Look we get it.... can we STOP with all the Romney-bashing headlines already?!?

*clicks article*

Uhhhhh.... hmm, carry on then.

*slowly backs away*

Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

The My Little Pony Killer: Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

Everyone is willing to admit this except those that would be legally liable for it, i.e. the NFL. They've been fighting for years to not acknowledge the long-term effects of concussions.

The prevalence of long-term injuries is likely a major factor with some of the recent rules changes to prevent contact with the head.

This dude is less than 50 years old. He looks like he's older than 70.

born_yesterday: The My Little Pony Killer: Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

Everyone is willing to admit this except those that would be legally liable for it, i.e. the NFL. They've been fighting for years to not acknowledge the long-term effects of concussions.

The prevalence of long-term injuries is likely a major factor with some of the recent rules changes to prevent contact with the head.

Well the NFLPA is also denying the long term effects and doesn't seem to care about the players who built the league.

The pittance they use to help retired players is a shame, if they were to biatch about using the strike for a fund to help older players the people would have been on their side. As it was they made billionaires look sane, that's hard to do.

The My Little Pony Killer: Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

No. The only professional sport where it is even a slight possibility is football.

But won't obamacare help these guys now?

WhyteRaven74: The My Little Pony Killer: Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

No. The only professional sport where it is even a slight possibility is football.

I would think that hockey, rugby and boxing would also probably have similar risks.

lacydog: WhyteRaven74: The My Little Pony Killer: Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

No. The only professional sport where it is even a slight possibility is football.

I would think that hockey, rugby and boxing would also probably have similar risks.

And womens soccer because they don't know how to give head properly.

I've been a football fan since I was a kid, but it just keeps getting ickier and ickier. I think I'm about one on-field fatality from being done with it for good.

WhyteRaven74: The My Little Pony Killer: Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

No. The only professional sport where it is even a slight possibility is football.

I am starting to accept you are just a football troll, there are numerous sports where people face greater chance for a head injury.

CrotchBeard: I've been a football fan since I was a kid, but it just keeps getting ickier and ickier. I think I'm about one on-field fatality from being done with it for good.

Because there has been so many? 2,3? And only two of those are game related and have to do with undetected heart issues, the third was heat stroke.

Fail

The My Little Pony Killer: Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

No.

Gosh. Who knew?

The My Little Pony Killer: Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

Nobody was telling these guys that they were risking ending up drooling in their food or at higher risk for crippling depression, depression so bad that eating a bullet would seem like a good choice.

Broken legs? Bad shoulders? Knarled fingers? Bum knees? Sure. But they aren't killing themselves at age 50 due to a bad knee.

Somebody call Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore

Subby, that's like any of us that work a 40 hour work week...

The 1994 Chargers curse strikes again..

006andahalf: The 1994 Chargers curse strikes again..

came here to say this. beat me to it. 8 dead but how many more like this guy from that team?

The My Little Pony Killer: Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

Risks of this magnitude are standard in a lot of professions, and most of them don't get anything like the compensation even a journeyman football player receives. I think there should be further research into the effects of repeated concussions, and players should be informed in detail of exactly what they're getting into, but aside from that, fark 'em. Then again I was in the military and I know a guy who got shot in the head, and he certainly didn't get paid even close to what a mediocre NFL rookie would get, so I'm a little too busy playing the world's tiniest violin to give a shiat.

malaktaus: The My Little Pony Killer: Um. Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

Risks of this magnitude are standard in a lot of professions, and most of them don't get anything like the compensation even a journeyman football player receives. I think there should be further research into the effects of repeated concussions, and players should be informed in detail of exactly what they're getting into, but aside from that, fark 'em. Then again I was in the military and I know a guy who got shot in the head, and he certainly didn't get paid even close to what a mediocre NFL rookie would get, so I'm a little too busy playing the world's tiniest violin to give a shiat.

Applause.
Lots of it.
While standing.

lacydog: WhyteRaven74: The My Little Pony Killer: Aren't risks to your health like this standard when you go into sports professionally?

No. The only professional sport where it is even a slight possibility is football.

I would think that hockey, rugby and boxing would also probably have similar risks.

I think the science is leading towards showing that the problem is the frequency of the hits and the amount of rest after rather than one big random falling down blow. Football is much worse than even those sports than you listed in terms of frequency and rest, especially RB's and lineman, and of course there's dozens more sports you haven't listed where the risk of concussion is probably less than driving a car or walking while elderly.

I like how everyone talks about "lol you knew what you were getting into", as though a kid pushed into youth football by his parents or a kid going into high school understands the long-term effects of repeated hits to the head and body.

"The square chin, untamed hair and wide shoulders are still there, but so, too, is a flattened nose and a face pale and sallow beyond Hendrickson's 45 years."

Read it and weep, people. Read it and weep.

In the decade since neuropathologists at the University of Pittsburgh and Boston University began diagnosing deceased players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) ---- brain damage from the accumulation of toxic, cell-killing proteins ---- 18 NFL veterans have been identified with the condition.

