NFL Concussion Fun Facts Essay

According CNN’s article “NFL Concussion Fun Facts,” there have been 692 combined concussions diagnosed throughout the preseason and regular season in the NFL over the past 3 years. It may be evident by these numbers that the NFL has a major problem with players getting concussions, and over the years their concussion protocol has been questioned by former players and other people around the football community. Ken Belson stated in his article “Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees,“ that a third of retired football players are subject to long term brain issues, these issues may include the disease known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) which has been brought to light in a more recent time. CTE has effected a good

Daniel Goldberg wrote in his essay "Concussions, Professional Sports, And Conflicts Of Interest: Why The National Football League’s Current Policies Are Bad For Its (Players’) Health” about how players' brains are affected by these injuries, but since the NFL’s policy was more relaxed players were sometimes forced to go back into the game even though they were injured. Goldberg brought up in one claim that since the NFL had no set process dealing with concussions there was no limit for when player’s could return to action, and since that was true NFL coaches would rather have their players out on the field rather than letting them sit out and fully recover from the damage due to the impact that they can have on the game. (pg 4, paragraph 3 and 4) Effects of this could be seen in Ted Johnson’s case (pg 4-5) where he suffered numerous concussions when he was forced to participate in games and full contact practices before being fully healed due to the lack of regulations on concussions. And before the previously mentioned claim, Goldberg brought up the case of former player Mike Webster. (pg 2-5) Webster suffered from dementia as a result of numerous hits and concussions. Webster eventually died at age 50 in 2002, and after his death his family eventually sued over the NFLs

Parents have started to hold back their children from playing in fear that their child will suffer a concussion and hurt their brain development. Kelly Wallace wrote an article on the CNN where she asked parents whether or not they would let their child play football. A few of the parents said they would but others did not, citing the concussions and other possible injuries for their reasoning. From this article it is easy to grasp a good understanding of how concussions hurt the sport all around. If parents of this young generation are not willing to let their kids play from this major issue that mostly generated in the NFL, how will the sport survive? The future for football looks rough. Although some parents will continue to allow their kids to play, if the majority of them do not then then sport surely will not make it a lot longer. Who knows what will actually happen in the coming years with all the developments and things to fight concussions, but as of now these parents will let the sport go on its way and not think twice about