Frontline: League of Denial

Hungry5 I completely agree about tackling.  I didn't watch the show yet (and I plan on it) but I would bet good money that if tackling was actually taught and not always leading with the head trying to lay out that WOW hit maybe we could see a reduction in concussions.  Now I don't believe that you could ever get it out of football there are just too many collisions to completely stop it. 

I never agree with anything Ditka says but he was asked about concussions I think it was on Mike and Mike and he said that you can never get rid of it.  But, he went on to say "take the helmets off of the players and teach them how to tackle" 

Of course i don't think that would ever happen but he does have a point.

Mr Winston was given those crab legs....

Mom's. That's who will change the league.

When Mom's tell their talented boys they have to pick another sport. And that's what's happening already. There will always be families that love football and play football, but their numbers are trending down and its falling predictably along socio-economic lines.

NFL needs fresh bodies every year and every year the number of young fresh bodies is going down. If you don't believe me, go talk to your local high school coach or Pop Warner coach and ask them if they are getting more or fewer kids coming into tackle football. That's the pipeline of the NFL's future and that pipeline is trending downwards.

Play 60 is a multi-million dollar advertising program disguised as a community service to get the NFL involved with kids at an early age. And the reason they are spending all this time and money is to reverse the trend. They aren't doing it to be good citizens, they are doing it to foster their future.

" Football: new & improved and safer than ever ! "

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/st...s-seen-causal-factor

"The nation's largest youth football program, Pop Warner, saw participation drop 9.5 percent between 2010-12, a sign that the concussion crisis that began in the NFL is having a dramatic impact at the lowest rungs of the sport."

Mark Chmura was talking about helmets last week (Miller Light Football Show).

He says that he has his old Packer helmet at home and that you would laugh if you saw how little protection that it provided compared to the new helmets.

I'm not saying that there isn't more the NFL could do with equipment design, and specifically helmet design, but they have improved over time.

I think tackling is being taught.  I did an internship with the Jaguars in their first ever training camp, and I know a lot of you attend training camp practices.  I can say that they practice form tackling and emphasize how it is supposed to be done safely and correctly.  Same at high school when I coached.  But the media frenzy over big hits in the pros, college and now even high school (they have games regularly on ESPN) is gonna sway players to do it in a dangerous fashion so they can lay someone out.  That's the problem I think more than coaching.  As Mark Attanasio said, Ron Roenicke didn't give up 2 grand slams.

I though of this:

TO catch

4th and 26

Fail Mary

2 pt Fail

Onside fail

Favre INTs 

Please stop.  Just stop.  

It is a choice to get paid millions to play a game. Worried about head injuries? Don't play. It is pretty simple. Even a Borland can do it.

Nothing simple about it.  Remember, there are children playing the game.

Attention to safety is not a bad thing.  

Grown Men who went to college. It is sad what these colleges produce.

For those who may be interested...

http://www.sportsonearth.com/a...th-football-injuries

thx much

Always loved Goodells roundtable to extol the virtues of his Heads Up football program with Chris Golic and Michael Irvin greasing Rodger up and it was a big made for TV NFL PR love fest until John Madden pissed a little common sense all over the entire damn set. 

Michael Irvin....

The ONLY discussion about brain injury he is qualified to participate in what affect crack and cocaine have on it.

Goodell is such a shill, he clearly studied at the George Costanza School of Obstinate Obfuscation

" Its not a lie, if you believe it"

Sounds like Aaron Hernandez too

That's good.

BTW, put 10 pounds on Melissa Starks and I'm C'MON MAN! to pictures of her all day.

Erik Kramer survives suicide attempt.  Ex-wife thinks his NFL time is to blame.  Not sure how many concussions he had when playing but he suffered from depression after retiring from the NFL.  

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/e...rent-suicide-attempt

thats tough to read. Kramer is a good guy, played college ball

here in Raleigh.

though I tried not to laugh when I read 

"...he has suffered depression since he was with the Bears"

from the NBC link

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us...empt-sources-n412831

I worked with a guy once who had attempted to end his life with a gun.  Not pretty.  Major facial reconstruction.  

Another coffin nail. Recommend reading the article.

Bennet Omalu fought the good fight, but the NFL is still dodging CTE. Me @VICESports on Will Smith's "Concussion" - https://t.co/Sme6aKLedy

— Patrick Hruby (@patrick_hruby) September 1, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...mails-show.html?_r=0

Benicia CA. Small town that has historically turned out some decent D1 football full rides. They had 17 kids sign up for Freshman football this year. Season cancelled. 19 kids signed up for Freshman baseball. 

I went to opening night for football last weekend. Nephew is starting QB. Corner came on a blitz and caught him helmet crown to ear hole. Helmet came off. Nasty concussion. He doesn't remember the play at all. Ref standing 5 feet away didn't throw a flag. Just spotted the ball. 

Football needs to stop wasting everyone's time with self serving PR BS like Play 60 and focus on solving real problems. 

