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Frank Gifford had CTE (brain damage) (1 Viewer)

I don't know how much you can say about a guy like Gifford who played in an era before facemasks and lived into his 80s. But it's a serious issue for the modern game.

 
My oldest son (18) was a natural football player who luckily tore his acl on lacrosse his junior year. I say this because he definitely suffered many a concussion through the years and yet the pressure from coaches and scouts becomes tough as a parent. #### I was one of his youth coaches and winning really does seem to matter, and yes we won many a game including the 2010 AYF D2 championship over Harlem in FL. My youngest son (14) got one concussion and his mom and I decided to say #### it, no more football and he is probably even better than his brother but it's just not worth it.

 
They already are doing a lot about it compared to when he played. There is actually awareness now about this which is driving change. The league is constantly adjusting rules and putting protocols in place to help.

In the end it is violent but it is also voluntary to play and they make a good living.

Keep moving forward but not something I'm concerned about really.

 
6th grade championships this past weekend and one of our RB's took a nasty hit that caused him to hit his head (which was in a helmet) hard on the artificial turf. Player was taken to ER and when the Dr. was checking out his eyes he saw something that troubled him, player had a CT done of his head, and they found a subdural bleed. 11 year old kid with a brain injury. He will be ok I think, but as a parent it is just not worth the risk. I love football and if either of my twins wanted to quit I would be ok with their decision.

 
SHIZNITTTT said:
6th grade championships this past weekend and one of our RB's took a nasty hit that caused him to hit his head (which was in a helmet) hard on the artificial turf. Player was taken to ER and when the Dr. was checking out his eyes he saw something that troubled him, player had a CT done of his head, and they found a subdural bleed. 11 year old kid with a brain injury. He will be ok I think, but as a parent it is just not worth the risk. I love football and if either of my twins wanted to quit I would be ok with their decision.
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That's really scary stuff.

But what if they don't want to quit? Would you consider forbidding it?

 
One thing that jumps out about your story, Shiznittt, is the artificial turf. We all know that's basically no different from playing on cement. Maybe kids that age really shouldn't be playing football on artificial turf?

 
timschochet said:
One thing that jumps out about your story, Shiznittt, is the artificial turf. We all know that's basically no different from playing on cement. Maybe kids that age really shouldn't be playing football on artificial turf?
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All of the local high schools and colleges have gone to turf. I think it is cheaper in the long run for maintenance. I don't think I would make my kids quit playing football, but at this point just looking for a good reason. I just hope they do some damage that I will regret forever. The amount of broken bones, concussions is so high at this age. The kids are bigger, faster, and play more games than ever before. Not uncommon to see a 200lb kid who can move in the 6th grade. We played against a kid that was 337lbs this year. Was 6'1" and couldn't move but at 337lbs he is a mountain.

 
SHIZNITTTT said:
timschochet said:
One thing that jumps out about your story, Shiznittt, is the artificial turf. We all know that's basically no different from playing on cement. Maybe kids that age really shouldn't be playing football on artificial turf?
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All of the local high schools and colleges have gone to turf. I think it is cheaper in the long run for maintenance. I don't think I would make my kids quit playing football, but at this point just looking for a good reason. I just hope they do some damage that I will regret forever. The amount of broken bones, concussions is so high at this age. The kids are bigger, faster, and play more games than ever before. Not uncommon to see a 200lb kid who can move in the 6th grade. We played against a kid that was 337lbs this year. Was 6'1" and couldn't move but at 337lbs he is a mountain.
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337 pounds and in the 6th grade? That's unbelievable.

 
My youngest was on grass when he got his and we had a hard time finding the play that caused it. There was only one time in the first quarter where another kid tackled him from behind and slightly went helmet to helmet with him. That was the only play that made sense that it happened on, sadly I didn't know until he asked me at halftime what time the game was gonna start at that he had a concussion.

 
CGRdrJoe said:
My youngest was on grass when he got his and we had a hard time finding the play that caused it. There was only one time in the first quarter where another kid tackled him from behind and slightly went helmet to helmet with him. That was the only play that made sense that it happened on, sadly I didn't know until he asked me at halftime what time the game was gonna start at that he had a concussion.
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My son was concussed playing soccer on Field Turf. It happened along the near sideline so I could see his head bounce on the turf. I think it probably would have been worse if it had happened on the rock hard natural grass fields in SF.

If you look at the NFL Films footage of when Gifford was playing, the condition of the fields were generally pretty bad. Maybe not as bad as the first generation artificial surfaces which was carpet on concrete but a far cry from professional and big time college fields today.

