Clay Mathews has a legit beef

[like54ninjas]

[Budsman]

[JOJAX85]

In the same way that you can not unbox boxing, you can not unfootball football. The sport is what it is & everyone who has ever put on a helmet knows this. You can't police people from themselves if that's how they choose to make their living.

[like54ninjas]

[like54ninjas]

In the same way that you can not unbox boxing, you can not unfootball football. The sport is what it is & everyone who has ever put on a helmet knows this. You can't police people from themselves if that's how they choose to make their living.

[Coachmarkos]

I propose all players wear smart shirts and we just make it two hand touch. No need for all those pads so they can go faster and score more point! Yay...

Even if you are joking... I would not be surprised if this is the future of the sport.

It's so dangerous and physically damaging. There's going to be lots of more lawsuits. Lots more.

[Budsman]

[Budsman]

Even if you are joking... I would not be surprised if this is the future of the sport.

It's so dangerous and physically damaging. There's going to be lots of more lawsuits. Lots more.

Only half joking

[21&500]

Only half joking

[foreigner]

The only thing that I know is that the NFL is not concerned about the health of the players.. they're only concerned about losing money with a lot of lawsuits.. its all about the money.

[JOJAX85]

The only thing that I know is that the NFL is not concerned about the health of the players.. they're only concerned about losing money with a lot of lawsuits.. its all about the money.

This. I've been saying this all along. They knew about CTE when they were promoting Crunch Course & You Got Jacked Up! Wasn't until the lawsuits starting showing up that they cared about players safety.

[Guest]

I agree.

Some experts say that playing in a football game (collision wise), is almost the equivalent of being in a small car crash. The average NFL career is 3-6 years. But if a person, for most of their life has been involved in collisions... collisions at the pop warner level, collisions at the high school level, collisions at the college level... potentially 15 years of collisions prior to even making the NFL, then there's no telling (without the proper testing) what state he was already in by the time his NFL career actually began, a career that's going to consist of more big hits & collisions. Some of these players (especially the ones who play a long time) have endured 25-30 years of collisions, from pop warner to the pros.

I'm just not sure exactly how you'd make this safe. A tackle, even a legal proper form tackle, is still a collision. Things like weight (the size differences of the players on the field) and speed (how fast the players are moving when the collision occurs) makes this a difficult problem to address.

You can't make football 100% safe as long as tackling occurs. There will always be a risk of someone getting hurt and that comes with the territory. I don't play football but I do play rugby and that is a physical sport. Some weeks you can come off the field with a bloody nose, a gash, a concussion, or just generally feeling like you've been hit by a car because you've had people put their body into your body. Those collisions are not good for your body. If you compared me at nearly 30-years old to my best mate who has never played rugby or physical sport in his life (the most he's done is soccer), we are worlds apart. My knees aren't 100% and you can tell that when I walk. My back has its moments as do other parts of my body as a result of the physical contact that a sport like rugby has. But I knew the risks of that before I started to play and I don't believe there is a way you an alter the way rugby is played in order to make it safer. It is what it is - a physical, and at times violent sport.

Coming back to football. If you have tackling and physical contact there is no way you can make it 100% safe for everyone. Some of the measures taken to protect quarterbacks seem to have caused issues for non-QBs. So it is no wonder players are complaining about the changes that have been made because what is helping Mr Quarterback is not helping Mr Defensive player. What the NFL needs to do is work for everyone. So either they need to let things be and let the players tackle and not go flag happy and wrap the QB in cotton wool, or they put flags on the quarterback and go to flag football. You can't do a halfway house because what helps one position is hurting another, and ultimately due to the nature of the sport you can't protect everyone.

When a kid hits their mid-teens they are capable of making a decision. All you can do is present them with the facts and they will either decide to play or not. It is like smoking or drinking alcohol to excess. My gran never knew the risks and Hollywood made it glamorous to smoke, but there is no excuse for a child in their teens today (or even when I was growing up in the 2000s) to say they don't know the risks of smoking because they are there for everyone to see. Same goes with football. The risks of the game are clear to see. So that kid either decides to play and take the risks that come with it even though they may never turn pro, or decide not to play in fear of something that may never happen to them, because like smoking not every football player has CTE or suffers a major injury.

If I had kids would I let them play? Yes. I would have the discussion with them about the risks of football and then the decision would be theirs. I would not want to be one of those parents that stops a kid from playing the game because I know how I would have felt had my parents done the same thing.

The potential knock on effect of kids not starting to play football until their mid-teens onward is that they might end up staying in college for their full eligibility in order to be as prepared for the professional game as possible. Currently we see a lot of top prospects spend as little time in college as possible in order to minimize the punishment their bodies take because they are amateurs and want to get to the pros as soon as possible to make money, but if they start playing later they will likely have to spend longer in college and those college coaches will have a lot more players for 4 or 5 years than they currently do. Now whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is up for debate, but there is a growing desire from college athletes to get to the NFL as quick as possible and that is hurting the college game because players like Sam Darnold bolt as soon as the possibly can.