The NFL got back to the playing field this past week for its first preseason games since the players and owners agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement. But the scene at NFL training camps is a bit different this year. New rules now limit the amount of full-contact practice that players can participate in. Gone are the grueling summer two-a-days.
These rules were put in place to address growing concerns about player injuries, concussions in particular. Medical research suggests that the bone-crunching hits that energize fans have serious health consequences for players long after they hang up their pads. Nowinski's Sports Legacy Institute has done research into a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Out of the first 15 former football players his team examined, 14 had CTE.
Researcher Stefan Duma of Virginia Tech University has been studying how the human body responds to extreme impacts — during war, say, or auto accidents. A lifelong football fan, Duma began looking into sports impacts about 10 years ago. Since 2003, Duma and his team have measured every head impact that each player experiences in every practice and every game. He says that typical impacts - the ones that occur 15 to 20 times on every play - have a strength of 30 to 40 times the force of gravity.
But the biggest hits are much more intense - up to 150 times the force of gravity. "That's at the level of a severe car accident," he says.
Duma started testing how well different models of football helmets cushion these extreme impacts. And his team gave each one a star rating. The most popular helmet in the NFL last year — and the one worn by about half of Virginia Tech's players — got a paltry one-star rating.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
I wonder if the NFL went to a softer helmet without a full face mask, they would be more protective of their heads. Now they use the hard plastic helmets to spear each other and feel safe inside so they bash. If they had to worry about broken noses and teeth, they might play safer. (Or hockey helmets?)
Sort of the same principle that full time seat belts and air bags encourage some drivers to take more risks.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
