Ken Stabler

[Russ Smith]

Don't see a thread here a bit surprised? Stabler died last year of cancer and it's now come out that he had CTE too which can only be diagnosed posthumously.

A friend of mine who's a doctor(deals with people on dialysis mostly) says people in his profession think in 20 years the NFL is either going to be gone or look completely different than it does now. His reasoning is he expects that legislation will force them to take real measures to protect players and the result will be the game will have to change to a point where it may not be practical to play it anymore.

I'm not sure I see it going that far, too many people just don't really care if guys are debilitated when they're older. You see it every week when someone gets called for a roughing penalty and people argue whether or not it was a cheapshot. Fans love the big hits and I can't see the government getting that involved.

My comment was if they're going to do that to football, MMA will be totally gone long before then.

I have no idea what the right answer is but I have to believe this is just the next of many guys we're goign to find out have the same problem.

 

[BurqueCardFan]

To me it's basically a job hazard. These guys choose to play this game. They are not forced into it. Make them sign a waiver when they enter the league, saying they are aware of the dangers and possibility of long term effects. The argument has always been that the players didn't know it was dangerous or they were misled by the NFL. It's no different than any other professional job hazard. I work in the construction industry, which has one of the highest fatality rates in the business. If these players are concerned about their health, go do something else for a living.

 

[splitsecond]

People also thought the Surgeon General's Warning would destroy the tobacco companies.

 

[Russ Smith]

People also thought the Surgeon General's Warning would destroy the tobacco companies.

sure but that's not a job. The argument is that the NFL gets away with it because they get special treatment from the government so they're exempted from things like OSHA.

I don't know. The mentality we have about sports is such that I can't see in my lifetime anybody actually saying football is just too violent as played and too harmful to these guys so we're going to change it.

The same friend said he knows a guy who deals with brain injuries and that guy claims the single biggest reason for the decline in boxing is Muhammad Ali. People that grew up with him saw him go from this young brash vibrant outspoken guy to what happened to him with the Parkinsons and stuff and it just soured them on boxing.

I went to HS with a guy who before that went to school with Jim Otto's son for years and used tl always talk about how bad Jim Otto was.

But this brain injury stuff, what happened to Seau etc.

I think it's going to happen more and more and I do wonder if at some point there doesn't start to be some movement to actually fix it.

An example and this is hearsay I don't have a study to prove it. One of the reasons the NFL moved up KO's was to reduce injuries because lots of serious injuries happen on KO returns. Well the claim I heard was that while it has reduced injuries on KO's, the ones that happen now are actually more serious because the returner is coming from deeper in the endzone so when the impacts happen, both the offense and the defense have built up more speed now. Which apparently is exactly what people told the NFL would happen if they did that and the NFL ignored it.

Again I don't expect any major change in my lifetime but I do think if the NFL ever lost their exemption from antitrust rules they might see lots of other changes they won't have control over.

 

[Russ Smith]

I should add the very nature of the NFL makes it a more dangerous sport and the players all know that but there's also tons of evidence that the NFL hid the true danger from the players. That is guys like Stabler didn't know when they were playing the long term implications, half the time they didn't even know they had sustained a concussion.

Player safety continues to baffle me because so often it seems so arbitrary.

An example not football, I'm watching the first half of WSU and ARizona last night in basketball. A WSU player misses a shot and gets knocked to the floor by accident by an Arizona player. He's laying on the floor and the refs let the play go on because Arizona has an advantage, 5 on 4. So arizona scores. By now the player is up and in the frontcourt, and visibly bleeding from the forehead. The refs still don't stop play, eventually Ernie Kent calls timeout so they can look at the cut. he winds up getting medical attention and stays in the game so in a sense the refs were right he wasn't seriously injured.

There are pretty clear rules that allow the refs to use their judgement do we let the play go on or not. I'm fine with them allowing the 5 on 4 to happen but there's no way WSU should have had to call timeout the refs should have stopped it to make sure the bleeding player got looked at.

