Zombie Seau

Are they providing the Shop Vac?

yea for me

/250 and counting

ElusiveWookiee: Are they providing the Shop Vac?

He shot himself in the chest, so his brain would be intact for researching

Where a zombie with wicked tackling skills might find work.

I thought they only do research on Abby Normal's...

Iblis824: ElusiveWookiee: Are they providing the Shop Vac?

He shot himself in the chest, so his brain would be intact for researching

I think they should stop taking the brains from suicide victims to stop this (NFL players killing themselves) before it goes any farther. This is like the 3rd one in recent memory.

Iblis824: ElusiveWookiee: Are they providing the Shop Vac?

He shot himself in the chest, so his brain would be intact for researching

So that's where brains are these days?

Classy as always, Fark.

Genevieve Marie fortheloveofgod: I think they should stop taking the brains from suicide victims to stop this (NFL players killing themselves) before it goes any farther. This is like the 3rd one in recent memory.

Or you know... the NFL should figure out better safety protocols so their ex players don't have swiss cheese for brains by the time they're done playing.

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a way to make the game any safer, particularly at the college and pro level. There was story done several years ago (I want to say 60 Minutes but I'm not sure) that looked at the increasing severity of football injuries. Several MDs were interviewed and shown x-rays of various knee and upper body injuries sustained by NFL players. They said those injuries looked like the sort of thing that happens to someone involved in a 40mph head and collision who is not wearing a seat belt.

Players are much bigger and stronger than they used to be and they are incredibly fast. People were never meant to line up inches or yards apart and slam into each other over and over again. I still like the game but it's dangerous stuff.

Captain Steroid: Was he ever even diagnosed with a concussion? o_o

Local radio said he was never listed in his career as having a concussion. Funny, there was a greenlight this week on a discussion with Malcom Gladwell about the accumulation of subconcussive hits. This might bring those to light.

Either way, would be nice to have some answers.

Botkin of the Yard: Genevieve Marie fortheloveofgod: I think they should stop taking the brains from suicide victims to stop this (NFL players killing themselves) before it goes any farther. This is like the 3rd one in recent memory.

Or you know... the NFL should figure out better safety protocols so their ex players don't have swiss cheese for brains by the time they're done playing.

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a way to make the game any safer, particularly at the college and pro level. There was story done several years ago (I want to say 60 Minutes but I'm not sure) that looked at the increasing severity of football injuries. Several MDs were interviewed and shown x-rays of various knee and upper body injuries sustained by NFL players. They said those injuries looked like the sort of thing that happens to someone involved in a 40mph head and collision who is not wearing a seat belt.

Players are much bigger and stronger than they used to be and they are incredibly fast. People were never meant to line up inches or yards apart and slam into each other over and over again. I still like the game but it's dangerous stuff.

The only way to make the game safer is not to play it. If it's "more" dangerous today, it's because we do a better job of recognizing concussion injuries than we used to, and don't expect player to "shake it off" any more; and because knee and ankle injuries are no longer career-ending like they were back in the day. In the 70's and even early 80's, an ACL tear was the end of a player's career and you never heard from him again. Today, players get multiple injuries before they're forced to retire, so they can acquire a lot more damage before the end of their time in the NFL.

Advances in sports medicine may not necessarily be a good thing.

Should the family comply and the researchers find that Seau suffered from CTE, I can only hope that his Hall of Fame status will help draw attention to a very real, and growing, problem. Sadly, sometimes it takes a big name to cause a big stir.

you don't need concussions to get brain damage. repeated subconcussive impacts are implicated in CTE.

if you think it's totally safe to get repeated subconcussive impacts over the course of a span of time equivalent to a football player's career, strap on a helmet for two hours a day over the next twenty years and bang your head on a hard surface a couple dozen times.

does that sound like a good idea? no? So quit sending your kids to play football.

Really sad, sounds way too much like the Eagles safety Andre Waters. Patterns of severe depression followed by self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Genevieve Marie: I don't care for the game. But I'm starting to go from apathy to active dislike.

It's all starting to feel a bit Hunger Gamesish.

