Former NFL player Phillip Adams found to have severe CTE / Discussion on CTE and the future of the NFL

[Matts4313]

1 hour ago, LoFi said:

The hard hits aren't the problem with CTE.

What a silly thing to say. Hard hits lead to concussions that takes days/week to recover. Small ones can last 30 minutes before you feel fine.

1 hour ago, LoFi said:

It is the repeated small hits that players take to the head that will really bring on the CTE. Even soccer has high rates of CTE, believe it or not. 

 

Im sure the small ones are a lot more prevalent. But also, the CTE we care about is actually rare. They are stupid and claim any signs of CTE is bad, but you can have CTE "signs" from falling as a toddler. I read an article once that claimed 90% of all brains show some sign of CTE, but its 99% if youve played sports. So even if you are a stay at home mom, youve probably bruised your brain at some point in life.

 

The only thing we really care about is severe CTE. Which I believe thats been shown to be less than 30% of all athletes and like ~35% for NFL, but I am to lazy to look it up.

[JonMcC2018]

The main issue for the NFL (as well as rugby here in the UK) will be when adults stop their children from playing the game. Participation drops, interest drops, investment drops and so on and so on.

I'm not an overly protective parent by any stretch but I probably won't have my children playing rugby at a young age. The risk of damage to the brain just isn't worth the risk, especially when there are other, safer sports they could be playing instead and getting just as much enjoyment from.

[WheatieMan]

If soccer is a problem, then you’d have to ban heading. Have those cases been completely underreported internationally? 30-35% of NFL players? If that was really the number the sport would be banned tomorrow. If they can’t get the threshold well below 15%, maybe sub 5%, the game has no future in its current form, sorry to say.

I mean, we are decades away and no one can know what kind of political and economic climate we will be in, but the numbers have to come down to 1-2% give or take your position (ie kicker vs corner/safety).

[WheatieMan]

9 minutes ago, JonMcC2018 said:

The main issue for the NFL (as well as rugby here in the UK) will be when adults stop their children from playing the game. Participation drops, interest drops, investment drops and so on and so on.

I'm not an overly protective parent by any stretch but I probably won't have my children playing rugby at a young age. The risk of damage to the brain just isn't worth the risk, especially when there are other, safer sports they could be playing instead and getting just as much enjoyment from.

Yes, but football is becoming an increasingly regional game. It’s largely the rust belt states and the south East from Fla to Texas. Participation is dropping out west and the NorthEast in favor of more international or diversified sports, hence the reason we have fewer programs out there. The participation will just be more concentrated but as long as the economic incentive is there the best players will play college ball at LSU and Bama and we will go to a semiprofessional collegiate model. You do wonder about accessibility to the game for kids growing up in the west or the Northeast however.

The real debate becomes the economic downside versus the medical issues. If you have a good fraction of players that have a horrible quality of life after football, especially fringe players, the sport as it is is on borrowed time. I mean what fraction of players are making $100 million dollars?

Edited December 15, 2021 by WheatieMan

[JonMcC2018]

9 minutes ago, WheatieMan said:

If soccer is a problem, then you’d have to ban heading. Have those cases been completely underreported internationally? 30-35% of NFL players? If that was really the number the sport would be banned tomorrow. If they can’t get the threshold well below 15%, maybe sub 5%, the game has no future in its current form, sorry to say.

I mean, we are decades away and no one can know what kind of political and economic climate we will be in, but the numbers have to come down to 1-2% give or take your position (ie kicker vs corner/safety).

Heading will be banned in football within 10-15 years, I'm fairly sure of that. There are already moves heavily restricting it in children's football and they've even started to trial headerless matches where heading the ball is treated like a handball.

The sport will survive though as heading can easily be removed from the game (it may even improve the product). American Football and Rugby however... without completely changing the sport there is only so much that can be done. In rugby they ran a trail where players were only allowed to tackle below the waist, and guess what.... it resulted in significantly more head injuries. I think both sports will be gone within 20 years.

[WheatieMan]

11 minutes ago, JonMcC2018 said:

Heading will be banned in football within 10-15 years, I'm fairly sure of that. There are already moves heavily restricting it in children's football and they've even started to trial headerless matches where heading the ball is treated like a handball.

The sport will survive though as heading can easily be removed from the game (it may even improve the product). American Football and Rugby however... without completely changing the sport there is only so much that can be done. In rugby they ran a trail where players were only allowed to tackle below the waist, and guess what.... it resulted in significantly more head injuries. I think both sports will be gone within 20 years.

Yeah if heading can be banned then American football will be forced to make serious adjustments to its game sooner than later. Better hope your team wins a championship soon because we ain’t making in to SB 100 unless it’s flag football.

Edited December 15, 2021 by WheatieMan

[Matts4313]

1 hour ago, WheatieMan said:

If soccer is a problem, then you’d have to ban heading. Have those cases been completely underreported internationally? 30-35% of NFL players? If that was really the number the sport would be banned tomorrow. If they can’t get the threshold well below 15%, maybe sub 5%, the game has no future in its current form, sorry to say.

I mean, we are decades away and no one can know what kind of political and economic climate we will be in, but the numbers have to come down to 1-2% give or take your position (ie kicker vs corner/safety).