But there is this double standard we're really concerned with player safety and yet over and over in football and other sports we can see when push comes to shove they're not actually worried about the players they're worried about the game.

 

[ajcardfan]

I think it will go like boxing. Fewer kids will get into it as they will be discouraged by their parents. Slowly, quality of play will decline. It will take a long time, talking decades, but eventually it won't be the most popular sport anymore.

 

[Russ Smith]

I think it will go like boxing. Fewer kids will get into it as they will be discouraged by their parents. Slowly, quality of play will decline. It will take a long time, talking decades, but eventually it won't be the most popular sport anymore.

Kind of what I expect too. I wonder how long MMA has, they're both oversaturating the market with all the PPV's, and on borrowed time because of all the serious issues surrounding it. All the injuries, the drug use, PED's etc.

The NFL has many of the same issues of course just a little more subtle with it.

 

[az jam]

Change will come but football is still the most popular sport. That includes high school, college and the NFL. The pipeline is there.
The NFL needs to spend money on studying and addressing the head injuries. Nancy Armour has an excellent story in the Thursday edition of USA Today going after the NFL on this issue.

Armour: How many CTE cases does it take before attitudes change?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-earl-morrall-cte-nfl-super-bowl-50/79786264/

 

[RugbyMuffin]

Don't see a thread here a bit surprised? Stabler died last year of cancer and it's now come out that he had CTE too which can only be diagnosed posthumously.

A friend of mine who's a doctor(deals with people on dialysis mostly) says people in his profession think in 20 years the NFL is either going to be gone or look completely different than it does now. His reasoning is he expects that legislation will force them to take real measures to protect players and the result will be the game will have to change to a point where it may not be practical to play it anymore.

I'm not sure I see it going that far, too many people just don't really care if guys are debilitated when they're older. You see it every week when someone gets called for a roughing penalty and people argue whether or not it was a cheapshot. Fans love the big hits and I can't see the government getting that involved.

My comment was if they're going to do that to football, MMA will be totally gone long before then.

I have no idea what the right answer is but I have to believe this is just the next of many guys we're goign to find out have the same problem.

Slippery Slope.

So, if I have a heart attack, I can sue the company I work for, because they induced the stress ?

 

[BW52]

I wonder when Hockey will be involved.That has some pretty hard hits and collisions.

 

[Russ Smith]

Slippery Slope.

So, if I have a heart attack, I can sue the company I work for, because they induced the stress ?

You can sue for anything. The point is if your company was not telling you all the facts that could have allowed you to decide you no longer wanted to work there then yes they could indeed lose such a lawsuit.

There are 2 movies out about it right now the big hyped Concussion with Will Smith and a lesser known one called League of Denial. In both there's lots of evidence presented that the NFL has known for awhile and not disclosed to the players the true risks the players are taking.

Sure the players are choosing to play a violent game because they get paid well but the NFL has played hardball for years on pensions, health benefits etc.

I love to watch football too I hope there's some sort of happy medium here but this stuff is serious. Kurt Warner has been very outspoken about it and has said multiple times he doesn't really know how many concussions he actually had because he strongly suspects several times he was sent back into games with one because nobody checked. The concussion protocols are helping in that regard. We've seen players now held out several weeks for a concusion, when Stabler played those guys would have gone back in the same game let alone sat out weeks.

 

[PDXChris]

The thing is, the NFL has made a lot of changes for safety and we won't see how they actually worked for another 20-30 years when we can study those brains. Also, I would love to see the study of men who died around the same age that did not play in the NFL to see the baseline for CTE's.