I'm a huge football fan, but I have to acknowledge that by tuning in week after week, I'm complicit in the destruction of these men. Yes, they made the choice to play this game, knowing it would exact a toll on their bodies. It was only in 2002, however, that the first cases of CTE were identified in NFL players. And until what, the last year or two, the NFL pretty much lied about the dangers of head injuries so that they wouldn't have to pony up the money to help these guys.

Botkin of the Yard: Genevieve Marie fortheloveofgod: I think they should stop taking the brains from suicide victims to stop this (NFL players killing themselves) before it goes any farther. This is like the 3rd one in recent memory.

Or you know... the NFL should figure out better safety protocols so their ex players don't have swiss cheese for brains by the time they're done playing.

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a way to make the game any safer, particularly at the college and pro level. There was story done several years ago (I want to say 60 Minutes but I'm not sure) that looked at the increasing severity of football injuries. Several MDs were interviewed and shown x-rays of various knee and upper body injuries sustained by NFL players. They said those injuries looked like the sort of thing that happens to someone involved in a 40mph head and collision who is not wearing a seat belt.

Players are much bigger and stronger than they used to be and they are incredibly fast. People were never meant to line up inches or yards apart and slam into each other over and over again. I still like the game but it's dangerous stuff.

Possibly the fastest way to get people to stop clunking each others' heads is to make pads LESS safe. You can run into a person straight on as fast as you can and hit them quite a few times without a major injury. It's the one time when your head is in the wrong place at the wrong time where things get serious, which created the need for the helmet and the subsequent technological improvements.
Progressively, as helmets were able to absorb more and more traumatic shock, a lot of athletes take it for granted and utilize the helmet itself as part of the blocking and tackling process. That's what needs to be removed.
And there's the pickle - other than instruction on using proper form and technique, how do you remove the use of the helmet but still prevent serious injury? In the game as it is today, heads are always going to hit something harder than they should. Minimizing it is the realistic goal.

Gyrfalcon: Botkin of the Yard: Genevieve Marie fortheloveofgod:

Advances in sports medicine may not necessarily be a good thing.


Boils down to the same problem with the new vets too - a lot of those poor kids really shouldn't have lived, but, there we are.

On a lighter note, advances in technology will get us to the point where robots are fighting our random wars *and* playing our footballs, so there's that.

Or they can just finally turn Madden into a professional MMORPG and fold together the players with the fantasy football folks and the current Madden crowd.

Or, better yet:

Gyrfalcon: The only way to make the game safer is not to play it. If it's "more" dangerous today, it's because we do a better job of recognizing concussion injuries than we used to, and don't expect player to "shake it off" any more; and because knee and ankle injuries are no longer career-ending like they were back in the day. In the 70's and even early 80's, an ACL tear was the end of a player's career and you never heard from him again. Today, players get multiple injuries before they're forced to retire, so they can acquire a lot more damage before the end of their time in the NFL.

Advances in sports medicine may not necessarily be a good thing.

That's a good point. Careers do get extended a lot more often now. They also play more games and, because Roger Goodell obviously cares about safety, they're thinking about expanding it still more.


Genevieve Marie: I don't care for the game. But I'm starting to go from apathy to active dislike. It's all starting to feel a bit Hunger Gamesish.

I was going to say, football players are a bit like a modern day gladiator. They get paid well and don't have to live beneath the arena but it's kind of similar.

Genevieve Marie: Plus for a lot of them, it was their only real economic opportunity. How many football players come from really poor backgrounds and have football as their one big shot at becoming wealthy?

Watching these men destroy themselves for a small chunk of the billions of dollars this sport brings in- it's just sad.

Precisely. Players who make the league minimum, or even above that for a few years can walk away from the game with a good chunk of change. But medical bills pile up, and from my understanding, the league will insure guys for a few years after retirement, and then it's down to partial coverage, and by seven years out (if I recall correctly), they're on their own. If they're suffering from cognitive decline, their ability to hold down a job is decreased, and their situation just gets worse. It's ugly and sad.

