Clay Mathews has a legit beef

[Formula 21]

Would you let your kids play football? Would you let your kids go through this?

Rick Maese and Roman Stubbs

[Budsman]

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.