New Yorker: Does Football Have a Future?

No. And this is one where "I blame soccer" actually does apply. The growth of high school soccer programs has led to decreases in the number of kids going out for football in many states. But, as others have said, doesn't necessarily mean a dilution in talent. The kids opting for soccer are usually the ones who would've been riding the football bench in the pre-soccer days. The kids with real football talent still choose football.

At least in most states. Maybe California's different. If so, I blame Pelosi.

 

What is the reason to sport-specialize?

Presumably to improve your prospects for playing your sport post-high school.

The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of all high school students (95%-plus in all sports) are never going to play any organized sport beyond high school.

Therefore the overwhelming majority of all high school athletes are encouraged/induced/pressured/ordered by coaches to specialize in one sport basically for the purpose of serving as scrimmage fodder for the 5% who may advance to post-HS competition.

 

To me, it's a question of risk awareness and minimization, but only to a reasonable extent.

I don't think you will ever be able to take the risk of concussions and CTE out of football (or hockey or gymnastics or basketball or baseball or anything). The more you know about how they're caused, though, the more you can put in reasonable regulations and precautions.

Not allowing people to play for a week after a concussion is reasonable. Emphasizing tackling in proper form is reasonable. Penalizing players for leading with their helmet is reasonable. Heck, limiting particularly types of hitting in practice is very reasonable. But attempting to remove anything that could possibly cause a concussion or other brain-rattling hits is never going to happen. You can't eliminate the fact that people will slam their heads against the ground or that even proper tackling can cause a head to whip back.

We have to accept that life, in general, is risky, and it's impossible to legislate risk out of it. Some careers are more risky than others (fisherman, for one, or miners). You try to make it as safe as you reasonably can, but you can't eliminate the inherent dangers of the job. And if people are willing to pay well for it, whether that it is king crab for dinner or three hours of NFL entertainment on a Sunday, people will aspire to work in that profession. Some will probably regret it later. That's just life.

 

oh, yeah, those stinkin' colleges and nfl teams taking advantage of our young people by giving the free rides for a college education they can have -- an education most of them would NEVER have a chance to receive. and those nasty nfl teams taking advantage of all those young men by giving them more money than anyone else right out of college and an opportunity to set themselves and their families up at a standard of living most of them have never been witness to and almost certainly would never sniff without excelling at football.

this is all standard risk/reward stuff. are the worst-case scenarios for many aging former football players horrifying? you bet. but for most players, football opens the door to a lifestyle they would otherwise never be able to attain.

let's use this as an example, if you will: it's reasonable to presume ed reed and his brother had close to identical upbringings. ed's football talents opened up doors to him and he admirably took full advantage of them. without football, who's to say ed reed doesn't have a similar fate to his presumed-dead brother?

now, i haven't a clue what kind of shape ed reed might be in 20, 30, 40 years from now. but i'm pretty darn sure that the doors football have opened for him have put him and many of his loved ones in a far better position they would be in otherwise. if he is to be among those ex-footballers paying a terribly physical and/or mental price in later years i sincerely doubt he'll be expressing regret for not taking the alternate path that was likely the only one available to him.

 

I don't care how much money they made, what happened to Mike Webster and Andre Waters later in life is sickening. Preventing that should be considered good.

 

i totally understand feeling that way. and there's a fine line here so bear with me: players with stories like webster's and waters' are horrific examples of how the repeated pounding and wear-and-tear can destroy body and soul. but did football alone do this to them or did they largely do it to themselves by not walking away well before their bodies or minds betrayed them?

now, if someone wants to suggest that teams must protect players from themselves by forcing them to retire, well, that would be grand. but getting unanimity among 32 team doctors is incredibly difficult if a player is hellbent on playing... i don't know if there is an absolute answer here.

 

One big thing at play the last couple of years on this concussion story has been Schwarz vs. the NFL's establishment media. No entity that I can think of, except maybe Apple, does a better job of co-opting supposedly independent reporters. Peter King, he basically works for the league. All the ESPN guys, same thing. They might put an individual story out there that isn't flattering, but for the things that could shake the league to its very core, they're silent or they put pro-league stories out there, and they're rewarded handsomely for it. The Super Bowl Commissioner's Party. The league meetings at a swanky resort that so many of the writers take their wives to. The auxiliary media appearances -- how many reporters were there in the press box in that Sandler version of "The Longest Yard"?

What the NFL gets in return is propagation of the myth that the league corralled its steroid problem 20 years ago and guys like Shawne Merriman just got bad supplements. Also the myth that an NFL stadium generates an economic benefit for the taxpayers who fund it. The myth that players actually give a crap about fans and rivalries and such. The myth that NFL guys commit crimes in about the same proportion as the general population but only get reported on because they're jocks. Lots of others.

So now we're seeing the league, in addition to its own fight with the Times' sports department, put out a lot of self-serving information that goes through the "independent" reporters. The result is that it muddles the issue, a lot of people hear that the research isn't conclusive, and they tune out the opinions of all these doctors that this is scary, scary shit.

I hope Schwarz never goes to a commissioner's party.

 

On Real Sports, Troy Aikman, he of eight concussions and who doesn't remember winning a Super Bowl because of one, said he wouldn't let his kids play football because of the risk of brain injury.

Players are using their helmets as weapons, Aikman said, and he and Gumbel both half-joked about getting rid of the helmets or facemasks to keep injuries down.

Nowdays the players are so big and so fast that the physics of the collisions are where someone is going to get dinged on most every play.

I probably had two concussions playing football and another from a car accident but none of those were diagnosed. I'd be willing to bet that for a high-level player, the guys who've already died, their concussion count would be improbably high -- like in the hundreds.

 

Hmm, what Aikman said on that Real Sports and what he said to a newspaper reporter seem at odds.

http://www.slate.com/id/2280442/entry/2282502/

 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/big-idea/concussions-text

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/big-idea/concussions-interactive

 

And it all stems from the myth of the all-powerful and all-knowing Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who had a completely manufactured reputation. Pete Rozelle, a PR guy himself, was created by an amazing cast of league PR people during the '60s and '70s.