Concussions in Football
On Friday in high schools across America kids are looking forward to the end of the day. Not because of the weekend, because a few hours after school ends they are going to witness classmates collide with members of a rival school in the most commonly played sport in the country. The unfortunate reality of this spectacular show is that by stepping on that field players have a 75% chance of getting concussed. What’s worse is that during that week of practice the players collided numerous times with their heads making it a daily concern for players and coaches. Concussions, in recent years have become a growing issue in sports with the primary one being football. With (insert factual numbers) and finish sentence concussions have become a primary issue concerning athletes both in amateur and professional levels. With constant “improvements” in equipment one would think that the opposite would be true, that we would be able to prevent them by just putting on more padding. Unfortunately more padding leads players to have a greater sense of security so instead of it preventing concussions it allows kids to lead with there head in the tackle and feel less pain while the receiver of the tackle gets the full force of the hit to the head. This false sense of security along with improper coaching is the reason that concussions have become such an issue in sports such as football.
A common question that gets asked when on the topic of concussions is whether or not we should blame the equipment. The football helmet has scene a lot of change in its almost 100 years of existence. It started out as leather, then was improved to plastic, and eventually was given a facemask and a polycarbonate shell. Unfortunately the only thing that the helmets have improved on stopping is skull fractures. A lot of the time the helmet can be another reason a concussion happens due to the fact that they are very snug to a player’s head. This helps cause the concussion because when a player gets hit in the facemask by a helmet from the side the head is forced to follow causing a rapid change of direction allowing the brain to collide with the skull. If the helmet were to be a bit looser the helmet would just move and the player would just fall. Another solution, which was created by an engineer in North Carolina, calls for a snug layer of material similar to Styrofoam around the player’s head that allows the helmet to slide around it. When the helmet was put up to the test against some of the basic impact tests used by helmet producers it performed better than any other helmet on the market.
Another common argument made about concussions in football is that the individual players are overly padded and this causes them to have a false sense of security. This argument looks more to the psychological side of wearing padding. In other sports, such as hockey, there has been an increase in head injuries even though they have increased the amount of padding. The concussion rate today in hockey is greater than it was when they didn’t wear helmets. This in turn causes the athletes to play much more cautiously and hit with better form or “cleaner”. Rugby, a close relative of football as far as how the game is played, is a perfect example of how less padding can lead to safer play. Rugby, while not having helmets or shoulder pads, has a concussion rate much lower than football. An obvious reason for this is that if they were to hit with their heads as football players do the tackler and ball carrier would both get hurt instead of the ball carrier. This knowledge of how dangerous hits can be on the tackler gives players more incentive to tackle with their shoulder instead of their head. The fear of the pain causes them to use proper technique, which is heavily coached in rugby. In football players are taught to put their “head between the numbers” when they hit which enforces coaches trying to get players to use their head.
Even though head on head tackles are obvious as far as producing concussions, most concussions in football tend to come from blocking. A famous center for the Pittsburgh Steelers name Mike Webster was an all-star center who unfortunately died at the age of 50. When they did the autopsy on the body the doctors said his head had been in the equivalent of 20,000 car crashes. Every down of football the linemen whether it be offensive or defensive, linemen collide. Most of the time the linemen will clash heads to initiate contact, especially when it comes to the position of center of nose guard. This is a technique that has been created solely because of the facemask. What was initially supposed to protect a player’s heads is now used to harm another player. If the players were to not have a facemask the amount of head to head contact on the line would greatly decrease.
As was stated before giving all of the protective equipment in the sport of football it would make sense, especially with modern technology, that the concussion rate would be declining. Unfortunately there has been an increase in concussions over the past ten years. The technology has improved but the rate has increased. Which begs the question what else could be causing the increase. Now let us look at the sport of rugby again. Rugby is considered by many to be the primary sport in which football is derived from. There are noticeable similarities between the games but most people seem to notice the main difference between the two, which is there, is a lack of padding in rugby. To most this would make the sport more dangerous, but in reality rugby has a much lower number of concussions in it than football does. Also in rugby games there a many more moments of contact. So how could this be? A sport with less pads and more hitting has a lower concussion rate than the latter. The reason for this is that because of the lack of padding people are forced to tackle correctly which involves the head being on the outside of the opposing players body which in turn allows both the tackler and ball carrier to get up safely. Football coaches drill players on putting their head into their opponent’s chest. This teaches players to use their head when they make contact with another player, which leads to head on head collisions causing concussions. If football players were to be taught to tackle without any use of their head there would be a noticeable decrease in concussions.
Unfortunately the amount of concussions in football doesn’t seem to be decreasing. In fact it has been rising and rising. This is due to the equipment being used as weapons instead of protection. This issue of padding being used as a weapon is also due to how coaches teach their players to initiate contact. Its unfortunate that one of the most common played sports in America has a 75% concussion rate. If coaching and equipment doesn’t properly improve players are bound to deal with some unfortunate results later on in their life.
