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American football player safety
Effects of head injuries in contact sport
Introduction of head injury
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More handpicked essays just for you.
American football player safety
Effects of head injuries in contact sport
Introduction of head injury
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The documentary Head Games directed by Steve James follows former football player and ex-wrestler, Chris Nowinski, on his mission to uncover the truth about the consequences of playing sports related to concussions. A concussion is a brain injury that you cannot see and where the brain moves around in the skull. More than 3.8 million concussions occur a year due to a sport. The documentary raises the question of whether protective head-gear should be worn in all contact sports. I believe a head is more likely to sustain more damage to the brain without a helmet than a head with a helmet.
Concussion injuries have been a big speculation in the National Football League (NFL). Documents filed in federal court showed the NFL expects nearly a third of all retired players to develop some form of long term cognitive problem- such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia in their lifetime as a result to head injuries or concussions suffered on the field. After years of denial the National Football League is starting to come clean. In this editorial the author is trying to inform the public about these accusations.
b. Impact: Football players today are wearing helmets that protect them more than they know. 3. Claim: Rules and regulations are constant, specifically to protect against concussions. a. Support: As players can choose which helmet they wear, it must be myriad tested to ensure they are protected. b. Impact: Due to testing and regulations, the chances of getting a concussion is decreased.
Many people question why concussions happen so often within the NFL? After all, these players know how to tackle properly and have they best equipment however the size of these men along with the violent nature of the game is what causes these concussions. Concussions happen at around 140 per season with several players receiving multiple concussions within the same year (Halchin). Team doctors have been extremely cautious in letting these athletes return to the filed of play after being diagnosed with a concussion. Halchin believed that the NFL does a wonderful job in protecting it’s players and said that until hitting is eliminated from the game completely, concussions will be a reoccurring injury and a risk that players have to deal with
An NFL football player will endure somewhere between 900 to 1500 blows to their head over the course of a single season. With an immense amount of blows like this comes an immense amount of damage to a player’s brain. This extensive amount of brain damage has been decided, by Dr. Bennet Omalu, to result in chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Over the course of these discoveries and much controversy, the NFL has been targeted, denied all accusations, done very few things to lessen the risk of concussions in football, and the risks and number of concussions have steadily increased throughout the league’s
Imagine the rules of sports completely changing because of athletes receiving extreme hits to the head. From receiving major hits athletes can receive diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or even Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. These following diseases can affect the way the athlete plays as while their everyday life. Athletes began to face life challenging experiences as time passes by. Throughout time there has been conversations of many compact sports changing their rule to make the sports safer.
The NFL and the Concussions Crisis For the past two decades, the world of contact sports, particularly American football, became controversial because of the increasing attention focused on the long-term consequences of concussions. This issue would enter a tug-of-war battle between business politics and scientific evidence. The scientific evidence on the long-term detrimental effects of concussions implies that football may be too dangerous for any individual. It is only logical that the National Football League (NFL) would protect the integrity of football and everything it encompasses.
I. Introduction A. Attention Graber: For many people there is nothing better on a crisp cool Sunday afternoon, than sitting down and enjoying a good football game. The NFL, hosts usually the football games people watch. Recently, however the NFL has had a huge conflict on its hands regarding player health and safety, specifically regarding repeated head injury and concussions. Research indicates, the NFL has not done enough to protect its players from the damage of repeated head injury B. Ethos Statement:
This paper studies the evolution of football equipment and how each piece of equipment has changed the game. It begins with a discussion of the origins of American football and its storied history. The second section then explores how each piece of protective equipment is used and how they have positively and negatively affected the sport. The third section examines the fact that injuries that have increased despite the evolution of different equipment and will focus, most importantly, on the helmet and concussions. It continues by looking at the ways the NFL is attempting to make football safer for its players.
Concussions themselves are a controversial topic simply because of their destructive forces on the lives of everyone, ranging from people who tripped and fell a little too hard, to people who make a career of hitting other people as hard as they possibly can. There are many people opposed to the idea of football’s inherent violence, yet advocates of the sport claim that removing the factor of colliding would make a completely different sport that cannot even be called football, which itself has become so ingrained in American society that it practically owns a day of the week from Week One of preseason to the closing seconds of the Superbowl. The fact remains though that if football were to suddenly cease existing, many people would be jobless,
In 1997, author Bill Plaschke stated That, “Dan Kult, director of technology at Riddell Inc., which makes the official NFL helmet. ‘But what we don't truly understand is how concussions occur.’” Today we know what concussions are. Now we need to create a better helmet that can lower the chances of concussions. Another idea could be adding a microchip to evaluate stress on players and if the impacts are too high the players should be checked by professionals (Starr).
Coaches number one thing they should do to protect their players is practicing “heads up” football. Heads up football is a practice of not lowering a player's head before they make impact. Players should never lower their head before a hit because if two players are going full speed at each other and they collide hitting heads they will most likely get a concussion from the impact. Another way players can be protected from getting concussions and head injuries is to have a good fitting helmet, good fitting pads, and a mouth guard formed to fit their mouths. Players equipment is the most important thing to keep them from getting injured.
Throughout America’s history, football has been well known and a popular sport. Throughout the years, however, the safety of helmets have always been in question. As time went on, the amount of injuries significantly went down the helmets did not solve the problem completely. On November 6, 1869 the first "football" game took place. In my research I found that helmets were not mandatory until the 30’s which left a lot of players open to injury especially when half the players were wearing helmets and the other half were not while playing on the field.
As concussions occur more and more in the NFL and among teens, more research has been conducted. There has been research on teens that concussions had occurred in teen’s brains, to find out what type of hit teens gotten by football may of suffer from it. There are many concussions in the NFL and especially teens who play football that have suffered death and never to play the sport they love. Teens and athletes who love the sport football, have been suffered by concussions that had ruin their playing for the most of this moments but research has been conducted of ways to help out teens and NFL. To prevent concussions, coaches and parents have the right to support their athletes to mental support from doctors.
The concentration on concussions in sports has elevated in the past few years given the number of sports figures who have passed away all too soon as a result of the studies conducted after their passing. The severity of the damage concussions can cause is still to be proven, but prevention should be a topic that is top of mind for anyone who participates in sports, from youth to professionals. In the case of Steve Montador, whose career ended due to a concussion, was documented as a shoulder injury is proof that sports leagues are aware of the challenge, but may be unsure of how to address. Some are concerned with what the lack of physicality will do to the overall “entertainment” factor of attracting fans.