It Is America 's Game Essay

Among the terms of the agreement is that the settlement is not to be regarded as an admission of guilt by the league." The NFL knows of the dangers the players are in. The rules change but the equipment increased. Without more or better equipment the players are still in danger. In a PBS Frontline documentary about injuries in football Dr. Robert Stern said," In football, one has to expect that, almost every play of every game and every practice, they're going to be hitting their heads against each other. That's the nature of the game. Those things seem to happen around 1,000 to 1,500 times a year. Each time that happens, it's around 20 g or more. That's the equivalent of driving a car at 35 miles per hour into a brick wall." The players in the NFL know the risk of playing but it is up to the NFL to make the sport safe for the players. Many people may argue that since the players know the risk and they are paid for their athletic performance is ok. However you cannot put a price on a person health. There is no way of rationalizing the behavior of the NFL. Yes, the athletes are paid to perform, but it is up to the NFL to make the sport safer. The NBA has increase rules and is aggressively making the sport less physical. In a Radio interview with XTRA 910 a Phoenix, AZ, Former NBA player, Robert Horry said, "… If you

Multiple deaths from a degenerative brain disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is what the true culprit of the NFL is. This disease is caused from repetitive blunt force trauma to the head, leading those who are effected to struggle later in life and even turn to suicide. People are writing about these safety concerns in football nowadays because of the multitude of deaths related to this disease and the way the NFL choses to deal with it. The NFL disregarding its players is a subject at hand currently because people continue to suffer from CTE without even confirming they have it before they have already deteriorated. “Football Has Become Too Real to Watch” by television writer, Eric Buchman, describes these realities of the NFL and how it went from being a safe haven to a place where the NFL pretends to be oblivious to the realities of the game. Buchman’s argument is that the joy of football is gone due to the reality of current issues within the NFL. The NFL getting away with awful things is what Buchman wants the reader to take away from this article. His contribution to this debate is that he offers a perspective of the fans for why this issue is important without any biases towards the NFL.

Here is why. In 2015, the NFL diagnosed 271 players that had concussions. There has continued to be an increase in the number of concussed players over the past several years. With the continual increase in concussions over the years,it is a reasonable question to ask whether the NFL is doing enough to protect their players or not. I am going to start this issue by discussing a movie I am sure you have heard of. Concussion. A Forensic pathologist named Dr. Bennet Omalu was the first doctor to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the brain of former Pittsburgh Steelers' center Mike Webster, who was 50, when he committed suicide. Dr. Omalu made the bold statement that football is the reason that Webster had mental issues, and ultimately the reason for his death. There continued to be a trend of NFL players passing at a young age due to mental health issues, and Omalu was certain that all of it was because of football. He examined the brains of these players and found correlations in their brains that suggests that the repeated blows to the head they received during their career caused severe damage. As you can imagine this discovery was a huge threat to the NFL as people and players saw this evidence and couldn't help but be scared about the outcome football has on an individual. The NFL basically just tried to cover up clear facts stated by Omalu, but eventually it became to evident to ignore. This movie made a large issue in the NFL apparent to many people and creating a film to do so was a very effective platform for displaying it. To make a long story short, since this discovery in 2002, there has been a drastic change in player safety rules, concussion protocol and guidelines, and strictness of teams to follow such protocol and guidelines. In

Player safety has been an issue for the National Football League since the start of the league, but has taken on a greater importance in recent years. Now, when a player is injured after a play, he must sit out for at least one play to allow the team’s trainer to assess his injury and make sure he is fit to return to play. Many say the NFL is very invested in player safety, and the protocols recently introduced have drastically changed the way athletes are assessed and eventually released to return to the field. These changes were necessary in order to protect players from serious injury and long-term health issues. There are many possible reasons the NFL has increased its emphasis on player safety, including, many people are disturbed by the violence of the game, fewer kids are playing football at the youth and high school levels, league sponsors are worried about bad publicity, and there are lawsuits against the NFL dealing with the long-term effects of brain damage. These reasons make many ponder, “Does the NFL really care about player safety, or are they just saving themselves from bad public relations, and the detrimental economic effects that may result from them?”

A great majority of kids and adults football careers are ending shortly because of brain damage and concussions. To this day scientist and people in sports are trying to find a way to decrease the number of brain damage and concussions. There been so many head injuries in the game of football. It got real serious over the past 20 years. In the NFL and College football league, players and coaches can know if someone have a concussion because of the technology they have at the game. It’s mandatory for every team in college, and in the NFL to have doctors and the technology they have at each game they have.

According to New York Times there is a new research that will help the team know what to do about players. This new research which is a simple blood test that can brain injuries conclusively (Futterman). I feel that the new way researcher coming up will benefit the athlete because now you can lie about how you feeling and the test will determine everything. Miller who is the senior vice president of the NFL, fully supports the the research, even though if it shows more clearly the precise danger that playing football poses on every play. He cares more about health than just playing, he stated that “The science has to go where science goes”.

