CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head according to BU CTE center of research. Thesis: Football is too dangerous and the NFL and other football Associations need to find a way to make it safer. It is a known fact that the amount of concussions and brain injury are increasing in the sport of football. Football has the highest injury rate of any sport, while youth players average 240 hits to the head ( Susan, Perry ). Allowing your child to play football risks their future. With one hard helmet to helmet hit and your child could be paralyzed for life or …show more content…
One way to make football safer is to improve the players helmets. To do this you add a “ soft outer layer that crumples and bounces back after impact “ ( Kubota, Taylor ). This slows down the impact, causing less damage to happen. Using these helmets can help prevent head injury in football and keep the players safer. Another way to make football players safer is to require them to wear custom made mouthguards. Players who wear custom made mouthguards only got concussions 3.6% of the time versus 8.3% of players who wore mouthguards but not custom made ones ( Kubota, Taylor ). One idea the NFL denied to put into action to make the players safer is eliminate kickoffs. This would help because the NFL, in 2014, moved kickoffs up5 yards making kickoffs less returns occur. This decreased the number of concussions ( Chadiha, Jeffri ). Therefore eliminating kickoffs in general would further reduce concussions and brain injuries. The final way to make football safer is to get retirees involved. They could tell their current brain problems caused by football. This could trigger players to push for safer equipment and new rules that protect the players ( Chadiha, Jeffri