Around the Nation board

[pumkinattack]

Gladwell happens to be a fan of football. 

This former player turned touchy feely intellectual (although I don't often feel that way) actually thinks he may have a very good point.  I heard another interview with Gladwell and he thinks the game will change dramatically and he could be correct.  I love the game the way it is, but taking a long view of history, football is still in its infancy.  As technology and information grows and society changes, for better or worse in each individual's viewpoint, is it hard to fathom that the game will be forced to change?  There are limits to helmet techonology and the players have gotten bigger, faster and stronger in the last two decades.  How many mothers (and maybe fathers) will want their kids to play at a young age if information continues to illustrate brain damage to players in its current form.  Having had mulitple concussions in football (along with torn cartilage and a dislocated shoulder), I don't doubt the results that are coming to light.  It's just very hard for me to differentiate between college alcohol consumption and football related damage sometimes.   

For the record, I hate the way QB's in the NFL are protected (especially Brady), loved Peterson's mauling of Gay on Sunday and everything about the hitting, but also think the fields (in multiple sports) should be expanded to account for the increased size and speed of the players. 

[frank uible]

I started playing organized football in 1944. Since that time football has changed greatly - mostly due to commercial factors, not technological ones. As in the past it is expected that future changes will be driven by the professional ranks primarily for commercial reasons, and those changes will inevitably trickle down promptly to sandlot, college, high school and sub-high school football.

[pumkinattack]

By technology I meant the ability to understand the workings of the human brain.  What if some of the information about head contact becomes more crystalized over the years because technology allows us to have better information about the impact of playing football (I plan on having my kids play, assuming I have a boy)? 

And I don't view 50 years as a lot of time in 2,000 years of human history, my view when I make this case far exceeds my potential lifetime, but were helmets introduced for solely commercial purposes? 

[frank uible]

Sixty five years is a lot in the history of football. Football related concussions and spinal chord injuries could be greatly reduced if football would go back to leather helmets without facemasks and would externally encase the helmet with sponge rubber or the like. Football does not do so primarily because the pros do not want to resultingly reduce the aggressiveness of play and its appearance for commercial reasons.

[Manuel Willocq]

Interesting, I was just looking up a former friend of my father's and came across this yesterday, published in August 1978:

An Unfolding Tragedy

Colorado Assistant Coach Ron Corradini called the helmet "the worst advancement in football." Last fall a collision with Nebraska Running Back I. M. Hipp put Colorado Linebacker Tom Perry on an Omaha operating table for five hours. The result of the impact was not instantaneous. Perry collapsed in the locker room with a cerebral hemorrhage. To save him, doctors had to drill a hole five-eighths of an inch in diameter in his skull and evacuate blood clots.

[pumkinattack]

Interesting concept that the leather helmet could reduce problems and I do believe the NFL is pretty hypcritical on the topic of player safety.  The helmet as the moral hazard that has created worse outcomes.  I wrote one of my GMAT essays arguing that increasing seatbelt laws would ultimately create greater unsafety on roads because people would function under the incorrect supposition that the belt will make them safer irrespective of the behavior of drivers.  (nobody cares about the essay part of the GMAT, but for what its worth it got me the top score)

What I really wanted to do was defend Gladwell and refute any suggestion that's he's this effete intellectual who's writing's as they related to something so manly as football should just be thrown out because of the writer.  Gladwell has defended the game of football before and I think he makes good points.  

Here's the bigger question.  Is the NFL unwilling to make real efforts to to protect the long term health that will help sustain the game long term, or could they themselves create a problem that ultimately hurts the game at all levels?  

[frank uible]

The NFL is a for-profit business; for-profit businesses are primarily concerned about profits - most of all, short term profits. It ain't a sin or illegal.

[ADL70]

The NFL is a for-profit business; for-profit businesses are primarily concerned about profits - most of all, short term profits. It ain't a sin or illegal.

Not illegal, and not to get all Michael Moore, but isn't greed one of the seven deadlies?

[retagent]

I think some of us may be too quick to impute nefarious motives to people we don't know. I see it too often in political discussions. (e.g. Rep Grayson from Orlando is real good at this) It's so easy to use ad hominum arguements, which I learned in an introductory logic course are invalid. You just throw them at people and you don't have to prove the charge. How does one defend against the attack, "You are evil, and have evil motives?"

Stick to impirical evidence. You should be able to prove your case, and even if those evil, greedy NFL owners are indeed evil and greedy, the case you build on facts will stand independant of that.

By the way, that greed charge is often used, but remember, envy is also one of the seven deadly sins.

[frank uible]

How many bucks does it take to move from "just making a living" to "greedy"?

[Mr. Ypsi]

How many bucks does it take to move from "just making a living" to "greedy"?

A few more than whoever you are asking is currently making!

[retagent]

I guess the real question is; Who do you trust to make that decision?

[pumkinattack]

The answer of course is the government. 

I know, I know, take it to the political boards.  It was just too easy. 

[frank uible]

The same (or same kind of) people who all these years have set U.S. monetary and fiscal policies so prudently and equitably.

[redswarm81]

What I really wanted to do was defend Gladwell and refute any suggestion that's he's this effete intellectual who's writing's as they related to something so manly as football should just be thrown out because of the writer.  Gladwell has defended the game of football before and I think he makes good points.  

Here's the bigger question.  Is the NFL unwilling to make real efforts to to protect the long term health that will help sustain the game long term, or could they themselves create a problem that ultimately hurts the game at all levels?  

I have to question your effete intellectual bona fides, pa.  No effete intellectual worth his organic salt substitute would abuse the apostrophe so blatantly.