Deion Sanders: Dangerously Ignorant.

I think he knows that. I just think there are a lot of guys who have cushy jobs and fat paychecks tied into working for or with the league and they're not about to bite that hand...

 

So Deion is criticizing others for pursuing a payday? Deion? Um, yeah ...

 

Not to be outdone by Sanders, Nantz said women's soccer is more dangerous than football when it comes to brain trauma. Citing a study that nobody can find on the intrawebs.

http://concussioninc.net/?p=6646

 

That does seem to be the bullshit distraction of choice, doesn't it?

The NFL has to be working with the same PR guys that helped out Big Tobacco.

 

"We're losing a generation to soccer! This must be stopped!!"

 

What do you mean by "worse"? More severe or a higher rate?

There's really no way to accurately know if the rate is higher or lower than in the past due to the fact there is no way to know how many undiagnosed concussions back then would have been caught using today's techniques.

 

Well that's true, but I think the increased speed and mass are also changing the situation considerably. The collisions are far more violent and there are more games and practices at every level than there were decades ago.

 

And there is no way to know if the damage was done prior to the player being in the NFL.

What if a player was treated for concussions in Pop Warner? Should the NFL be responsible? Certainly full medical records will be part of the law suit and that would come out.

 

We really can't say with any certainty that one era was safer than another.

We do know that the understanding of what a concussion is and what its affects are is light years better than it was decades ago. But so is the equipment the players are wearing.

 

All the equipment in the world can't stop a brain from sloshing around and hitting the inside of the skull.

 

The NFL's concussion problem is a little bit like the problem the military faced with Iraq. That war became known as the brain injury war because we had developed such better armor and medicine that soldiers were living through wounds that would have killed them. But this meant a huge rise in the incidence of brain damage (TBI for traumatic brain injury).

It's somewhat similar for the NFL. It used to be, if you took a hit that hurt the brain, there was a good chance it hurt the rest of your body too. Now we have a lot of the rest of that body protected with better equipment, more potent painkillers and stronger muscles. But the brain isn't much better protected.

 

There are ways to lessen the problem, and not just with improved helmets. Make sure athletes always wear mouth guards, which can lessen the shock of a blow. Proper technique helps, too, as does strengthening neck muscles.

That seems to be the prevailing theory behind the issue with girls' soccer. Their necks aren't as strong as the boys.