Severe CTE is memory loss at 60 for most people, not murder. Though obviously prone to things like depression as well. Blaming CTE for killing people is liken to people who blame the gun. You still have to be a crazy person to pull the trigger. For most people (I would imagine that number to be 99.9999999999998%), CTE doesnt make you go turn into a psycho. I would think the more likely thing would be suicide, but even the numbers on that are insanely low.

[Matts4313]

Theres 23k people who have played football. And according to Ranker there has been 9 to commit murder (10 now) - I think that gives you a pretty solid grasp how saying CTE is a major cause in murders is kinda stupid. The link between the two, if there is any, is absolutely infinitesimal. 

10/23000 - - I mean, come on. 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Matts4313

[WheatieMan]

1 hour ago, Matts4313 said:

Severe CTE is memory loss at 60 for most people, not murder. Though obviously prone to things like depression as well. Blaming CTE for killing people is liken to people who blame the gun. You still have to be a crazy person to pull the trigger. For most people (I would imagine that number to be 99.9999999999998%), CTE doesnt make you go turn into a psycho. I would think the more likely thing would be suicide, but even the numbers on that are insanely low.

Let’s not make it a political discussion, but seriously, we’ve had several cases of murder suicide from former NFL players. I can think of two other cases from the 2010s (already mentioned one, the other one is pretty well documented). I think brains tested positive in all three of these cases. Three cases in about 10 years, especially involving murder, is a huge deal. What percent of the population plays in the NFL and how many of those players go on to be murderers while coincidentally suffering from CTE related issues? There is no way we will ever have enough of an N sample size (not that we want a high N), but if there is any remote statistical significance, we are going to flag football… sooner than you think.

[WheatieMan]

1 hour ago, Matts4313 said:

Theres 23k people who have played football. And according to Ranker there has been 9 to commit murder (10 now) - I think that gives you a pretty solid grasp how saying CTE is a major cause in murders is kinda stupid. The link between the two, if there is any, is absolutely infinitesimal. 

10/23000 - - I mean, come on. 

That’s all cool, but the business is not going to be validated on statistics like these when the anecdotal evidence is such as I’ve mentioned.

The bottom line is we are going to need predictive medicine that can diagnose “at risk” brains and genes at a very early age. If that technology doesn’t come through fast, we are going to flag football and that’s not necessarily a 50% business killer.

[scar988]

I don't know medicine, but I went to school for engineering. There's a lot of interesting things they can do with helmet designs as well as neck support that could help with concussions due to the biomechanics of the body. The biggest two things they need to do though are enforce mouth pieces and make sure everyone wears one because a lot of CTE-causing sub-concussive blows would be negated with a proper mouthguard (biomechanics are cool), and they need to create more of a shock-absorbing helmet instead of a shock-creating helmet with a little give in spots so that it's not just one shell (Revolution is great. The biggest thing they need to do is enforce high head hits and make sure no one is making those kinds of tackles on the regular anymore.

[incognito_man]

5 hours ago, Matts4313 said:

I read an article once that claimed 90% of all brains show some sign of CTE, but its 99% if youve played sports.

Please find this. All my googling has indicated 90-99% in former football players and the only "non-athlete" study I found shows 6% among them.

[iknowcool]

8 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

This is the crux of the argument tho. Especially for those people like yourself who, I'm assuming, never had multiple severe head injuries versus someone like myself who has.

They are still learning about CTE and the effects it can have on a person. See Chris Benoit for example. Don't judge a book by it's cover.

It's not that simple. I had SEVERAL head injuries myself in my early years and I live a "normal" life too. I have a wife and 2 kids and I run a business. I feel normal most of the time. But don't think for one second that I don't still feel the effects of those blows taking a toll years later.

Don't judge a book by it's cover (I'll keep saying this because I personally know the effects)

Let me clarify, I am not saying those players who have suffered from numerous head injuries don't have problems or that it can't lead to severe mental health struggles. So maybe saying "normal" lives was poor wording on my end, so my apologies on that.  I understand how bad the effects can be.

What I meant was, in context of this thread and the idea of the NFL shutting down, I think it would have to go beyond former players having poor mental health or other injuries related to CTE.  I don't mean to sound insensitive when I say that, because I can't even imagine the pain some must go through everyday, I just don't think the league or as Jak said politicians would push for the NFL to shutdown if the issues former players experience are usually confined to them and/or their home life, especially now when the dangers of the sport are relayed to players signing up.  Unless we begin to see a trend where former players were beginning to do more violent things and that it could be traced to CTE, or that the public eye began seeing more of these problems come to focus from more and more players (if that makes sense).  And until more research is done or this becomes more prevalent across the NFL, I think it would be difficult to say this incident was caused solely or largely because of football injuries.  If I had to guess, it was a factor, but how big of a factor?  

Same argument I would make for Benoit.  Benoit had a lot of issues going on, between a declining marriage, poor health (autopsy found an enlarged heart that could have killed him within the next year), and was a heavy steroid user.  CTE possibly played a factor, but not sure we could confidently say it played more or as big of a factor as the others.  

Edited December 15, 2021 by iknowcool

[incognito_man]

Here's a Forbes article discussing the decline in football popularity at lower levels:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2020/01/28/the-decline-of-football-is-real-and-its-accelerating/?sh=471135a92f37

[incognito_man]

3 hours ago, Matts4313 said:

Theres 23k people who have played football.

wut

There are millions of youth who play football and suffer from CTE without even coming remotely close to sniffing the pros.