 
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timschochet said:
Is there any way to help prevent this without changing the essential way football is played?
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Posted some proposals in an old Shark Pool thread. Figured I might as well dig them up here and post again:

Here's part of the inspiration for this post, from SI's 2011 NFL Preview issue:
Good, hard, sharp, and sure tackling is the very essence of a successful defense, and no player should hope to be placed upon a team unless he has become adept in this most important of football fundamentals. No team is going to be severely beaten, even if it has no offense at all, if it is composed of eleven good tacklers ...—GLENN SCOBEY (POP) WARNER, May 1927

On a November Sunday in Cleveland last year, Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez completed a pass to wideout Braylon Edwards in the shallow left flat. Browns cornerback Sheldon Brown jumped forward to perform the essential job that Pop Warner had described 83 years earlier: Tackle the ballcarrier. (Huddle. Repeat.) Football plays can end in various ways: with touchdowns, field goals, incompletions, fair catches, dead-ball penalties and stepping out-of-bounds. But most end with the ballcarrier being taken to the ground by the defense. It is absolute. After a tackle, whistles are blown, the ball is spotted and the offense must draw up another play and start anew.

But tackling has also become one of the most uncertain elements in the modern NFL, altered not only by evolutions in strategy (sideline-to-sideline passing attacks supplanting between-the-numbers power running) and performance (more elusive athletes with each passing year), but also most recently by rules changes designed to protect ballcarriers from injuries by limiting concussive, helmet-to-helmet hits. The pure, unbridled, bone-jarring tackle is a fading memory.

As Brown moved up on Edwards, his instincts told him to blast headlong with little regard for the consequences, tactical or physical. There are two basic ways to tackle: either "break down" into a balanced crouch to reduce the possibility of getting juked in the open field, or barrel into the ballcarrier at full speed. Brown had played his first seven NFL seasons for the Eagles under the late defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, who gave his troops only one option.

"Coach Johnson taught us to never break down, just keep running through like knives," says Brown. "And if I miss on the correct side, one of my teammates will be right behind me, running like a bat out of you know where, and he'll make the hit and maybe force a turnover. One of the knives will hit." (Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who worked under Johnson in Philadelphia, says, "Arrow through snow" that's what Jim used to say: Attack like an arrow through snow.")

As an Eagle, Brown lived Johnson's credo. In January 2007 he laid out Saints running back Reggie Bush with a blowup hit by driving hard upfield on a swing pass, a shot so monumental it made the cover of SI six months later. But here, against the Jets, Brown hesitated. The previous month, after the notorious Oct. 17 afternoon so packed with violent, concussive hits that it became known as Black Sunday, the NFL announced it would stringently enforce rules against head shots. That clouded Brown's mind. "I tried to break down and then come up," says Brown of the play on Edwards. "He dipped his shoulder, and that got him lower than me, and I took the brunt of the hit. They talk about defenseless receivers. I put myself in a defenseless position, and I hurt my shoulder. I was confused with all the changes, and I made an adjustment." (Though his forward momentum was stopped, Edwards never did go down—four other Cleveland defenders threw themselves into the play, and the whistle blew with the Jets receiver still standing.)
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It seems clear that certain types of tackling techniques that are physically riskier than others. The question I'm raising is this: can safer tackling techniques be legislated within the rules of the game of football? Here are some speculative rule changes that come to mind -- haven't considered all angles or potential game-play consequences, just brainstorming:

  • Illegal for tacklers to leave their feet if their shoulder, chest, or head touches the ball carrier -- this means that if DB wants to blow up a WR over the middle, they cannot launch themselves like a missle. They can still run through the WR, but the fact that the ground dissipates some of the force should lessen the impact of these over-the-middle tackles. Note that the way this rule is worded, the intent is to still allow diving at a ball carrier's feet, or a last-second dive to grab a jersey, or tackle attempts like that. So long as there's no leaving the feet to launch the upper body into a ball carrier, the tackle is legal.
  • Illegal for shoulder, chest, or head of tackler to touch the ball carrier if at least one hand does not touch the ball carrier -- I'd call this the "wrap-up" rule, and it also aims to discourage launching-type tackles. I considered proposing that BOTH hands must touch the ball carrier if the tackler's upper-body conacts the ball carrier, but I was thinking that might be a little too restrictive. Maybe the two-hand version of the rule could be instituted for QBs in the pocket.
  • Institute a tackling "strike zone" -- The tackler's upper body (shoulders, helmet, chest) can only contact the ball carrier's body between the shoulders and knees. This one is actually partially in place, as explicit head shots are forbidden. Diving at a player's feet to trip them up with the hands or arms would still be legal.
  • Relax the pass-intereference rules in favor of the defense -- Saw this proposed elsewhere. The idea is that with pass-interference rules so strongly favoring the offense, defenses have adopted the strategy ot taking hard shots at receivers to jar caught balls loose. Letting DBs guard routes more physically would give the defense another option. My corollary is to perhaps change the 5-yard-bump zone into a 10-yard zone, or even 15 yards -- bring back true bump-&-run coverage.
So ... are these kinds of proposals (not necessarily these specific ones) reasonable? How much safer can tackling rules help make the game? Enough to get us to credible, player-approved 18-game seasons? And what kinds of game-safety changes do others envision the NFL adopting in the near future?
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CGRdrJoe said:
My youngest was on grass when he got his and we had a hard time finding the play that caused it. There was only one time in the first quarter where another kid tackled him from behind and slightly went helmet to helmet with him. That was the only play that made sense that it happened on, sadly I didn't know until he asked me at halftime what time the game was gonna start at that he had a concussion.
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Scary stuff, man. Glad you guys pulled them out of the game. Must've been hard.

