OT - Football Brain Impact Vizualization and Article (New Technology) - NYTimes
The NYTimes just published a fascinating article measuring the effects of football impacts to the head over the course of the game. The visualization relating to a helmet-to-helmet hit is especially striking.
Definitely worth a look for those who worry about player safety and the future of the game.
In this chart, we show the G-force data from just 10 of the 62 hits this offensive lineman accrued in a single game. The average G-force, 25.8, is roughly equivalent to what we would see if the offensive lineman crashed his car into a wall going about 30 m.p.h.
The bioengineering here involves a mouthguard developed at Stanford which measures impacts in a unique fashion. This is apparently a superior (although still somewhat imprecise) measure of impact compared with helmet sensors.
Anyway, a good read for those interested in the topic.
January 9th, 2017 at 4:50 PM ^
It would be a dream of mine to have my son play football at U of M and score a touchdown in the big house. (He's 1 right now)
However, due to all the new information on concussions, long term impact - I can't in good conscious, let him play the game.
January 9th, 2017 at 4:59 PM ^
That's understandable. At first I took comfort in the culture shift leading away from some of the concussion-inducing hits. (Witness targeting rules, etc.) Continued improvement is possible there without gutting the soul of the game, IMO.
It's the CTE stuff that strikes me as a harder nut to crack. To the extent that repetitive lower-grade (but cumulatively serious) impacts result in long-term damage, there does not seem to be an obvious solution at present. One hopes that by taking a sober look at that issue we can develop rule changes and/or equipment to minimize the damage.
January 9th, 2017 at 5:47 PM ^
January 9th, 2017 at 5:52 PM ^
Is it hard for you, in any corner of your conscience, to rationalize cheering for other people's children? I don't ask this to be a dick. I don't have kids, but if I did, I wouldn't let them play either. If I do have kids, I will have to confront this in my conscience. How goes it for you?
January 9th, 2017 at 5:59 PM ^
Why does it matter if you have kids or not? The issue you raise is whether it's OK to cheer for a sport you wouldn't put your own child in. That's a very fair question.
I think you can confront that issue before you have kids. It may not be as easy to conceptualize it (i.e., actually having kids makes it more "real") - but why do you have to wait until you have kids to make this call?
January 9th, 2017 at 6:36 PM ^
You are right, I did raise a bit of a false dichotomy, but I do believe there is added incentive to confront the issue when you are making decisions regarding your child's well being.
That said, I have confronted this by virtually giving up on the NFL as a source of entertainment, and only hanging on to college football with nostalgia. I wince every time I see a huge hit coming, and I genuinely feel like football is going to take a very slow, painful-to-watch downward spiral.
January 9th, 2017 at 9:47 PM ^
January 10th, 2017 at 10:42 AM ^
I disagree - The NFL with all it's billions (or some private company more likely) will innovate and find a way to make better, safer equipment that will help these kinds of issues.
And even if not, there will always be plenty of athletes who will sacrafice their possible future health for a chance to make millions and set their families up for life. It is sad, but true
January 9th, 2017 at 6:05 PM ^
but.... I feel this pretty hard core.
I am living with a morally bankrupt contradiction of loving football and hating a system/sport that destroys humans. I don't know what to do with that.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^
January 9th, 2017 at 5:18 PM ^
January 9th, 2017 at 5:42 PM ^
I found this very fascinating. CTE is indeed going to be the problem. The helmet to helmet stuff will diminish to some stable level of a very small number of incidents. I can't imagine football without a battle in the trenches though, and that is the troublesome part.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:02 PM ^
I wonder if ultimately the linemen end up engaging prior to the snap, somewhat like a rugby scrum. Less distance between the linemen might mitigate the impact somewhat, while still preserving the struggle on the line that is essential to the game.
No easy answer, that's for sure.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:39 PM ^
It would make for hardly any running up the middle and a more side to side game. I don't think you can have the same type of game without a 2 yard smash between 1500 pounds of human on either side.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:39 PM ^
January 9th, 2017 at 7:03 PM ^
Before the CTE and concussion stuff, I honestly loved watching a QB or a WR "get their bell rung" more than any other part of the game. You'd see Stump Mitchell return a kick, hardly ever fair catch, and pay a spectacular price.
