys woozy liked they'd been punched. Nobody cared back then (US south).
It adds a sort of tragic element to the game. Growing up I used to cheer for big hits now there's a recognition you are often watching someone lose several years off of their life.
There's also these guardian caps to reduce some of the shock, but they're not very effective - they absorb like 10% of the blow, and you don't see very many players wearing them in-game.
The main issue seems to be shock to the brain being sloshed around inside the skull, even neck-snapping type impacts without any contact to the head itself can cause brain injury. The extra helmet padding doesn't do anything to reduce that. Plenty of linemen have been diagnosed with CTE even though their play doesn't involve as much helmet contact or high speed collision.
I love football, but it's insane that we allow this for entertainment. Guardian helmets are insufficient. They need to commit to big changes, some of which will alter the game. No head in practice whatsoever. Redesign the line of scrimmage. Mandatory month out for concussions. I'll still enjoy whatever it becomes.
I wonder if the US could learn to love rugby as well? A rather different game in a lot of ways, but it's definitely in the conversation for the most engaging team sport to watch in my opinion. While it has head injury issues of its own (it's still a full-contact football code at the end of the day), the sport has been a bit more open to changing things on this front.
Not the OP but I don't think you can. The issue is you're stopping a moving object with your body. That is always going to cause damage. I think the armor itself also promotes big hits. I truly think that's the reason Rugby is a safer game; the hits are more painful, and you're not hitting each other with a carbon fiber helmet.
I'd get some hate for this on football forums, but targeting needs to be enforced a lot more strictly than it is. The NFL also did a good job reforming kickoffs, they're much safer now than they were, but we need to do something about punts.
The lifetime risks and dangers involved in many of these sports is my main counterargument to those I encounter that oppose the NIL money flowing into collegiate sports for removing the amateurism feel of it.
The young men and women are putting their health and safety on the line potentially with life altering injuries, they should be compensated for it. Doubly so since beforehand the universities were more than happy to profit solely from their work.
This is such a brutal sport. For reasons outside my control (see: partner), NFL games are on in my house every weekend—and therefore in my peripheral vision. It seems like every game a 20 something in their prime is being carted off for a season ending injury. Unacceptable costs. Tennis is the way. Boxing without contact.
Played for four years ... my conclusion: regular, calm, ordinary people don't usually excel at american football. Aggressive, intense, competitive folk have a great time tho' ... it's not safe at all. Every last one of the starters self-identify as: a headbuster!
>The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn’t occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level ... and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daneshvar.
Yeah. The rules need to change substantially at all levels. I can't see another way out, without just banning the sport outright. In soccer, they've already done it at the kid's level. My kids' teams don't allow heading the ball at all. That's such an obvious win. It changes soccer pretty substantially, but it's still a lot of fun, and much safer with that rule in place. Football has enough money that I'm sure someone can solve this by adjusting the rules towards safety without completely changing what makes the game fun.
That said, it may not be solvable. It's not just helmet-to-helmet collisions that are the problem. You often see players make a diving grab, and their head slams into the ground when they land. That's micro-concussion territory that may be unavoidable. But, my guess is it's an 80/20 rule. If you somehow eliminate player-to-helmet hits altogether, you'd probably end up in a good enough place.
As a youth football from 5 years old in the 90s to high school in 00s in the Midwest, this is not surprising at all. Things are competitive from a young age. We more recently know much better, but this knowledge. The taught knowledge was protecting one’s neck from injury with “proper” form. From my lived experience at those times, there was 0 mention of head injuries, and blacking out and dizziness after hits were ignored by all if you were able to stand or walk within a short period of time.
This isn't an NFL problem, it's the very nature of the game. The lifelong damage is done by the time they reach that point. Average NFL tenure is less than 4 years, but anyone who reaches that level has been playing since they were 8.
The percent of the general population that gets Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy? This isn't a naturally occurring phenomena. It's the cumulative result of repetitive skull impacts and concussions.