 
Can't even imagine how many concussions those guys used to get in the North Dallas Forty shoot 'em up and send 'em back out days. Brutal sport.

Tough for parents these days. Now all of these cases are being found where soccer goalies are getting cancer and they are attributing it them diving and inhaling the rubber pellets on some of those artificial turf fields? Wow.

 
Some of it may be from Kathy Lee hitting his head with a frying pan after he got caught banging that flight attendant.

 
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Judge Smails said:
Can't even imagine how many concussions those guys used to get in the North Dallas Forty shoot 'em up and send 'em back out days. Brutal sport.

Tough for parents these days. Now all of these cases are being found where soccer goalies are getting cancer and they are attributing it them diving and inhaling the rubber pellets on some of those artificial turf fields? Wow.
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As Richie Allen said "If a horse can`t eat it I don`t want to play on it

"

 
Judge Smails said:
Can't even imagine how many concussions those guys used to get in the North Dallas Forty shoot 'em up and send 'em back out days. Brutal sport.

Tough for parents these days. Now all of these cases are being found where soccer goalies are getting cancer and they are attributing it them diving and inhaling the rubber pellets on some of those artificial turf fields? Wow.
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I have been getting push back from some of my soccer parents about playing in tire turf. Those black pellets burn when they get in your eyes. Some towns have ripped up tire turf and gone to a corn husk and cork field.
 
My son played football in 7 and 8th grade and was really, really good but we decided to pull him out after his good friend was concussed in one of the games. We decided that a possible lifetime of headaches and other brain related issues wasn't worth it. You play a few years and have to suffer for the rest of your life? No way. I'd rather have my son pissed at me than have him deal with that.

He's now into skateboarding where we're dealing with broken bones (foot, fingers, etc...). I can handle that.

 
Artificial turf today is not like it was. It might be a little less forgiving than ground but they don't put it down over a parking lot

 
SHIZNITTTT said:
6th grade championships this past weekend and one of our RB's took a nasty hit that caused him to hit his head (which was in a helmet) hard on the artificial turf. Player was taken to ER and when the Dr. was checking out his eyes he saw something that troubled him, player had a CT done of his head, and they found a subdural bleed. 11 year old kid with a brain injury. He will be ok I think, but as a parent it is just not worth the risk. I love football and if either of my twins wanted to quit I would be ok with their decision.
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What model helmet was he wearing?
 
A friend's son has had 3 pretty bad concussions in 18 months. 1 football, 1 basketball, and 1 off the field. They are holding him out of all sports for a year. The ex college football player dad is not happy. I'm like WTF? The kid could be messed up for life. If it was up to me, he would never play football again. It's a no-brainer (pun intended).

 
The Z Machine said:
SHIZNITTTT said:
6th grade championships this past weekend and one of our RB's took a nasty hit that caused him to hit his head (which was in a helmet) hard on the artificial turf. Player was taken to ER and when the Dr. was checking out his eyes he saw something that troubled him, player had a CT done of his head, and they found a subdural bleed. 11 year old kid with a brain injury. He will be ok I think, but as a parent it is just not worth the risk. I love football and if either of my twins wanted to quit I would be ok with their decision.
Click to expand...
What model helmet was he wearing?
Click to expand...
Schutt Vengeance

 
Ned said:
CGRdrJoe said:
My youngest was on grass when he got his and we had a hard time finding the play that caused it. There was only one time in the first quarter where another kid tackled him from behind and slightly went helmet to helmet with him. That was the only play that made sense that it happened on, sadly I didn't know until he asked me at halftime what time the game was gonna start at that he had a concussion.
Click to expand...
Scary stuff, man. Glad you guys pulled them out of the game. Must've been hard.
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As a sports family it was but as a parent it was a bit easier. The one thing that you can't replace is the friendship that sports brings, my kid definitely spends more time at home now than he did before.
 
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