Apparently repeated head trauma with or without a concussion causes it. http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/health/cte-concussion-repeated-hits-study/index.html
So contact sports can never be made safe. With that being said Boxing and UFC still exists so no big deal for the NFL. Might convince a lot of parents to prevent their kids from playing high school, jr. high football though.
If you get a lot hits to the head you will likely get a concussion. The NFL needs to be very worried.
They don't fight as much so maybe a month of sparing and 2-3 fights a year. Boxing is very niche sport as is the UFC. Boxing used to be huge.
Not to mention the first time you get concussed in a fight you are most likely either knocked out or the ref ends the fight. Not the case in the NFL.
Idiots will try to spin this as being good for the NFL. "See concussions don't cause brain damage. It is safe"....... the reality is that this is REALLY bad for the NFL and college football. It was possible for the NFL to attempt to LIMIT concussions. How in the hell is the NFL or college football going to be able to stop blows to the head? Not going to happen. As football starts to erode at the pee wee level, and then the middle school level, and finally the high school level....... the quality and popularity of the game is going to suffer. Football is extremely popular, and very profitable but opinions can change quickly over a decade or more. Don't forget that it wasn't that long ago that a majority of American's were disgusted with the idea of gay marriages, and now most people don't care one way or the other.
Isn't this why the NFL allowed the "Concussion" movie to happen because they forced them to title the movie "Concussion"?
I thought this was already known????? It's called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy for a reason, it's caused from repeated hits to the head. I will say that most people that have it have probably experienced concussions at some point due to the repeated hits to the head, but the hits do the damage w/ or w/o concussions. In boxers they can get dementia pugilistica (DP), and it's pretty much a subtype of CTE. ALS can also be seen in some cases where repeated hits to the head occur. Basically once that Tau protein is out of control the brain is destroyed.
Oh football is screwed once they can diagnose in living people. all it’s going to take is a few 14 year olds to be diagnosed and their family’s to sue the high schools for them to eliminate it at the high school level and then from there your entire pipeline is messed up. I give football 20-25 years before it’s almost entirely eliminated. Or looked at as a combat sport similar to boxing or MMA but it’s days of being the all American team sport are numbered.
I bet it's a diagnosis at the collegiate level that ignites the lawsuit freight train. Not sure how many 14 year-olds would accumulate enough hits for their brains to be affected.
But you also have to take into account these are kids with undeveloped brains who knows exactly how many hits it takes to do significant damage for all we know it could be just a few well placed shots. And I know from my middle school days and my freshman year that there are some pretty brutal tackles at that level because these kids don’t know how to play the game and are just throwing their bodies around. Now that was ten years ago and they are supposed to be teaching better techniques but when you have 90 kids sometimes on high school teams it’s impossible to teach everyone
I don't think it's the NFL's job to prevent these hits...I think it's on the players to care for each other's health instead of trying to get highlight hits.
There's always the argument that getting rid of helmets, like rugby, would make the game safer because players won't make the same head to head contact if neither player is wearing a helmet. Players would instinctively protect parts of the body that they don't now because extra padding makes them feel invincible. Of course, nobody wants to watch that. We want to see players laying it on the line, not avoiding contact in an effort to protect themselves from injury.
Call me old fashioned but I'm still strongly opposed to gay CTE. I just don't want to go outside with my family and see two gay men with CTE. Seriously though this really shouldn't be a shock that head trauma leads to bad things, CTE among them. I think you're right that football, as we know it, has only so much time left. It doesn't help that the NFL as an organization kinda sucks and is easy to dislike.
I believe I heard somewhere (possibly on the Joe Rogan podcast) that the tackler himself receives damage every time he tackles someone.