It's a pretty compelling trailer...

I am absolutely going to see that movie

This isn't going away. Moms won't let it. The league will change and change seriously. Haven't seen the documentary, but the book is sobering. And I don't normally like sober.

My son wants to play HS football. And I'm ok with that. But when I watch the nephew looking at his 10 o'clock and takes a helmet to his 2'oclock and the ref does nothing it makes you think it's not the game. It's incompetent people in a confused system that are failing to teach and protect kids. 

It's failure to coach. Fail to teach your team to account for a DB and give him a free run the QB is going to get hit. Fail to teach your DB how to tackle. That DB could have taken the ball out my nephews hand like a handoff. He wanted a kill shot instead. 

Its failure to ref.  I'm sitting in the stands next to my nephews Mom who's screaming her head off as her son was out cold and motionless while the ref spotted the ball and signaled 4th down. Who knows if this ref has any idea what he's doing or what he knows about CTE  Or football. Or concussions. I do know where that DB is going the next time he comes free off the edge though. Right upstairs for another kill shot until someone tells him to knock that **** off. 

I know the NCAA does a lot of things wrong. But the majority of those things are institutional corporate incompetence. They are way ahead of the curve when it comes to things like replay and helmet to helmet. Have to recognize them for that. 

My son will play football. I'll tell him to respect an opponent. Hit hard but never hit anyone in the head with intent. And hope like hell he gets the same respect. 

We had a similar experience in Pop Warner - most of the teams and coaches had gone through the Heads- Up training, but some hadn't or they ignored it. And it creates an unfair contest on the field. One team is taking kill shots and going for the head, while the other is playing under the new guidelines. Nastiness ensued.

I'm not going to say that all of  kill-shot coaches were lower on the IQ scale...but the ones we came across were oozing testosterone where there brains should have been

One opposing coach screamed out:

" We're suppose to be teaching them to be MEN ! Stop being a bunch of pooosys !"

Good luck with your son's HS career and see if you can make sure that all teams and refs have had the proper training. We found that the education of the coaches and refs split along socio-economic lines with the Neanderthals primarily from certain parts of town. Just an observation.

I had a grandfather who played semi-pro football and had an NFL training camp tryout. Watching Packer games with my father and grandfathers are some of the best memories I have (and that's when the Packers were terrible). I am also a biomedical researcher that sits on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health. I still watch Badger and Packer football, but have an increasingly hard time reconciling the fact I love(d) watching football with what I know is happening to the player's central nervous system. It's one thing to lose the ability to walk well or have artificial joints as a price for playing the game, it's another to lose your identity and personality.

I'm guessing football is going the way of boxing, in that it may become a "fringe" sport. It may take 20 years, but the fanbase is going to shrink. In my case, my 16 year old 6'3" 180 pound son does not play football. We talked about it as a family, and we just can't justify it. Football doesn't cause dementia in everyone that plays it, but cigarettes don't cause lung cancer for everyone that smokes (and I'd urge anyone who smokes to quit immediately).

And yet, having said all that, I'll still watch games for the rest of my life. It's just that now it causes some very conflicted feelings for me.

My 14 year old nephew was just air lifted to the hospital yesterday.  Running down the field, gets tackled from the front while getting speared from behind causing his head and neck to whiplash.  Apparently went down like a sack of potatoes, didn't know if he was literally dead on the spot.  

In the hospital overnight and amazingly no paralysis but concerns about his neck and concussion.  

I love football but the changes are coming.

The only reason Boxing is a fringe sport is because it has been replaced by an even more visually vicious one: MMA.  The NFL is going nowhere but up in terms of popularity.

Kids are a different story. Minors are incapable of giving a valid waiver or giving knowing consent.

The issue is, can a guy like this one assume the risk?  Most Americans would say yes. And that is exactly what's going on.

If kids stop playing football then that popularity has an expiration date. My JV coach in HS got so pissed at me for not laying guys out when I played LB. My job was to tackle guys clean, disrupt plays, and give the ball to our offense as quickly as possible. Period. He wanted me to hurt people. **** him and his desire for our defense to satisfy his closeted rage. 

Thats the thing about risk. Risk in football is born out of a lack of respect for the opponent. And Coaching. In some cases it's taught and expected. It's bull****. A funny thing happens when you hit a guy clean in his core and wrap up. He goes down and you both get up and tap each other on the helmet and look forward to the next get together. I'm not going to hurt you. But I am going to stop you. 

Henry-- I hope your nephew has a full and speedy recovery.

Me too, Henry -- and Chilli, your nephew as well.

Scary sights, Henry and Chilli. Hope both recover quickly and with no lasting effects. 

Michigan, I'm with you. Love to watch football, but knowing what may be happening inside the athletes can make it a love/hate affair. 

Good wishes to both.

All the best for those kids. 

tick tick tick

http://www.startribune.com/foo...you-think/326147271/