I'm kinda surprised its that low. Football, especially at the pro and college levels, has players (especially linemen) taking car crash level hits every single play.
Don't forget the hearing loss and tinnitus, too. Boxers and footballers tend to go deaf.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140707134223.h...
> Leonetti recently spoke to retired players alongside EarQ at a meeting of the Chicago chapter of the NFL Players Association. When Leonetti asked how many players had experienced concussions during their career, they all raised their hands. When Leonetti asked how many have experienced hearing loss approximately 25 percent raised their hands. When he asked how many have tinnitus approximately 50 percent raised their hands.
I would never let my child play contact football. The data is beyond clear that this sport causes irreparable life altering damage to the brain.
A lot of football players also suffer from mental health issues which, not to state the obvious, is likely not helped by banging your head all the time.
I am surprised by the otherwise intelligent and caring parents I have met who had their elementary schoolers playing tackle football. I don't understand that decision at all.
Same here. When did Boston University start publishing about the CTE/football connection? 10 or 15 years ago? A couple I know, one with a public health degree from an Ivy, still let one of her kids play through all of that, and he played at the college level, too.
At the same time, a lot of parents (myself included) steered kids to other sports. That had another effect: there was even more pressure on parents who didn't care about CTE (and their kids) to get into football because kiddie leagues and especially high school teams were short of players. This happened to a friend whose two boys were strong hockey players, the coach at their school pushed them to try out for football the following season.
Unless it’s actually banned below a certain age, what are you going to do if that’s what they want to do with their life?
If they don’t play and everyone else does, their development will be many years behind their peers which makes it unlikely they could play at a high level.
But maybe you’re okay with that.
Yes, I think parents who see tackle football as an unsafe sport for their children are okay with not setting up their kids to play it at a high level.
And like any responsible parents, they presumably also don't just defer to what they're elementary aged children "want to do with their life" nor feed into the exaggeration that "everybody else" does anything at all, let alone play tackle football.
If you disagree with the dangers of the sport or are afraid of shaping your children's life choices for their own benefit, that's fine for you, but the rhetorical and snide way you presume others should share that view seems strange.
If they don't play a game which damages their brain when they are children, they won't be able to go into a career which damages their brain as an adult. Hmmm.
Gotta stick to the crowd at all costs, its so uncomfortable outside of it right
Tackle football is basically the only sport my kids are not allowed to play. I don’t talk about it because I don’t want it to become something forbidden and therefore cool, but if they naturally find their way there and start getting pushy about it, it’s one of the few things I’m prepared to put my foot down about with no compromise.
Football, boxing... seem the top two to cross off. I think skiing is perhaps the third to cross off.
playing at nfl level and kid level is something very different
As someone who has had multiple concussions in other sports, the impacts in youth football are absolutely sufficient to cause concussions and more minor (but still cumulatively damaging) trauma. The fact that they're a repeated part of the game and not occasional incidents is very, very bad.
Requiring a child to play football should be actual child abuse, and even allowing it should be frowned upon the way that letting a child play with a blowtorch is.
there you said it: you got concusions from other sports. so why single out football as the worst thing ever?
Certainly, football isn't the only thing people do that leads to head injuries.
But if it is significantly worse than other sports, why not single it out as the worst thing ever?
Several sports increase the risk of CTE, but football has been more studied, I think because the incidence of obviously impared former players is higher than in other sports.
> The fact that they're a repeated part of the game and not occasional incidents is very, very bad.
Due to the number of concussions per minute played. It could be worse (boxing), but it's not difficult to see how some sports are far riskier than others
CTE isn’t caused by concussions. Hence the rest of their comment.
Is it not worse?
> playing at nfl level and kid level is something very different
Correct. NFL payers are better paid, get better medical care, have better training and equipment, and their brains are more developed.