12349876: . Football is much worse than even those sports than you listed in terms of frequency and rest,

What's more until what last season, there was nothing to say a player with a concussion couldn't play. In boxing ring doctors can stop a bout any time they want if they determine someone is showing signs of not being fit to box any longer. Also referees will ask the ring doctor to check a boxer out if they're getting concerned. And also the referees can end a bout whenever they feel someone is getting pounded too much and can't defend themselves. And it doesn't have to be repeated punches to the head, a series of body blows that leaves a boxer doubling over staggering will end a bout. In hockey concussions are actually quite rare. And also referees have been given broad powers to send players off the ice when they see them smack their head against the ice. Even if the player bounces right back up and feels fine, an NHL referee will send them off the ice to get checked out. And until the player is cleared by a doctor, there's no coming back onto the ice. And as for rugby, while concussions happen, they're far rarer than in football in large part owing to the rules of the game itself. Meanwhile in football you have players being shot up with painkillers just so they can be thrown back into games.

malaktaus: players should be informed in detail of exactly what they're getting into,

When? After they've been in the sport since they were 8, dedicated almost their entire life to it, and about to sign a pro contract?

"Oh, btw, here's some bad shiat that can happen. But sign here and we'll give you $2 million today."

Or how about when they first start.

"Mrs. Johnson, Timmy wants to play football. Here's a picture of a guy's brain who didn't even make the pros but he had the head trauma of a 60 year old alzheimer's patient. Sign the permission waiver here."

Youth football would dry up in a heartbeat if parents were truly informed.

rka: Youth football would dry up in a heartbeat if parents were truly informed.

So be it.

jesus farking christ, dude's 9 years older than me and looks like my grandfather.

Poor man. And I agree, let's see if we can't close that pay gap a little bit between the amount paid to men and women who take up arms to find bad guys in the desert and the amount paid to men who have lots of meetings wearing silly clothes and pound their heads on the ground.

I knew a pretty good football player. He told his son, you can play football until your first knee injury. Then you're done.

WhyteRaven74: And as for rugby, while concussions happen, they're far rarer than in football in large part owing to the rules of the game itself.

There's the rules of the game, and the pace is more like soccer - run for the entire game rather the 20 seconds of intense running directly opposed to your opponent with relatively long breaks in between.

But having played football and rugby, I'd say it's primarily the lack of safety gear that keeps rugby safer than football. You don't lead with your f*cking melon, because it doesn't have a helmet on it. The notion of literally knocking heads 60 times in a three hour span is unfathomable in any sport but football.

I don't care. Draw up a waiver and make the players sign it during their orientation. I miss watching players get "Jacked Up!" Football is a violent war game and should be played as such. I'm fine with their being no helmet-to-helmet hits, or hits to a defenseless player, but all these tiny hitboxes and other pattycake rules need to go. A major part of the allure of football is seeing beastly men completely level one another.

Bag-o-Nugs: I don't care. Draw up a waiver and make the players sign it during their orientation. I miss watching players get "Jacked Up!" Football is a violent war game and should be played as such. I'm fine with their being no helmet-to-helmet hits, or hits to a defenseless player, but all these tiny hitboxes and other pattycake rules need to go. A major part of the allure of football is seeing beastly men completely level one another.

That's a very honest (and fair) opinion, and I think a lot of people share it, even though they might not say it.

The problem is that this approach will lead the NFL down the same path as boxing. Boxing sucks today for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason is that the talent pool from which it draws is not nearly as large as it was during the peak of its popularity. Talent is now drawn exclusively from the largely uneducated lower class.

The NFL is particularly exposed. As it relies on the NCAA as a minor league, the middle class NEEDS to participate - participants cannot be made up primarily of the largely uneducated lower class. Increasingly, parents are not allowing their sons to play football because of studies that show very clearly that participation at any age negatively affects cognitive ability even in the absence of concussion.

If the NFL can't get under this issue somehow - by either rule changes, equipment changes, or another way - then it's going to go through a pretty spectacular transformation.

rka: Youth football would dry up in a heartbeat if parents were truly informed.

And this will be the beginning of the end of football.

Babwa Wawa: Bag-o-Nugs: I don't care. Draw up a waiver and make the players sign it during their orientation. I miss watching players get "Jacked Up!" Football is a violent war game and should be played as such. I'm fine with their being no helmet-to-helmet hits, or hits to a defenseless player, but all these tiny hitboxes and other pattycake rules need to go. A major part of the allure of football is seeing beastly men completely level one another.

That's a very honest (and fair) opinion, and I think a lot of people share it, even though they might not say it.

The problem is that this approach will lead the NFL down the same path as boxing. Boxing sucks today for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason is that the talent pool from which it draws is not nearly as large as it was during the peak of its popularity. Talent is now drawn exclusively from the largely uneducated lower class.

The NFL is particularly exposed. As it relies on the NCAA as a minor league, the middle class NEEDS to participate - participants cannot be made up primarily of the largely uneducated lower class. Increasingly, parents are not allowing their sons to play football because of studies that show very clearly that participation at any age negatively affects cognitive ability even in the absence of concussion.

If the NFL can't get under this issue somehow - by either rule changes, equipment changes, or another way - then it's going to go through a pretty spectacular transformation.

Have injuries gotten better or worse since they started wearing armor? If the armor isn't protecting the players, then who i$ it benefiting? If players were given light pads, similar to rugby, couldn't they play the same game, only they'd have to do it better?

born_yesterday: Have injuries gotten better or worse since they started wearing armor? If the armor isn't protecting the players, then who i$ it benefiting? If players were given light pads, similar to rugby, couldn't they play the same game, only they'd have to do it better?

They've gotten different - not better or worse (or perhaps CTE is just starting to be noticed and diagnosed).