Whistleblowing Concussions In The NFL

To decrease the number of concussions a year the National Football League must issue more rules and better quality equipment. Despite the tackling and wanting to " knock out " an opponent of the other team, football players need to transition their mindsets to a different objective. Instead of wanting to hurt the opponent or lay them out, just focus on getting them down. Football players must have the mindset to keep their healthy bodies and prevent injuries so that they can continue to entertain, perform, but to mostly importantly win. Football without concussions and even injuries can make the sport more enjoyable for the parent, wives, and children of the players. Although football is a contact sport, if the players changed

The main change that could easily be made to help with the problem is to better the quality of the helmets used in the sport. It would not be too hard because new helmets are already being made just for the concussion cases. After this, changes could be made to the sport for safety. There will always be some dangers in the sport because it is a very high contact sport. “Despite the best efforts of the leagues, the players, and the medical and engineering communities, the incidence of injury at all levels of the game continues to increase” (Solving football’s). If changes are made, the sport will be a lot easier to like and enjoy. More people will want to be involved in the sport and it will probably bring in more funds. Throughout the next years I think changes will be made to reduce head injuries. I believe the sport of football will be changed forever for the safety of the players. I feel like the new precautions are already helping reduce head injuries. The NFL needs to follow the same concussion protocol as the lower levels of the sport. THe sport could be much safer and it should be much safer. Players deserve more protection and it should be much easier to play the sport without having any

The NFL commissioner needs to make the players and college athletes aware that they care about their players and care about their health, the Concussion Protocol does just that with showing the players that they will go drastic measures to make sure and keep them safe. For example, the NFL’s commissioner allowing the players to protest during the national anthem. The commissioner allowed the players to speak there beliefs during the national anthem before every game by either allowing them to stand, lock arms with teammates, or sit. The players were not criticized by the commissioner, but were by the President of the United States, and even then the commissioner stood up for their beliefs. The commissioner stated during the whole propaganda that he “...would like zero players to protest during anthem, but it won’t force any rules to change and will support players and their beliefs…,”(Martinez, Peter). Now others may say that the NFL does not care about the players, they only care about the revenue stream and views, but the commissioner supporting and backing up the players and enforcing the NFL Concussion Protocol shows that he cares about the players mental, physical, and emotional

There is no evidence of when concussions really started but people didn’t know how bad they could be. In early stages of the NFL and other leagues concussions were not considered a big issue. Now concussions are affecting

Generally people think that the NFL should adjust the game, and its rules to increase player safety, statistics clearly show that too much adjusting has been done and the NFL is suffering because of it. Too many rules have been changed for player safety and the current changes being discussed, like getting rid of the kickoff, are going to far and the game is not like it was. Players sign contracts and are aware of the risks they put themselves at when playing the game of football at a professional level. Referees are throwing more flags and the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, is handing out a record high of fines. These adjustments by the National Football League are going too far and some rule changes need to be reverted back to their previous rules.

The NFL is about to go into one of the most unwanted territories it has ever been into, but this is definitely an issue that it needs to grasp before they are to deep into it and this is the issue of head injuries sustained by players. This issue is overwhelmingly forcing the hands of player’s future careers. This is something that our society has never seen before with things such as players retiring one to two years into their career due to the scare that head injuries have on these players. Along with after players retire they are receiving statements from these players saying that the NFL doesn’t do enough in the protection of head injuries. The NFL has had considerable problems with concussions dating all the way back to the 1900’s (Powell,

Not until recently has the National Football League really started cracking down on how players and teams should deal with players who are assumed to have suffered a concussion. The implications of concussions

Over 2 million children suffer concussions in sports every year. Many of these concussions go untreated and without proper treatment, these concussions can lead to serious health problems.Concussions are important because if they aren’t identified and treated it can lead to complications in an athlete’s life down the road, things like CTE can affect their mood and decisions later in life, possibly leading them to make choices they wouldn’t normally make like blowing their money, doing drugs, alcoholism and even committing suicide. People should be doing more to prevent and treat concussions in sports, specifically in football. Although people say that concussions are too hard to track and that the science is too new to rely on, symptoms of a concussion can be

One major problem that many doctors have recognized is that concussions not only affect players while they are playing the game of football but their lives long after their career ends. Articles written by (Nancy Didehbani) and (Marshall Kerr) discussions how player’s brains functions long after their careers end. Some of the issues they found with concussions are Short and long term memory loss, prescription drug abuse and depression and in some of the worst cases, suicide (Kerr). Studies of the brain after a NFL athlete’s careers show strong correlations linked to concussions. Which raises the question should the NFL require players who are diagnosed with concussions during their playing careers receive therapy and treatment in order to

The seriousness of sports related concussions have been brought to the forefront in recent years. New concussion legislation along with new rules and regulations have been implemented around the country. In effort to reduce the amount of concussions greater awareness, action plans, and policies have been put in place for many sports--especially contact sports such as football. However, despite these actions the amount of sports related concussions have not seen a significant decrease.

An open letter to Roger S. Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football League, from Lester Grinspoon M.D.

The lawsuits made against the NFL are rising topics in today's mainstream media. The NFL is being accused of failing to provide information linking football related head injuries to permanent memory loss, brain damage, and other long term health issues related to concussions. Many former players have came forward who were diagnosed with some type of health issue, which were medically said to be caused by repeated blows to the head and concussions they have obtained throughout their professional football careers. Some even developing (CTE) Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy which is a neurodegenerative disease found in people who have had multiple head injuries. Therefore, NFL players who have suffered multiple brain injuries

The regulatory history of the NFL demonstrates that “under circumstances in which caution would ordinarily characterize medical advice, concussions in football players have been regarded and treated differently from concussions in other settings” (Robeson and King 338). Concussions are brain trauma. Concussions are medical. Medically speaking, the same rules for concussions in other contact sports should be applied to football. There should be no difference, and the variations indicate significant gaps in the regulations provided by the NFL. Additionally, following the idea that concussions are evaluated, monitored, and governed inappropriately, the regulations and authoritative relationships influence the players’ health decisions in certain situations. According to Robeson and King, “one of the return-to-play stipulations is that players are encouraged to be candid [with team physicians]” therefore expecting players to “self-diagnose” (339). This regulation is inadequate because the rule forces a player to choose between loyalty to his team and the importance of keeping himself healthy. He will choose to play and “take one for the team” rather than being looked at by an unbiased physician who tells him he cannot re-enter the game (Robeson and King 335). The biased regulation, placing all responsibility on the player and is medically

“Thirty years from now I don’t think it [the NFL] will be in existence”. It comes to no one’s surprise that the contact sport American football is very violent. We have all seen the massive amount of protective gear the players wear, and in spite of this, an estimated 1,2 million football-related injuries occur every year. Many of these are of course common injuries seen in other, less violent sports, but still 5% of those 1,2 million injuries are concussions, which can affect brain function on a long term basis. However, is this major problem acknowledged in media, is there any chance in change, and what would ultimately end of the NFL?

In the Table above, we look at the number of concussions dealing with both teams and individuals. The two six year periods, one from 1996-2001 and the other from 2002-2007 prove that concussions were extremely similar when comparing the 2 6 year periods. I found this to be extremely interesting due to the fact that the NFL saw concussions as an on growing issue and they made many changes within the rules to help try to prevent this MTBI’s from occurring. Some of these rule changes included moving the kickoff up 10 yards resulting in more touchbacks, emphasizing no head to head contact, fining players for dirty and illegal hits and tackles and emphasizing sitting out players for longer periods of time to help reduce the risk of re injury.