Sure but the quality of gear you get in the NFL is much higher than what your typical kid gets. I regret the two years of football I played in high school.
did you enjoy it at the time?
I'm sure people enjoy heroin at the time.
The best part about heroin is your brain can recover from it. CTE not so much.
Yes! A child with a developing brain, and no medical staff on the sidelines is potentially in a worse situation.
Yes, and?
It's well established that the effects of repeated head trauma are cumulative, with progressively longer healing periods, worse symptoms, etc. And that sub-concussive impacts also accumulate along with the concussive impacts.
From the article: The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn’t occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level ... and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daneshvar.
As mentioned elsewhere here the damage is cumulative and started in their youth
did you even read? the bulk happened at collegiate level
also there are studies on this
McKee et al. (2023) – Neuropathologic and Clinical Findings in Young Contact Sport Athletes Exposed to Repetitive Head Impacts (JAMA Neurology) [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2...]
Alosco et al. (2017) – Age of First Exposure to Tackle Football and Later-Life Cognitive Impairment and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (Translational Psychiatry) [https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2017.197]
even intl football headers have concerns
From an injury perspective: What are they? Let's assume we're talking MS/HS football where the mass of the players is enough to really do some damage.
Provide your data Mr. Thrwaway, if that even is your real name.
I haven't watched an NFL game in years. I can no longer enjoy seeing people trade their brain function and lifespan for money that way. For that matter I recently revisited an extreme skiing video I bought long ago. Several of the people in the credits are dead now.
All sports carry some risk. I ride a road bike. I wouldn't tell others how to weigh the risks of their sports of choice. I just wouldn't pay to watch someone fly a wing suit, knowing how some of those people have died.
> For that matter I recently revisited an extreme skiing video I bought long ago. Several of the people in the credits are dead now.
As someone who has been doing backcountry snowboarding for a long time all I can say that adrenaline is a hell of a drug and in general it’s not that hard to guess which of your friends will die (have died) doing this stuff. Avalanches just don’t care about how cool your line is.
Though nowhere near as bad as my friend who also does parachuting (wingsuits mainly these days). Once people get into base jumps and/or proximity flying end never seems to be that far away.
I also stopped watching football several years ago, for various reasons including excessive violence. Occasionally I miss the sport's competition and rivalries and excitement but I went deeper on satisfying alternatives, For example, I watch and travel to see pro and college basketball and women's professional golf.
The number one change they could make to the game to make it safer is going back to leather helmets. Players would be far more cautious.
Or with technology we have today, not allow any helmet contact to any part of the body. You could outfit the helmets with a sensor and a light so the refs know it happened.
Yes, this would drastically change the game and how it is played. But it would probably still be entertaining enough to draw in the crowds they hope to draw in.
I remember in an eight grade game coming back to the huddle and the lineman who played next to me was talking about his sister's homework. He clearly had a concussion and we (the players) sent him to the sideline where the coaches berated him for coming out of the game and sent him back (this was in the 80s).
Already at the JV level I saw multiple concussions in games. Not kos but guys woozy liked they'd been punched. Nobody cared back then (US south).
It adds a sort of tragic element to the game. Growing up I used to cheer for big hits now there's a recognition you are often watching someone lose several years off of their life.
There's also these guardian caps to reduce some of the shock, but they're not very effective - they absorb like 10% of the blow, and you don't see very many players wearing them in-game.
The main issue seems to be shock to the brain being sloshed around inside the skull, even neck-snapping type impacts without any contact to the head itself can cause brain injury. The extra helmet padding doesn't do anything to reduce that. Plenty of linemen have been diagnosed with CTE even though their play doesn't involve as much helmet contact or high speed collision.
I love football, but it's insane that we allow this for entertainment. Guardian helmets are insufficient. They need to commit to big changes, some of which will alter the game. No head in practice whatsoever. Redesign the line of scrimmage. Mandatory month out for concussions. I'll still enjoy whatever it becomes.