Nana's Vibrator: Possibly the fastest way to get people to stop clunking each others' heads is to make pads LESS safe. You can run into a person straight on as fast as you can and hit them quite a few times without a major injury. It's the one time when your head is in the wrong place at the wrong time where things get serious, which created the need for the helmet and the subsequent technological improvements.
Progressively, as helmets were able to absorb more and more traumatic shock, a lot of athletes take it for granted and utilize the helmet itself as part of the blocking and tackling process. That's what needs to be removed.
And there's the pickle - other than instruction on using proper form and technique, how do you remove the use of the helmet but still prevent serious injury? In the game as it is today, heads are always going to hit something harder than they should. Minimizing it is the realistic goal.

I wonder what the rate of head injuries was in the leather helmet era. There's probably not much data. I see what you mean though and I've heard players talk about helmets in exactly the way you described. The size and speed though, it's just hard to imagine we're going to see fewer knee injuries like the ones that happen so frequently now.

Seau's ex-wife said in an article in the San Diego UT that he had had concussions or at least what they now know to be concussion-like symptoms many times throughout his playing career....in the same article, an ex-MLS player that was a neighbor of Seau's said they had talked about concussions and head trauma (guy was "ex-MLS" because of concussions) and that Seau exhibited many of the same symptoms...

say what you will, but if his family does allow them to do the research and IF it turns out that he did have CTE or some other brain damage that could be attributed to football, I think there will be a major shift in the sport. And I think it would start at the pee wee/Pop Warner level...people very well might say "ya know, maybe I don't want little Johnny out there getting tackled every Saturday for 3 months"...Or insurance companies start making it very, very expensive to field high school teams...I don't think football and the NFL is as untouchable as a lot of people (here and elsewhere) think it is.

Botkin of the Yard: Gyrfalcon: The only way to make the game safer is not to play it. If it's "more" dangerous today, it's because we do a better job of recognizing concussion injuries than we used to, and don't expect player to "shake it off" any more; and because knee and ankle injuries are no longer career-ending like they were back in the day. In the 70's and even early 80's, an ACL tear was the end of a player's career and you never heard from him again. Today, players get multiple injuries before they're forced to retire, so they can acquire a lot more damage before the end of their time in the NFL.

Advances in sports medicine may not necessarily be a good thing.

That's a good point. Careers do get extended a lot more often now. They also play more games and, because Roger Goodell obviously cares about safety, they're thinking about expanding it still more.


Genevieve Marie: I don't care for the game. But I'm starting to go from apathy to active dislike. It's all starting to feel a bit Hunger Gamesish.

I was going to say, football players are a bit like a modern day gladiator. They get paid well and don't have to live beneath the arena but it's kind of similar.

I'd happily take that job. Do you know what the median salary is in the NFL? $777,000. Average span? 3.5 years. In 3.5 years, I could make $2.7 million and risk being one of about 2% (guesstimated) who deal with head trauma? I like those odds and I like the finanacial security for my family.

NFL network was showing some Junior Seau highlights mostly from the 90s.

Perfect form tackling, head to chest, not head to head, clean and relatively safe.

Of course, that was probably the NFL network selecting clean hits, as opposed to their usual practice of putting the dirty hits on all the promo material.

Still, if Junior was always tackling like that, I'm not sure he'd suffer too many concussions.

I think it's quite likely he just loved the game too much and couldn't face retirement.

Who cares if they're destroying themselves. That's why they get paid millions of dollars.

I'm sorry but it's a great sport to watch and they knew what they were getting into. Don't ruin a sport because you all feel bad for these people.

There's a reason why they get paid millions

Botkin of the Yard: Nana's Vibrator: Possibly the fastest way to get people to stop clunking each others' heads is to make pads LESS safe. You can run into a person straight on as fast as you can and hit them quite a few times without a major injury. It's the one time when your head is in the wrong place at the wrong time where things get serious, which created the need for the helmet and the subsequent technological improvements.
Progressively, as helmets were able to absorb more and more traumatic shock, a lot of athletes take it for granted and utilize the helmet itself as part of the blocking and tackling process. That's what needs to be removed.
And there's the pickle - other than instruction on using proper form and technique, how do you remove the use of the helmet but still prevent serious injury? In the game as it is today, heads are always going to hit something harder than they should. Minimizing it is the realistic goal.