 

[NJCardFan]

If you want an example of how increased safety can effect a sport look no further than NASCAR. Over the years the league has tried to cut back on fatalities and other injuries including instituting the HANS device to restrictor plates to making draft passing illegal. The end result is boring races where the name of the game is follow the leader and strategize your fuel consumption to hope you don't run out of gas down the stretch. Gone are the days of packs of cars driving around the track where one bad move could cause a wreck. You don't even see drivers trading paint anymore. It's like throwing one high and tight in baseball, drafting is now a lost art and trading paint leads to garage fights. Now the races are boring to watch to the point it's like basketball. See the start time and tune in in a couple of hours to see the last 50 laps or so. Football could be going down the same track, so to speak.

 

[Russ Smith]

The thing is, the NFL has made a lot of changes for safety and we won't see how they actually worked for another 20-30 years when we can study those brains. Also, I would love to see the study of men who died around the same age that did not play in the NFL to see the baseline for CTE's.

That's one of the things in League Of Denial. the NFL actually does have data on concussions from well before they admit they have. Not CTE I don't think that was being studied way back when, but they have far more data on concussions than they are admitting to having.

So they probably already have enough to say years of changes have done this, but in order to announce that, they have to admit they knew how bad the concussion problem was X years ago and they don't want to do that.

 

[NJCardFan]

The thing is, the NFL has made a lot of changes for safety and we won't see how they actually worked for another 20-30 years when we can study those brains. Also, I would love to see the study of men who died around the same age that did not play in the NFL to see the baseline for CTE's.

I'm more interested in the players who had suffered multiple concussions and who didn't commit suicide or end up an invalid. Seems we hear of the few who killed themselves. Hell, Frank Gifford lived to a ripe old age and they still bring up CTE. I mean the man was 84. Plenty of people at 84 have had brain issues or mental deterioration who didn't play football. They're acting like CTE led to Gifford's death, which is ridiculous.

 

[PDXChris]

I'm more interested in the players who had suffered multiple concussions and who didn't commit suicide or end up an invalid. Seems we hear of the few who killed themselves. Hell, Frank Gifford lived to a ripe old age and they still bring up CTE. I mean the man was 84. Plenty of people at 84 have had brain issues or mental deterioration who didn't play football. They're acting like CTE led to Gifford's death, which is ridiculous.

100% agree

 

[PDXChris]

That's one of the things in League Of Denial. the NFL actually does have data on concussions from well before they admit they have. Not CTE I don't think that was being studied way back when, but they have far more data on concussions than they are admitting to having.

So they probably already have enough to say years of changes have done this, but in order to announce that, they have to admit they knew how bad the concussion problem was X years ago and they don't want to do that.

Good point.

 

[Russ Smith]

I'm more interested in the players who had suffered multiple concussions and who didn't commit suicide or end up an invalid. Seems we hear of the few who killed themselves. Hell, Frank Gifford lived to a ripe old age and they still bring up CTE. I mean the man was 84. Plenty of people at 84 have had brain issues or mental deterioration who didn't play football. They're acting like CTE led to Gifford's death, which is ridiculous.

Not really following. CTE is specific to people who have suffered multiple concussions and head trauma. It used to be considered specific to boxing until researchers found out NFL players had been having it too. So there really aren't people with CTE who didn't play football or do something that led to concussions and brain trauma.

Now there are people who played that lived to an old age and might have even had CTE too, Gifford appears to be one. his family says for years he displaed evidence of dementia and other problems but near as I can tell they haven't gone into specifics so we have no idea to what degree or for how long.

NFL players die younger, we've known that for ages. We're now getting more specifics on why.

There is no easy answer, if you change the game too much to protect players, the game won't be the same, like your NASCAR example.

 

[NJCardFan]

Wrestling, more specifically the WWE, is addressing this issue as well. After the Benoit incident they started getting more serious about it to the point that certain moves like pile drivers, chair shots, diving head butts, etc are now banned. I agree it's a serious issue.

 

[RON_IN_OC]

Don't see a thread here a bit surprised? Stabler died last year of cancer and it's now come out that he had CTE too which can only be diagnosed posthumously.

