Time Magazine Cover Story: Is Football Worth It?

I think an on-field death, though, would trigger the Ray Rice Effect - a single, sensational incident sparking what the cumulative effect of many incidents could not.

 

I think that pitchers are the ones in danger - ask Brandon McCarthy and Aroldis Chapman - and I'm surprised a pitcher hasn't died yet, to be honest.

I think that they will wear helmets in the near future. First-base coaches wear them because of Mike Coolbaugh, but not pitchers. That's crazy.

 

Noted sociologist Dr Harry Edwards makes the point that the talent pool
for pro athletes has been weakened by the fact that so many potential candidates
have been set to jail in their youth.

 

I was covering a high school football game once where a kid broke his neck making a tackle and was left a quadriplegic. It happens, and when you see it yourself it's pretty damn sobering.

 

Yeah, but the league isn't as vicious as it used to be, no matter how much Brandon Merriweather tries to prove otherwise.

But we see really serious injuries in the NFL about as frequently as we see pitchers taking batted balls to the face or head. We're seeing basketball injuries that are more extreme that what we saw 25-30 years ago, although those aren't life-threatening.

 

Check on baseball players in 20 years, though. The most you'll see is an arthritic elbow, knee or hip.

 

Yeah, in baseball, I'm a lot more worried about a player getting hit with a batted ball than I am a batter being hit by a pitch.

 

That is the result of players colliding while going after 50-50 balls, not heading the ball per se. A soccer ball cannot cause a concussion by itself. Hitting your noggin against another's can and will.

 

I don't disagree with you at all. But there is no reason that the scenario from that Grantland story on the Arena League death (which I didn't even know about) couldn't happen in the NFL. I think it will eventually happen. Too many collisions between too many big, strong, fast men.

I'm not trying to indict football or be sensationalistic. I love football.

 

But prep is a different animal. On so many levels. One the disparity in size of players. It's not unusual to see a 170-pound lineman. Or a 170-pound lineman going against a kid 280.
At the college level that's unlikely. At the pro level? Everybody is HUGE. And fast. And strong.

At the high school level there's a lower threshold of medical tests, batteries, training and care. A high school physical. And trainers are well ... not all doctors.. High school kids are conditioned like pro athletes. By the time you reach the NFL you've undergone God knows how many tests and evaluations.
High School? Turn your head and cough.
That's not the case at the higher levels.
It stand to reason there would be more deaths at the lower levels of the game.
Does the article cite Pee Wee? We've actually had two deaths in one year related (kids collapsed in practice due to heart and respiratory ailments)

 

Right. That, and hitting your head on the ground when you're not wearing a helmet.

 

It will be interesting to see the health of players from steroid era 20 years
from now.
The health of those on The Mitchel Report list will be an indicator whether or not
those that predicted massive health problems from PED use were correct.