I wonder if the US could learn to love rugby as well? A rather different game in a lot of ways, but it's definitely in the conversation for the most engaging team sport to watch in my opinion. While it has head injury issues of its own (it's still a full-contact football code at the end of the day), the sport has been a bit more open to changing things on this front.
> Redesign the line of scrimmage.
What are your thoughts on how to redesign the line of scrimmage?
Not the OP but I don't think you can. The issue is you're stopping a moving object with your body. That is always going to cause damage. I think the armor itself also promotes big hits. I truly think that's the reason Rugby is a safer game; the hits are more painful, and you're not hitting each other with a carbon fiber helmet.
[delayed]
I'd get some hate for this on football forums, but targeting needs to be enforced a lot more strictly than it is. The NFL also did a good job reforming kickoffs, they're much safer now than they were, but we need to do something about punts.
The lifetime risks and dangers involved in many of these sports is my main counterargument to those I encounter that oppose the NIL money flowing into collegiate sports for removing the amateurism feel of it.
The young men and women are putting their health and safety on the line potentially with life altering injuries, they should be compensated for it. Doubly so since beforehand the universities were more than happy to profit solely from their work.
75% is an estimate. Of the 396 brains actually examined, 93% had CTE, though donors skew heavily toward players with symptoms.
This is such a brutal sport. For reasons outside my control (see: partner), NFL games are on in my house every weekend—and therefore in my peripheral vision. It seems like every game a 20 something in their prime is being carted off for a season ending injury. Unacceptable costs. Tennis is the way. Boxing without contact.
Played for four years ... my conclusion: regular, calm, ordinary people don't usually excel at american football. Aggressive, intense, competitive folk have a great time tho' ... it's not safe at all. Every last one of the starters self-identify as: a headbuster!
Why can't CTE be diagnosed until after death? Do the lesions not show up in scans?
Holy buried lede, Batman:
>The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn’t occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level ... and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daneshvar.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/nfl-cte-players-s...
Yeah. The rules need to change substantially at all levels. I can't see another way out, without just banning the sport outright. In soccer, they've already done it at the kid's level. My kids' teams don't allow heading the ball at all. That's such an obvious win. It changes soccer pretty substantially, but it's still a lot of fun, and much safer with that rule in place. Football has enough money that I'm sure someone can solve this by adjusting the rules towards safety without completely changing what makes the game fun.
That said, it may not be solvable. It's not just helmet-to-helmet collisions that are the problem. You often see players make a diving grab, and their head slams into the ground when they land. That's micro-concussion territory that may be unavoidable. But, my guess is it's an 80/20 rule. If you somehow eliminate player-to-helmet hits altogether, you'd probably end up in a good enough place.
As a youth football from 5 years old in the 90s to high school in 00s in the Midwest, this is not surprising at all. Things are competitive from a young age. We more recently know much better, but this knowledge. The taught knowledge was protecting one’s neck from injury with “proper” form. From my lived experience at those times, there was 0 mention of head injuries, and blacking out and dizziness after hits were ignored by all if you were able to stand or walk within a short period of time.
This is actually worse for the NFL, as it shows the cumulative impact is more dangerous than players who stop playing at high school
Great news for the NFL.
This isn't an NFL problem, it's the very nature of the game. The lifelong damage is done by the time they reach that point. Average NFL tenure is less than 4 years, but anyone who reaches that level has been playing since they were 8.
The game should be changed. It’s very clear.
People will adapt.
What is the percent of the general population?
Google gives 3-6% in non-athletes
The percent of the general population that gets Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy? This isn't a naturally occurring phenomena. It's the cumulative result of repetitive skull impacts and concussions.
Basically zero. It only happens if you keep getting hit in the head.
Glad this is being talked about.
I'm kinda surprised its that low. Football, especially at the pro and college levels, has players (especially linemen) taking car crash level hits every single play.