Violence In American Football

The NFL has hidden the risks associated with playing the sport for years. One event that helped spark awareness was with Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist, who was the doctor that discovered the condition football players expose themselves to through repetitive jolts to the brain. It is called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. He discovered it while performing an autopsy on an ex-NFL player who was fairly young, much too young to be in as bad of shape as he was. The NFL did what they could to deny the true dangers of playing football and since this finding emerged, a lot more truths have been rearing its ugly head.

There have been multiple cases in which a child has severe symptoms of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy due to tackle football. Some of these symptoms include irreversible brain damage, such as depression, memory loss, and suicidal thoughts (“Don’t Let Kids Play Football”). Those who support the banning of tackle football for today’s youth and for future generations are only campaigning to terminate the existence and possibilities of C.T.E. The effects of C.T.E have been found throughout the ages between the teenage years to the 40s (“Don’t Let Kids Play Football”). A chunk of the US population is concerned because these symptoms tend to be permanent and incurable. Yes, football is “America’s sport,” but is it worth the

American football has been around since the early 1900's. The players tackle each other until one is on the ground. Football has always been a full-contact sport. Throughout the years injuries have stayed part of the game and the NFL has taken their time to increase player safety. The NFL should increase player safety because of the injuries have occurred. Some of the injuries may be lifetime injuries. Serious brain injuries have been linked to football as, well as heart issues and other permanent heath problems.

We see injuries in pretty much every sport now a days. People refuse to let their children play sports because they are worried of them getting hurt. Football is one of those sports that have to deal with injuries on a daily basis. Football as a sport is highly praised in the United States. People truly love not only playing the game but also watching the college players and the professionals. The game of football first originated on November 6, 1869. It was actually two universities—Rutgers and Princeton—that made up the first college football game. The first NFL game was played on December 18, 1932. Football has clearly been around for a really long time and there seems to be no sign of the sport slowing down.

Concussions, injuries, and suffering- those are what always happen in football games. Football is the most popular sport in America, people like the sound of “uh....” when football players hit each other. In the documentary “League of Denial: NFL’s Concussion Crisis” by Frontline, the connection between playing football and brain injuries is analyzed. Steve Almond’s, “Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto” shows how football impacts his life and how evil the NFL is. Also other books that say the same things are “Ban College Football” by Intelligence2 Debates. They want to show how much impact human beings can receive when they play football and how football’s safety rules change to protect their players. Most of the time, resources always talk about CTE -Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy- an injury that can result in a memory loss. The illness comes from brain trauma that is caused by violent concussions and makes the tau protein, which actually is not supposed to be in the brain, stay inside the brain and kill all the neurons. The documentary by Frontline focuses on how many people are being affected by this problem and how the NFL reacts to all the allegations

The national football league has stiffened its policy on legal hits. The hit zone has shrunk, while player frustrations have grown. The policy is enacted in an effort to reduce the number of concussions in the game of football. The enforcement of these rules has strayed away from being all about safety. The policy on hits has created a divide among its players and fans alike. The policy of hits being enforced so strictly has had a significant impact on the sport. The sociology of the NFL and the rule itself drive this argument. By stepping on the field as an NFL football player, it is accepted that it is very dangerous. The players make enough money to make the concussions worth it. Profiting from the fine money for these hits has caused the NFL to be enforcing these rules unethically, the rules and the impact they have had on the sport have been detrimental to football.

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

Players risk their lives every time they step on the football field. There is always a chance of someone getting hurt. Football is a battle. Everyone wants to come out of that battle as a winner so they will do everything in their power to achieve that. Football is the most violent sport. It draws a lot of attention and creates a lot of good memoires. The NFL has cracked down and is still trying to crack down on making the game safe. They have made head to head contact illegal to prevent concussions. There are a lot of post football players who suffer from injures they faced in the NFL every day of their

There have been multiple cases in which a child has severe symptoms of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or irreversible brain damage, such as depression, memory loss, and suicidal thoughts (“Don’t Let Kids Play Football”). Those who support the banning of tackle football for today’s youth and for future generation are only campaigning to terminate the existence and possibilities of C.T.E. The effects of C.T.E have been found throughout the ages between the teenage years to the 40s (“Don’t Let Kids Play Football”). A chunk of the US population is concerned because these symptoms tend to be permanent and incurable. Yes, football is “America’s sport,” but is it worth the harm? Some will say that it’s not as severe with adults, but for children to be exposed to such hard contacts will forever damage their developing brains (“Don’t Let Kids Play Football”).

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

Football is a rough sport. Many fans of the game watch it for the hard hits. These hard hits and the potential for injury is part of what makes the game so exciting. Some people say that football is too brutal and should be banned. Parents all over the United States don’t allow their children to play because of the risk of head injuries. Others allow their sons, and every now and then their daughters, to play and risk injury for a chance to earn a college scholarship and for a small percentage of players, the chance to play in the National Football League (NFL).

Football has become a big part of American culture that people are “terrified of interrogating it” (Cook). However, according to Almond in

Would you be willing to play a sport that could potentially end your life at any moment? In any sport, it is noted that you are more prone to injury versus the average person since you are putting your body at risk. It is known that football is one of the most dangerous sports because it has a high-risk for concussions. On an average, about 47 percent of athletes who play high school football receive sports-related concussions. SInce 1997, 50 high school level and younger football players were pronounced dead after complications due to their concussions. Because of these intriguing statistics, the sport of football should be banned. Football should be banned as a whole because of health concerns regarding concussions, long-term effects from concussions, and mental disorders.

In order to truly appreciate the overall beneficial influence football has had on American culture between the 1890’s and 1930’s, we cannot turn a blind eye to the negative obstacles football has overcome. In the early years of development, football was played similarly to rugby and universities played by different rules, making standardization within the sport a difficult task to accomplish. One of the major problems observed during the infancy of football was the sheer violence witnessed on the field. Mass play was the common play style during the first years of football in which the entire offensive force would focus on one spot of the defense; the offense was determined to go through the defense rather than go around them. The raw power behind these plays lead to serious injuries as well as the death of a player in the early 1900’s. This disastrous event deterred numerous universities from playing football out of fear of a repeat of events. Following more serious injuries