Comments on: Junior Seau had brain disease caused by "two decades of hits to the head"

By: Miriam Anixter

Miriam Anixter — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:20:00 +0000

My dad always says– “well, they know what they were getting into”. I find that very hard to believe, since these guys have spent years coming up through a sport where to persevere requires a strong belief that they are the special one that will make it to the bigs. How many high school players make it big in college? How many of them get drafted? How many of them have a lucrative career in the NFL? (assuming no career ending injuries along the way). They’ve spent years of work and sacrifice based on the belief that they will be the lucky one– how much easier to believe that they will be the lucky one that avoids the effects of head trauma? The players will always be grasping at that golden ticket and have everything to lose and the NFL (and college teams) are the ones making all the money.

By: Miriam Anixter

Miriam Anixter — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

I sincerely doubt that the NFL cares one whit about the health of the players when money is involved.

By: Rob O'Daniel

Rob O'Daniel — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:48:00 +0000

Flag football may be, as you say, just a game (and I’m all in favor of switching to it) but professional football is anything but a game. It becomes ever-more distant from that rootstock each year.

Pro football is BIG business, pure and simple. As long as GMC, Geiko, GoDaddy, and General Mills keep reaping massive revenue, pro football will continue as is, tragic and utterly-preventable player deaths be damned.

By: Florian Bösch

Florian Bösch — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:26:00 +0000

It’s scientific now, whacks to the head are not healthy. Who’d have thunk.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:02:00 +0000

I have read about soccer players being injured by heading balls.

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 23:32:00 +0000

CTE has a long history, especially among boxers though it’s being seen in other sports like football and hockey. There is no way to be certain that CTE “caused” the suicides that are happening in NFL players though. It can be a range of factors.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/romeo-vitelli/junior-seau-suicide_b_1821545.html

By: plyx

plyx — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:15:00 +0000

At first glance I thought the title said ‘Junior Seau had brain disease called “two decades of hits to the head”. Needless to say I’m relieved I’ve now seen the title correctly.

By: xzzy

xzzy — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:05:00 +0000

The game doesn’t need justification, it’s just a game. The game remains fun if you switch to flags instead of tackles. You may not be able to maintain a 9 billion dollar a year league showcasing flag football, but the game itself would still be enjoyable.

Finely tuned athletes crashing into each other at full sprint and using their head as the initial contact point is what’s hard to justify.It remains to be seen if that can be regulated out of the game without alienating viewership.

There’s certainly a lot of lip service going around, but I think eventually the medical community is going to decide that all head contact is verboten and at that point we’ll see whether the NFL is truly willing to sacrifice revenue for health.

By: Marja Erwin

Marja Erwin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:31:00 +0000

It’s an old issue. Didn’t the split between soccer and rugby begin with safety issues? Although the cumulative brain injury issue probably affects every form of football to some degree. It’s probably something that should be considered in soccer too, banning the header in favor of body traps.

By: flickerKuu

flickerKuu — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:30:00 +0000

Have to agree with you. Smashing human heads together is Cro Magnon and hurts more than just the two guys doing it.

By: chaopoiesis

chaopoiesis — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:38:00 +0000

The best way to save pro football at this point is to make it touch.

Validation could be implemented with mobile electronics… iGlads.

By: SedanChair

SedanChair — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:19:00 +0000

I’ll repeat what I said at the time of the Jovan Belcher tragedy:

This pattern is becoming all too familiar. Junior Seau and Dave Duerson both shot themselves after they realized they were losing control. Both men had no history of domestic violence, then suddenly lashed out at their spouses.
It’s getting harder and harder to justify this game.

By: Justin Forposting

Justin Forposting — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:04:00 +0000

or maybe he had brain damage that caused him to choose to ram his head against things for two decades.