There are few things as ingrained into American society as football. Whether it is youth organizations like Pop Warner, fantasy football leagues with colleagues and peers, or even just watching your local team play every week, football has now taken a strong embodiment in United States society. It has even got to the point where some families decide to watch or do something involved in football rather than spend the time with their loved ones. This beloved American past time is not the prettiest however. It is routed deep into the primal need of humans for bloodshed, dating back to the roman empire, and is cause of significant injury. The National Football League needs to make serious changes to the rules and equipment in order to take better care of their players.
Why is it that people live to watch this aggressive, gladiatorial sport? What draws Americans to it more than anything else? It seems like people push back so hard against making the game less violent and less prone to injury. Why is that? It comes down to human psychology, as George Orwell said, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in violence. In other words, it is war without shooting” (Glass). As much as people try to make sports about respect for the game and for other players, at the end of the day it comes down to the love of violence and beating the opposition. Even looking back two thousand years ago to the Roman Empire, humans demonstrated their love of violence, and it was on their own people. They demonstrated this in the form of gladiator battles in colosseums. People would gather and watch people brutally fight each other to the death. These were some of the most watched activities in Roman culture during this time period, so it shows to what degree these humans were interested in these events. Human behavior like this really shows the true psychology and deep-down urges they have as a race.
Football is like a modern-day gladiator fight. A number of the people attending these games are there for the sole purpose of witnessing these huge, concussion-causing, hits. A lot of people actually encourage these violent actions. When at a football game it is not uncommon to hear people scream, “Kill him” when referring to their own team tackling the opposing team. It is actually so common place that it may go unnoticed, people expect it. Now that battles to the death are no longer allowed, humans need other ways to satisfy their primal needs, and some people use football to achieve this.
The National Football League, the main source of professional football in America, has been under a lot of scrutiny lately for several extremely violent hits resulting in concussions and players not being able to function properly. This caused a few slight rule changes to the concussion protocol, where if a player appears to have a concussion, then the trainer for the team is required to pull them out of the game and evaluate them. These slight rule changes are not enough however. Players are still being injured at an alarming rate and it seems to only be on the rise, “From 2002, when the NFL expanded to 32 teams, until 2014, Injuries were on a constant rise in terms of both reported injuries and weeks missed due to injuries” (Marks). Even though several rule changes have been implemented over the past several years to try to better protect the players, it appears that they have not had much success.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that a concussion is a brain injury caused by an action that results with the head moving rapidly, causing the brain to bash against the interior of the skull. This sudden movement can cause chemical changes in the brain and ultimately damaging of brain cells (What is a Concussion?). Up until the turn of the century not much was known about concussions or what could be caused from them. It was believed mostly that a good night’s sleep would usually be enough to shake a head injury off. This is not true however. Head injuries like concussions have long-lasting effects. These injuries have been linked to a degenerative brain disease known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, known as CTE. In this brain disease, a protein referred to as Tau causes clumps to form inside of the brain, slowly spreading throughout the brain and ultimately killing brain cells. After enough brain cells have been killed, eventually the death of the person ensues (Pew and Shapiro). Symptoms may not present themselves until decades after the concussion is received however, so it is quite difficult to catch this disease while it is still a small issue. CTE can also not be confirmed until after the death of the victim through an autopsy. This means getting proper treatment while still alive is rather hard.
CTE is much more widespread than people believe. An article by CNN claims that this degenerative brain disorder was found in 99% of scanned brains of NFL players that were donated for scientific research (Emmanuel). This is an outrageous discovery. This shows that by the end of their career, nearly all NFL players have developed some amount of CTE. This means that most players will suffer from the severe headaches, memory shortages, early death, along with the many other things associated with CTE, for all their lives. No wonder the average age of NFL players is a mere 53-59 years old, around twenty years less than the average American citizen (Raley). A number of players, like the beloved Patriots linebacker, Junior Seau, actually committed suicide because dealing with this brain disease was too painful. Another NFL player named Dave Duerson committed suicide as well. He shot himself in the heart instead of the brain, so he could donate his brain for scientific research on CTE. He did not want anybody to have to deal with the pain he had to deal with. The fact that these two men, and many others, had all the money and fame in the world, and they still could not bear to live with all the burdens on them from this brain disease, shows the magnitude at which it affects its victims. This serious issue needs to be addressed, and it starts with serious refinements to the rules of the game and the equipment worn.
One of the most dangerous areas of football that needs some serious addressing is special teams. Special teams, whether it is kickoff, kick/punt return, or punt, has players run full speed at each other with tens of yards of distance to build up speed and collide at maximum velocity. When this part of football is dissected it does not make much sense. Special teams should be abolished from the sport of football. It is an aspect that makes up very little of the actual game, but creates the highest percentage of injuries per play, “Last season, the injury rate was 1.6% on runs, 1.5% on passes, 1.3% on punts, and 2.0% on kickoffs” (Burke). This would be a rule change that would leave the game relatively unaffected, since special teams does not make up a large portion of the game, but it would change the injury risk rather drastically. A rule change was installed in an attempt to reduce injuries in this dangerous play by, “…moving kickoff touchbacks up to the 25-yard line. The goal was to reduce the number of kickoffs that would be returned, enticing teams to kneel in the end zone and take the extra 5 yards” (DaSilva, 2017). This rule change is a slight upgrade from how it was before but only slightly. Players still return kicks, just at a slightly decreased rate, which results in slightly decreased injuries. The most effective way to cut back on special teams’ injuries would be to eliminate it from the game altogether. Getting rid of these aspects would not make a huge difference on the sport of football. Instead of having kickoffs, the ball would just be placed on the opposing teams 25-yard line. Instead of having punt and punt return, equally brutal aspects of the game, when a team wants to punt the ball, the ball will just be moved 50 yards downfield and the opposing team would take possession of it. Field goals can remain, however the defense would not be on the field for it. It would just be the kicker and the holder. While some people may say that this takes away from the excitement of the game, it is a necessary adjustment to make the game safer for its players since this is such a destructive aspect of the game.