In recent years countless newscasts have been filled with stories pertaining to the physical repercussions of football on its players. Don Banks, the author of “What Price Football?” informs his audience how just recently, the NFL has agreed to pay $765 million to former players to make the concussion-related lawsuits acting against them, disappear. Now, obviously this “settlement” remains ineffective to the ultimate goal of bringing a halt to these injuries because the game continues to be played unchanged and unabated. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease that has become more apparent in players of the National Football League. Several retired players such as Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson and All-Pro Linebacker Junior Seau, have committed suicide. Research and medical evidence suggests that CTE may have played a role in these deaths. According to Jim Trotter’s Sports Illustrated article “Heading For Trouble,” currently more than 1,000 former and current players are plaintiffs against the NFL, claiming the league failed to adequately treat concussions and educate players about potential long-term consequences of brain trauma. These facts prove that the NFL’s clear higher motive pertains to the money profited from the sport versus conducting a game that ensures every players safety. Professional football will remain a life-threatening

The overarching question in this study was answered because in the results there was a decisive conclusion that the NFL doesn’t not in fact consider player health as they should. All five participants in the study believed this to be true. Ava Norman is one of the participants who felt the NFL should take more initiative to look into the safety of its players. In her interview she felt strongly about the issue by saying, “the NFL is put on a pedestal and gets away with too much, the league needs to look more into the issue now before it’s too late because you cannot undo a concussion” (Norman). Moreover, I believe this research symbolizes that fans are even worried about player’s health. While they love the game of football, they understand that at the end of the day it is just a game. Don Thomas felt strongly about this particular issue by saying, “I love the game of football and football is a major part of my life but after the game is over everyone should be able to return to their families safely” (Thomas). On another

After this discovery, lawsuits came flying in against the NFL claiming they hid the dangers of playing football from the players. More than 4,500 former players claimed they were suffering from symptoms related to CTE (Associated Press, 2013). This started research that took over 10 years to conduct, where the NFL was forced to attempt to find correlations between the NFL and CTE. Recently, in 2013, the NFL settled the lawsuit with the players for 765 million dollars. This settlement allowed them to not be required to disclose the results they found from their research. However, I think it is safe to say that the league paying 765 million after their research was conducted is a very telling sign into what they found. Another trend that is revealing is early retirements by the players. In 2011, only 5 players under the age of 30 retired. In this past season, over 20 retired, many of them crediting their retirements to injuries and the dangers of the game. These are players who still have numerous years left to play and more importantly, lots of money to make (Bell 2016). This is the new norm in the NFL, and it shows that the players have come to the realization that the game is not very safe. There is also the concern of parents not allowing their kids to play or watch football, because they view it as a safety risk and a violent

Referring back to the original article, I cannot find the study which conclusively states that playing football leads to “brain damage, in the form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, post-concussion syndrome, depression, and other long-term head-related injuries.” The really scary stuff (CTE) occurs mostly in NFL players—that is, in less than 0.1 percent of the about 1.8 million football players (summing those in Pop Warner, high school, the NCAA, and the NFL) in the United States, which seems statistically negligible. Moreover, NFL players move further off the grid with the length of their season (last

This article portrays how playing football can cause negative long term effects on your body. Frontline reported on numbers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University, where researchers studied the brains of 165 people who played football at the high school, college, or professional level. They found evidence of CTE in 131 of them—79 percent. Of the brains studied, 91 of them belonged to former NFL players, and 87 of those 91 (96 percent) had signs of CTE. In an attempt to further reduce concussions some teams are considering adopting a tackling style similar to that of rugby, where players

Would you still be playing football if you knew 96 percent of former NFL players developed brain damage? Mike Webster, a former Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs lineman, died at the age of 50 from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This sport has been played for thousands of years, but now scientist are finding former players developing brain damage. Players and staff in the NFL should have more precautions to prevent concussions, given these precautions will save lives, keep them in the sport longer, and all around making the sport safer. Therefore, having these safety measure will prevent concussions.

The NFL is considered a regulator in professional football. Therefore, they have an obligation to … However, the NFL and the NCAA have failed to produce concussion policies. While, the NCAA expects the individual schools to handle … the NFL rejects the notion that football related concussions play a large part in … This type of thinking is what has gotten the league into trouble. The league argues that there is not enough evidence to support … and has treated the problem similar to that of the tobacco company’s denial that cigarettes had bad side effects to a person’s health (Hanna, 2010). The misinformation given to current and former players has resulted in 4500 retired players filing a lawsuit against the league ().

Have you ever speculated how football affects its players? Well these are some of the fascinating things that I discovered. There is a very dangerous disease that many pro football athletes develop called CTE that can be contributed to countless deaths of NFL players. There is also a problem with the helmets in the NFL that inventors/players are trying to solve. The head trauma issue in the NFL is generating many complications and resulting problems, including the CTE matter, head to head hits, and the ongoing helmet issue.

“What are you playing” Naomi asked. The boredom of the flight had seemed to get to her as she looked over at Jason’s iPad.