Now I see a hard hit to the head and I shudder. I think you could say that some of the soul of the game left with the "protect the QB", "targeting", and similar rules. They said the same thing about getting fighting out of hockey.
The trick will be to have the game evolve (whether through equipment, rule changes, or better diagnosis*) rather than deteriorate. Because if football becomes glorified ultimate frisbee, not too many folks will care to watch.
*You correctly pointed out another problem here in a reply to MGoNola - i.e., some folks play hard, take vicious hits, and they're just fine for the rest of their lives. It suggests that some folks are more susceptible to CTE than others. It would be great if that could be tested for, the same way we test for heart problems, etc.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:06 PM ^
January 9th, 2017 at 6:08 PM ^
January 10th, 2017 at 10:13 AM ^
It's a real issue (and, I think, once all the data comes in) mainly at the college and pro level. The NFL pooh-poohing it for so long made this go from bad to awful. From 'We have a serious problem we can confront together' to 'I work for the sports equivalent of R.J. Reynolds'.
January 9th, 2017 at 6:16 PM ^
my 4 oldest sons play at various levels and i am comfortable with that - i have and do coach them. i also played until i was 41 and feel no ill effects. played TE so that had plenty of contact.
the topic is worthy of study, training, and general concern. i don't think it is worthy of panic or abandoning the sport.
January 10th, 2017 at 10:11 AM ^
Its troubling, but this isn't the first time football has seen this. TR saved the sport before. It can be saved again (will it? I don't know, but I do see some people over reacting to 3rd graders falling into one another...)
January 9th, 2017 at 6:23 PM ^
January 9th, 2017 at 6:37 PM ^
More padding might help lessen the force of a blow, but there still is the issue of your brain moving around in your skull during a sudden movement.
January 9th, 2017 at 11:56 PM ^
January 10th, 2017 at 5:46 AM ^
does that count?
January 9th, 2017 at 6:37 PM ^
I told my son that if he wants to play in high school we'll talk. He loves baseball. I will not so gently nudge him in that direction.
January 10th, 2017 at 10:10 AM ^
He's 8. I really don't have a problem with it at this age, up to HS. Beyond that it's extremely hard to advance.
January 9th, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^
Over the long haul, football is toast. Participation at the youth level is dropping radically. In 20 years, only elite high schools who can cobble the money together for the insurance will be playing. Guys who still want to play in the face of the growing science will go to high school at those places solely because they offer football. There will still be college football and pro football. But I have my doubts it will be around in 50 years.
We're all rabid about it or will make excuses for it (I have no ill effects and I played, etc....). But the generation growing up now, they do not know that loyalty to the sport. And it doesn't carry with it near the social status in schools below college it once did. The big athletes are one sporting a certain sport or playing soccer in the fall at increasing rates.
This generation is or will soon be asking the question "Why would I want to do that?" rather than the question we ask (because we love the game), "Why wouldn't you? It's football. "
It's a special game to people who have always loved it. Objectively it's just another game to people who didn't grow up feeling about it like we did. Just another sport to them. One that messes up your brain and leads to dementia, ALS and so on.
January 9th, 2017 at 8:50 PM ^
Pretty sure all of my sentiments about the future of football, and the struggle to compartmentalize my love for the game while also knowing I probably wouldn't let my own child play the sport unless science comes through with a "fix" for CTE-type issues...
Also, I think I appreciate football more right now than ever, because I am in agreement with a lot of people on here, this may well be the last generation of the game we love, but at the same time are starting to accept that it won't be around in a few decades if something drastic does not happen that does not involve drastically changing the game itself.
January 9th, 2017 at 8:55 PM ^
Addendum: for those who wonder how we could still watch the game while saying we wouldn't want our own children playing ...I remember as a child, I was watching VHS tapes that were made for the simple purporse of glorifying "The biggest hits in NFL history." Esentially, 90 minutes of bodies smashing into each other in the worst possible ways was a hot seller.
These days, I don't want to see the kinds of hits that were in those videos. Now that I have learned the long-term effects, big blind-sided impacts are far more troubling than entertaining.
January 9th, 2017 at 8:57 PM ^
'Bama just got away with a helmet to helmet hit, no call.