Another dagger in the NFL

[Eldon]

A new study has found that children who play youth football may take more high-magnitude hits to the head than originally thought.

Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) mounted censors on young football players' helmets during 25 to 30 practices and seven games, and found that many players experienced high-magnitude head impacts, defined as impacts greater than 40 times the force of gravity.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/children-play-football-may-more-hits-head-originally-121809928--abc-news-wellness.html

Bad press for the sport of football.

[tower912]

Last fall, my then 9-year-old son and I went to a high school playoff football game.    He was thinking about skipping fall baseball and playing grade school football this season.    During a routine play, an offensive lineman for our team had someone roll up his leg.   We were seated at field level at about the 40 yard line and we could see his leg bent wrong (closed tib/fib fracture) and hear him screaming and pounding the turf.   I took my son for a walk to the concession stand so he wouldn't have to stare at it.   While we were walking there and back, entire sections of fans were praying the rosary (actually pretty cool).
    We got back to our seat as the injured player was being taken off of the field on a stretcher to an ambulance.   After a few more plays, my son said he wanted to go home.    We left.    On the way home, he said "dad, I don't think I want to play football.   I don't think I will be as good at it as I am at baseball and it sure seems easier to get hurt."     I acknowledged his decision and told him I admired his logic. 
   Concussions and injuries are going to impact the long term health of football far more than protests. 

[MU82]

I understand totally, tower, and I wouldn't let my son play football if he were that age.

However ...

I umpire youth baseball. In May, a 10-year-old was on-deck, the batter really got around on one, and the ball was on the kid before he could move. He was wearing a helmet but no face mask. The ball hit him in the left eye, which closed shut and swelled within a minute. He was crying hysterically, blood was everywhere and it looked like a murder scene. The kid ended up being OK and was playing again a few weeks later, but he could have been blinded or worse. And even if he had been wearing a helmet, maybe the ball hits him right in the chest and kills him.

Every sport has its risks, even a seemingly benign one like baseball.

There are a TON of injuries in youth soccer, many minor but a surprising high number of fairly series injuries, too. A lot of the girls basketball players I coached also played soccer, and I hated seeing their parent's name on my caller ID because I immediately thought: "Oh no, I'm not losing another one to a soccer injury, am I?"

[tower912]

We are in agreement, Mike.   I, too, have seen black eyes, bloody noses, split lips, bruises, welts from baseball.   I have seen broken wrists from defensive drills in basketball, as well as the usual assortment of sprains, strains, bruises.     Through work, I have seen what can happen walking down the sidewalk when a drunk driver jumps a curb.   Life is dangerous.   

Football is moreso. 

[dgies9156]

My son played pee wee football through eighth grade and loved it. He was injured only once, a sprained ankle for which kept playing. Something about being a part of the team and being part of something bigger than himself. Otherwise, injury free from third to eighth grade. By high school, he would have been broken in half if he played beyond freshman year.

My daughter played competitive soccer through high school and into college. She is a no-prisoners soccer player and goes gonzo from the opening whistle. She's had two concussions, enough sprained ligaments to make her eligible for the Green Bay Packers and assorted other bumps and bruises. For a time, she had a frequent treatment card at our local emergency room.

Our experience is youth soccer is a much more dangerous experience than youth football. Neither case are we having our normal sized human children go up against the Clay Matthewses of the high school set. But I don't get it -- unless you are playing competitive travel with no weight limitations, football is OK.

[Jockey]

My son played pee wee football through eighth grade and loved it. He was injured only once, a sprained ankle for which kept playing. Something about being a part of the team and being part of something bigger than himself. Otherwise, injury free from third to eighth grade. By high school, he would have been broken in half if he played beyond freshman year.

My daughter played competitive soccer through high school and into college. She is a no-prisoners soccer player and goes gonzo from the opening whistle. She's had two concussions, enough sprained ligaments to make her eligible for the Green Bay Packers and assorted other bumps and bruises. For a time, she had a frequent treatment card at our local emergency room.

Our experience is youth soccer is a much more dangerous experience than youth football. Neither case are we having our normal sized human children go up against the Clay Matthewses of the high school set. But I don't get it -- unless you are playing competitive travel with no weight limitations, football is OK.

The problem with CTE in football players is not due to a hard hit or two to the head.  It is the accumulation of hundred and hundreds of lighter hits.

[MU82]

My father hated when I played football in HS and he was relieved when I stopped.

My son decided he wanted to play peewee football when he was 9, and we let him. That was 1996, and none of this research was out then (or at least I hadn't heard about it), and he loved football, so saying no wasn't even a thought. My dad was outraged, though.

About 2 days after practice started, my son was playing on the school's jungle gym, fell and broke his arm. I called my dad to tell him about it and he said: "See? That's what happens when you let a little kid play a stupid sport like football!"