A friend of mine who's a doctor(deals with people on dialysis mostly) says people in his profession think in 20 years the NFL is either going to be gone or look completely different than it does now. His reasoning is he expects that legislation will force them to take real measures to protect players and the result will be the game will have to change to a point where it may not be practical to play it anymore.

I'm not sure I see it going that far, too many people just don't really care if guys are debilitated when they're older. You see it every week when someone gets called for a roughing penalty and people argue whether or not it was a cheapshot. Fans love the big hits and I can't see the government getting that involved.

My comment was if they're going to do that to football, MMA will be totally gone long before then.

I have no idea what the right answer is but I have to believe this is just the next of many guys we're goign to find out have the same problem.

It's voluntary hazard job...I guess we shouldn't have cops, firemen, military, etc...All of those jobs are voluntary and very hazardous.

 

[Russ Smith]

It's voluntary hazard job...I guess we shouldn't have cops, firemen, military, etc...All of those jobs are voluntary and very hazardous.

If they were witholding information from firemen, military and cops about how dangerous the job actually is yes.

People have always known being a cop or a soldier can lead to being shot and killed, or being a fireman to a dangerous fall etc.

nobody really knew that being a pro football QB could lead to a degenerative brain condition. CTE used to be called dementia pugilista, because at the time they'd really only found it in ex boxers, now we know that NFL players have been getting it too so they changed the name.

The NFL clearly suspected there was a correlation between the head injuries their players were suffering and their health problems later on, but they weren't telling the players.

now that information is front and center we're going to see some changes. Remember Borland the LB who retired last year, he's not going to be the only one who does that I predict.

The friend said in 15 to 20 years the NFL might not exist, I strongly doubt that's true it will take much longer than that, but I do think the NFL has a serious issue on their hands, can they have a safe sport and still be popular.

 

[ajcardfan]

CNN has yet another depressing story on this issue today about Fred McNeil who died in November. However, what perhaps shows a potential way forward for the NFL is that McNeil is probably the first NFL player to be diagnosed with CTE BEFORE he died. It was tracing the tau protein with a PET scan. It gives a chance that someday they could definitively tell a player they need to stop playing and get care for the rest of their life.


Lots of unknowns right now of course. It's clear there is a genetic component but no one has a clue what that is. Ideally, they will find one or two gene variants that would place players at a higher risk of CTE. Then, players could be genetically tested and decide whether to play or not. Or, if the probability of CTE is really high with those variants, kept from playing for their own good.

 

[Jetstream Green]

I also know from people who knew Stabler that Ken had his drug addictions too and he would pop all kinds of pills before a game (and this was the day and age where a QB was not protected and the man would scramble). My point is this as well, the damage their body takes in games is unreal and who are we to tell them "don't do drugs" when every game is like a car accident... I think the NFL needs to take this into account when they play moral police with guys who are burning their life force up before they turn forty, not to say the drugs are good but to be a little more forgiving with the monster they created

 

[Russ Smith]

I also know from people who knew Stabler that Ken had his drug addictions too and he would pop all kinds of pills before a game (and this was the day and age where a QB was not protected and the man would scramble). My point is this as well, the damage their body takes in games is unreal and who are we to tell them "don't do drugs" when every game is like a car accident... I think the NFL needs to take this into account when they play moral police with guys who are burning their life force up before they turn forty, not to say the drugs are good but to be a little more forgiving with the monster they created

Good point and it's why I think the NFL should re think having pot on the banned list since many people use it for pain.

 

[Jetstream Green]

Good point and it's why I think the NFL should re think having pot on the banned list since many people use it for pain.

Exactly. All those drugs in no way can be good for the body but the damage they take in a game is just as bad or even worse in some instances. I have never done drugs or believe in them but if I was a running back in the NFL, my ass would probably be on all kinds of stuff while I sat in a hot tub chasing it down with Jack Daniels... I will never forget a interview Bret Favre did after a game and I swear his whole thigh was dark purple from a bruise and it was painful by the visual alone