On Friday in high schools across America kids are looking forward to the end of the day. Not because of the weekend, because a few hours after school ends they are going to witness classmates collide with members of a rival school in the most commonly played sport in the country. The unfortunate reality of this spectacular show is that by stepping on that field players have a 75% chance of getting concussed. What’s worse is that during that week of practice the players collided numerous times with their heads making it a daily concern for players and coaches. Concussions, in recent years have become a growing issue in sports with the primary one being football. With (insert factual numbers) and finish sentence concussions have become a primary issue concerning athletes both in amateur and professional levels. With constant “improvements” in equipment one would think that the opposite would be true, that we would be able to prevent them by just putting on more padding. Unfortunately more padding leads players to have a greater sense of security so instead of it preventing concussions it allows kids to lead with there head in the tackle and feel less pain while the receiver of the tackle gets the full force of the hit to the head. This false sense of security along with improper coaching is the reason that concussions have become such an issue in sports such as football.
A common question that gets asked when on the topic of concussions is whether or not we should blame the equipment. The football helmet has scene a lot of change in its almost 100 years of existence. It started out as leather, then was improved to plastic, and eventually was given a facemask and a polycarbonate shell. Unfortunately the only thing that the helmets have improved on stopping is skull fractures. A lot of the time the helmet can be another reason a concussion happens due to the fact that they are very snug to a player’s head. This helps cause the concussion because when a player gets hit in the facemask by a helmet from the side the head is forced to follow causing a rapid change of direction allowing the brain to collide with the skull. If the helmet were to be a bit looser the helmet would just move and the player would just fall. Another solution, which was created by an engineer in North Carolina, calls for a snug layer of material similar to Styrofoam around the player’s head that allows the helmet to slide around it. When the helmet was put up to the test against some of the basic impact tests used by helmet producers it performed better than any other helmet on the market.
Another common argument made about concussions in football is that the individual players are overly padded and this causes them to have a false sense of security. This argument looks more to the psychological side of wearing padding. In other sports, such as hockey, there has been an increase in head injuries even though they have increased the amount of padding. The concussion rate today in hockey is greater than it was when they didn’t wear helmets. This in turn causes the athletes to play much more cautiously and hit with better form or “cleaner”. Rugby, a close relative of football as far as how the game is played, is a perfect example of how less padding can lead to safer play. Rugby, while not having helmets or shoulder pads, has a concussion rate much lower than football. An obvious reason for this is that if they were to hit with their heads as football players do the tackler and ball carrier would both get hurt instead of the ball carrier. This knowledge of how dangerous hits can be on the tackler gives players more incentive to tackle with their shoulder instead of their head. The fear of the pain causes them to use proper technique, which is heavily coached in rugby. In football players are taught to put their “head between the numbers” when they hit which enforces coaches trying to get players to use their head.
Even though head on head tackles are obvious as far as producing concussions, most concussions in football tend to come from blocking. A famous center for the Pittsburgh Steelers name Mike Webster was an all-star center who unfortunately died at the age of 50. When they did the autopsy on the body the doctors said his head had been in the equivalent of 20,000 car crashes. Every down of football the linemen whether it be offensive or defensive, linemen collide. Most of the time the linemen will clash heads to initiate contact, especially when it comes to the position of center of nose guard. This is a technique that has been created solely because of the facemask. What was initially supposed to protect a player’s heads is now used to harm another player. If the players were to not have a facemask the amount of head to head contact on the line would greatly decrease.
As was stated before giving all of the protective equipment in the sport of football it would make sense, especially with modern technology, that the concussion rate would be declining. Unfortunately there has been an increase in concussions over the past ten years. The technology has improved but the rate has increased. Which begs the question what else could be causing the increase. Now let us look at the sport of rugby again. Rugby is considered by many to be the primary sport in which football is derived from. There are noticeable similarities between the games but most people seem to notice the main difference between the two, which is there, is a lack of padding in rugby. To most this would make the sport more dangerous, but in reality rugby has a much lower number of concussions in it than football does. Also in rugby games there a many more moments of contact. So how could this be? A sport with less pads and more hitting has a lower concussion rate than the latter. The reason for this is that because of the lack of padding people are forced to tackle correctly which involves the head being on the outside of the opposing players body which in turn allows both the tackler and ball carrier to get up safely. Football coaches drill players on putting their head into their opponent’s chest. This teaches players to use their head when they make contact with another player, which leads to head on head collisions causing concussions. If football players were to be taught to tackle without any use of their head there would be a noticeable decrease in concussions.
Unfortunately the amount of concussions in football doesn’t seem to be decreasing. In fact it has been rising and rising. This is due to the equipment being used as weapons instead of protection. This issue of padding being used as a weapon is also due to how coaches teach their players to initiate contact. Its unfortunate that one of the most common played sports in America has a 75% concussion rate. If coaching and equipment doesn’t properly improve players are bound to deal with some unfortunate results later on in their life.