Another aspect of the game that needs to be changed is the equipment. Every year newer and “safer” helmets are released, and players use them. Unfortunately, it appears that these “safer” helmets have not been rather safe at all, since the rate of concussions in the NFL is currently the highest it has ever been. In an article written be the ESPN analyst Kevin Seifert he states that, “NFL players were diagnosed with more concussions in 2017 than in any season since the league began sharing the data in 2012, according information released Friday afternoon” (Seifert). This shows that the concussion rate has actually gone up with these new helmets, showing that they do not create a safer game.
Helmets are not a safe way to protect a player’s head from damage in the first place. Playing without a helmet at all may actually be safer than playing with one, “It would be very rare for a non-helmeted sport to hit head to head, cranium to cranium, but that is what is happening in modern play in the NFL. We think it is surprisingly part of the problem in a way” (Knapton). It appears that although most people believe helmets make a player safer, playing without a helmet may make the game equally, if not more safe. Playing without helmets would also create a safer playing field because it would force people to stop leading with their head when trying to initiate contact. The NFL has tried making several rule changes to prevent players from leading with their head, but players will not always follow them. And when a player does lead with his head, since there are only several referees on the field, the violation does not always get caught and the player would never be penalized for it. Due to the fact that there are 22 players on the football field at once, it is really difficult for a referee to catch every incident that happens. The most efficient way to enforce this policy is to remove helmets entirely. This would force the initiators of the contact to use other body parts outside of the head to initiate the contact in order to not damage their own head.
Similarly to the helmet, reducing all of the equipment in the sport of football would result in a safer situation for all involved. Having the extra shoulder pads, helmet, neck brace, back plate, along with other protective gear gives players a false sense of security that they can recklessly hit without damaging themselves, “Called risk compensation or risk homeostasis, it’s a theory that holds that protections can actually increase reckless behavior” (McCoy). This sense of safety is not true at all however. No piece of equipment can protect a person completely from harm. They all have their weak spots and cannot fully protect a person from a violent hit. This is why all pads, not just the helmet, should either be eliminated or drastically cut down on. Players should not have the false sense of security that they can smash into another person without having any consequences, this is one of the major reasons why there are so many injuries. Cutting back on the amount of padding each player has will make the players think twice about hitting someone as hard as they currently do, reducing injuries. It would make players use more form when tackling instead of just brute force.
Rugby is a sport that the NFL may benefit looking into and possibly adjusting some of its rules and regulations towards. Rugby has a similar premise to football in which people are attempting to prevent a person carrying the ball from reaching the end of the field by tackling them and bringing them to the ground. Many of the ideas of physicality are similar between the two sports. One of the main differences is that rugby uses next to no equipment/padding. They do not use helmets, shoulder pads, or anything along those lines. Everything that football has been saying for the last several decades would claim that this would result in more injuries, but this is false. A 2008 study by 7 distinguished doctors posted in the British Journal of Sports Medicine claims that, “Our data indicate that US collegiate rugby union has a similar incidence and severity of injury to published rates for US collegiate soccer and a much lower game injury rate than collegiate American football (Curtis et all). So even though all the signs point to rugby having a much higher injury rate than football, it appears that this is not true. Rugby actually has a much lower injury rate than American football. This is due to their lack of equipment. Having little amounts of padding forces the players to play the game more cautiously. Players cannot recklessly hit at full speeds or they will certainly injure themselves, so they are required to tackle with much more form and safety than in football. This results in less injuries to the players. Rugby unfortunately does have more spinal injuries than in football, which gives the impression that it is much worse, but once again this is not true. These spinal injuries are caused almost entirely by a part of the game known as a scrum. This act requires players to slam their heads into the shoulders of other players without anything to brace themselves. This very dangerous play is not in the sport of football, so if the NFL decided to make equipment changes to more resemble rugby, the spinal injuries that are in rugby would not follow.
A common thing that people say when trying to justify the vicious nature of football is that the players choose to play, and in doing so they are fully aware and responsible for the injuries and disabilities they gain from it. This is an unfair to the players however. A good portion of NFL football players come from a bad situation, whether they did not have much money growing up, or came from a bad neighborhood, they did not have the luxuries that a lot of people in the country are blessed with. So, when an NFL team offers them millions of dollars to play for them, how can they be expected to turn down this offer? Oftentimes, players do not play football because they genuinely love it, it is because they are forced to. Playing this sport that they are extremely gifted in, is their only way out of the situation that they and their family are currently in.
Football is an activity so deeply embedded in American culture it might as well be a religion. Even though it is detrimental to its players it appears that this sport is not going anywhere anytime soon. The least that has to be done is significant rule and equipment changes. There is no way to ensure complete safety in a contact sport like football, but there are a number of ways to seriously cut back on the potential risks presented with it. The NFL is not making the steps necessary in order to take care if their players. They are intentionally keeping the game violent in order to satisfy the fans primal urge for bloodshed. This has to be addressed however. NFL players are being injured at extremely high rates and these players safety is at jeopardy. The league is getting more and more dangerous as time progresses. Rule and equipment changes have to be put into place to bring some safety to these players.