I waited for him to finish his rant - he actually was an incredibly calm man, so this was unusual for him - and then I said: "Well, he broke his arm falling off the jungle gym, if that makes you feel better about it."

By the time my son healed the season was over, and he never really wanted to play again because he got so into basketball.

Just a fun little anecdote from my Family File!

[Tugg Speedman]

Speaking of daggers ...

NFL's 'Monday Night Football' Gets Third-Lowest TV Rating Since 2006
October. 17. 2017
https://www.mrctv.org/blog/nfls-monday-night-football-gets-third-lowest-tv-rating-2006

On the heels of ESPN refusing to air the national anthem during Monday night’s matchup between the visiting Indianapolis Colts and host Tennessee Titans, ratings for the game were the third worst for a Monday night game since ESPN bought the rights to Monday Night Football back in 2006.

------------

Go ahead and say this was two crappy teams (Colts without Luck = crappy) but I thought this was the NFL and it was the country's religion.  Crappy matchups are not supposed to matter.

So the NFL ratings are ...

Patriots and Cowboys good

Packers were good until Rodgers went down, now they are crap ... unless they sign Kaepernick then they become the NFL's sideshow.

All other teams are unless.

This is not how the NFL sold its broadcast rights for billions of dollars a year.



NFL ratings continue fall, latest Nielsen numbers show
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21056998/nfl-ratings-75-percent-week-6-2017-compared-2016
Darren Rovell

Through the first six weeks of the NFL season, total viewership of games is down 7.5 percent, compared with the first six weeks of 2016.

An average of 15 million people watched games for the first six weeks this year, compared with 16.2 million people through Week 6 last season, according to metrics from Nielsen.


In the past week, Credit Suisse lowered its price targets on both Fox and CBS stock, citing NFL ratings declines.

"If ratings don't improve materially, we see a potential headwind to domestic advertising revenues," the investment bank's analyst Omar Sheikh wrote of Fox on Thursday.

On Monday, Sheikh estimated third-quarter revenue for CBS would be off 3 percent, versus the previously projected 1 percent, due to "soft ratings for both the summer [programming] and for the start of the NFL season."

[warriorchick]

My son played pee wee football through eighth grade and loved it. He was injured only once, a sprained ankle for which kept playing. Something about being a part of the team and being part of something bigger than himself. Otherwise, injury free from third to eighth grade. By high school, he would have been broken in half if he played beyond freshman year.

My daughter played competitive soccer through high school and into college. She is a no-prisoners soccer player and goes gonzo from the opening whistle. She's had two concussions, enough sprained ligaments to make her eligible for the Green Bay Packers and assorted other bumps and bruises. For a time, she had a frequent treatment card at our local emergency room.

Our experience is youth soccer is a much more dangerous experience than youth football. Neither case are we having our normal sized human children go up against the Clay Matthewses of the high school set. But I don't get it -- unless you are playing competitive travel with no weight limitations, football is OK.

Yep, my niece plays soccer at Father Ryan and pulled an Aaron Rodgers  - broke her collarbone one season, then broke the other one in a later season.

[Benny B]

I understand totally, tower, and I wouldn't let my son play football if he were that age.

However ...

I umpire youth baseball. In May, a 10-year-old was on-deck, the batter really got around on one, and the ball was on the kid before he could move. He was wearing a helmet but no face mask. The ball hit him in the left eye, which closed shut and swelled within a minute. He was crying hysterically, blood was everywhere and it looked like a murder scene. The kid ended up being OK and was playing again a few weeks later, but he could have been blinded or worse. And even if he had been wearing a helmet, maybe the ball hits him right in the chest and kills him.

Every sport has its risks, even a seemingly benign one like baseball.

There are a TON of injuries in youth soccer, many minor but a surprising high number of fairly series injuries, too. A lot of the girls basketball players I coached also played soccer, and I hated seeing their parent's name on my caller ID because I immediately thought: "Oh no, I'm not losing another one to a soccer injury, am I?"

I realize this is an extreme, but let's set aside CTE for a moment..... what would be the worst possible injuries (short of death) amongst the various sports for someone in perfect health (e.g. not a congenital condition that simply occurred or was catalyzed by competiting)?

Paralysis?  Blindness?  Loss of limbs or digits?

You could probably make the case that any of these could happen in any of the professional sports (where the "worst case" is probably sterility) even though some may be more likely in one than the other, e.g. blindness is probably more likely in baseball than it is in the other sports.  So back to CTE... it's mostly isolated to football, no?  Perhaps further studies will show it to be a problem in hockey and soccer at some point, or perhaps they won't, but for right now, CTE is pretty much a football thing.  At the very least, we can say that CTE isn't really a concern for baseball and basketball.  So that being said, and considering that one of the common symptoms of CTE is suicide...

Football is the only sport where the "worst case injury short of death" can still directly lead to death.  That's a pretty big distinction in my book.