111 NFL Players Examined, 110 Were Found to Have C.T.E.

There is no correlation though, right?

 

Who'd have thunk it?

 

I will never comprehend how this is the most popular league in the country. I grew up loving the hell out of football, but that league's practices over the past decade quickly made me nope the fuck out of there.

 

So glad I quit after 10th grade and joined the cross country team instead, haha

 

On a positive note, I was reading about the new Vicis helmets and they seem wonderful for lowering the risk of concussions, being built to extremely specific builds that allows the impact to be reduced and properly mitigated based on the actual head of the wearer, versus generic helmets which are used mainly to prevent skull fracturing and are ineffective towards concussions (and in many cases, emphasize them). Time will tell if they're as effective as they appear to be.

On a negative note, it's still ridiculous that the league itself has not made positive steps towards preventing concussions and doing a better job of protecting its players. High schools and colleges too, of course.

 

But they're getting "new and improved" helmets!

 

I don't think concussions are preventable in football. It's not the BIG head shot hits that cause problems, its the repeated rattling of the brain from the average hit. If you're on the line then your position literally requires you to just repeatedly run into the man in front of you. I think high school football is slowly going to disappear over the next few decades.

 

All I said was it's cool that someone's doing something to help reduce these insane health risks, and that it's fucking ridiculous that the people who are doing something better are not the actual NFL itself because they need to step up

 

This is true, it'll never be entirely preventable

Editing to add to this: It's also very true that the repetition is what causes concussions/CTE more than anything. It's why guys like running backs, who break through multiple players often, are more prone to concussions than let's say a deep threat wide receiver, who might take a couple giant hits. It's where my biggest concern with the aforementioned Vicis helmets are: they appear to evenly distribute the impact, but will that actually cause the brain to stay in place? It's hard to tell and I don't think it will. I'm glad people are taking a step up to research and find better ways to protect players of a sport that I enjoy watching, but more absolutely needs to be done. It's a step in the right direction, it's not a solution.

 

I actually didn't read your comment.....mine was a total coincidence

 

Hahahahaha, my bad then. It definitely sounded like you were taking a shot at me

 

No harm man, Im not the Chorus dick. GO SPORTS

 

The research going into new turf and better helmets might reduce the problem but will not eliminate it. The only thing that will save the NFL is finding a treatment and a cure, if one exists.

 

As with global warming, this is not proof of anything. This is just China's way to make money!

 

Fake news! Crooked Hillary! Sad!

 

I missed a 'sad' at the end! Good call

 

Wow.

 

I play Australian rules football and we do not wear helmets. Concussions still happen and are taken seriously -- players are immediately tested after head knocks and forced to sit out if they exhibit signs of concussion (for what could be weeks depending on whether they can pass the test later on).
But the problem is nowhere near as bad as it is in the NFL and it's widely believed that is actually because we don't wear helmets. I know I'm not trying to run at anyone head first to tackle because I'll get hurt. The focus is on hitting with the shoulder, getting your arms wrapped around and immobilising the opposition player.

Unfortunately the NFL could never change to such a style of play because head-down charging is so ingrained. Hopefully there can be improvements to head and neck support. And also there is so much knowledge now about concussion that if people still want to play they know the risks. Just thought people might be interested is all.

 

I always heard this and wondered about this but didn't have the facts to back it up. Thanks for bringing your insight, I've always wondered how often concussions occur in AUS football/rugby vs the NFL

 

I clashed heads with another player on Saturday and the medical staff had to check I was okay even though I had no headache, blood anything. Was a minor (and very accidental) clash, we were both fine. But even then I had to be checked out. And we're talking about a regional semi-professional league (I'm not paid but every team pays roughly half their players -- about 10/20). So the standards are applied from the top league down.
Essentially there are still massive hits but 99% of the time any head contact is accidental. A hit or tackle above the shoulder is illegal anyway, so you don't want to give away a penalty.
The only time I've been knocked out was from being tackled around the midsection and my head hit the ground as I went down.

 

PS Australian football might seem kind of insignificant but it's not. It's the fourth most popular sport on earth by average match attendance -- games at the top level (AFL) regularly attract 80,000 to 100,000 spectators.

 

Someone has to at least point out that this is just a truly flawed headline that makes me cringe from an analytics perspective. First of all, the overall findings were that 90% of examined brains contained CTE, and that nearly half of the examined brains were not of NFL players. The conclusion here is that a signifcant percentage of brains that only played high school level football had CTE, so of course, as you move along playing more football, a higher percentage will contain CTE. That's not the NFL's fault.

Second, there is no baseline as to what the average population would have. There is no control to the experiment.

Third, these are only brains of players that wanted to be studied. Yes, people with severe symptoms of CTE are more likely to have...CTE...it needs to be a more randomized sample.

I'm not saying football doesn't dramatically increase the chances you'll get CTE; I'm sure that it does. And the NFL has absolutely ignored the problem for decades while not taking care of former players who clearly needed the NFL's help.

At lot of folks won't criticize the military as a profession where "your chances of mortality increase fifty times". But football and CTE? Some people just want to do what they want to do- they understand the risks, and they know the reward.

 

Headline isn't wrong tho.

 

I knew this was a massive issue, but that is insane that almost 100% of them in the study had CTE