I wonder what the rate of head injuries was in the leather helmet era. There's probably not much data. I see what you mean though and I've heard players talk about helmets in exactly the way you described. The size and speed though, it's just hard to imagine we're going to see fewer knee injuries like the ones that happen so frequently now.

Believe it or not, in the earliest days of football there were deaths at a higher rate than we see now.
With regard to knee injuries, I hope there will soon be better brace technology to stabilize the knee and absorb some of the awkward bends and extensions.

patcarew

NFL network was showing some Junior Seau highlights mostly from the 90s.

Perfect form tackling, head to chest, not head to head, clean and relatively safe.

Of course, that was probably the NFL network selecting clean hits, as opposed to their usual practice of putting the dirty hits on all the promo material.

Still, if Junior was always tackling like that, I'm not sure he'd suffer too many concussions.

I think it's quite likely he just loved the game too much and couldn't face retirement.

I imagine that was a 30-45 second bit, with what, 10 tackles max? The guy played 20 years...how many tackles did he have over that timespan? 5,000?10,000? Plus training camp/practice, plus the thousands of plays where he didn't get a tackle but still went head to head with a 300lb center who was trying to stop him from going up the middle on a delayed blitz, or the 320lb tackle who pancaked him on an end around run and on and on an on....the guy took some hits to the head over the course of his career...

Nana's Vibrator: I'd happily take that job. Do you know what the median salary is in the NFL? $777,000. Average span? 3.5 years. In 3.5 years, I could make $2.7 million and risk being one of about 2% (guesstimated) who deal with head trauma? I like those odds and I like the finanacial security for my family.

I probably would too. It's just too much money for most people to pass up and, I would imagine, most of the people who reach that level love playing the game almost as much they want the money. But I'd rather play on the PGA Tour for five or ten years where, if I never won a tournament but made enough to keep my card, I'd have several million and I would be able to walk without pain when I hit age 50.

chevydeuce: patcarew

NFL network was showing some Junior Seau highlights mostly from the 90s.

Perfect form tackling, head to chest, not head to head, clean and relatively safe.

Of course, that was probably the NFL network selecting clean hits, as opposed to their usual practice of putting the dirty hits on all the promo material.

Still, if Junior was always tackling like that, I'm not sure he'd suffer too many concussions.

I think it's quite likely he just loved the game too much and couldn't face retirement.

I imagine that was a 30-45 second bit, with what, 10 tackles max? The guy played 20 years...how many tackles did he have over that timespan? 5,000?10,000? Plus training camp/practice, plus the thousands of plays where he didn't get a tackle but still went head to head with a 300lb center who was trying to stop him from going up the middle on a delayed blitz, or the 320lb tackle who pancaked him on an end around run and on and on an on....the guy took some hits to the head over the course of his career...

Can you imagine a "hit count" being implemented in the NFL, similar to a pitch count in baseball?
Coaches are becoming aware of the amount of carries their runningbacks have through a game and over a season - they limit them to make sure they're fresh - it would almost seem that you'd have to do something similar with all players.

Belichick has him listed as 'questionable' on the injury report.

Botkin of the Yard: Nana's Vibrator: I'd happily take that job. Do you know what the median salary is in the NFL? $777,000. Average span? 3.5 years. In 3.5 years, I could make $2.7 million and risk being one of about 2% (guesstimated) who deal with head trauma? I like those odds and I like the finanacial security for my family.

I probably would too. It's just too much money for most people to pass up and, I would imagine, most of the people who reach that level love playing the game almost as much they want the money. But I'd rather play on the PGA Tour for five or ten years where, if I never won a tournament but made enough to keep my card, I'd have several million and I would be able to walk without pain when I hit age 50.

I'd have to agree with you there...and I hate golf.

patcarew: NFL network was showing some Junior Seau highlights mostly from the 90s.

Perfect form tackling, head to chest, not head to head, clean and relatively safe.

Of course, that was probably the NFL network selecting clean hits, as opposed to their usual practice of putting the dirty hits on all the promo material.

Still, if Junior was always tackling like that, I'm not sure he'd suffer too many concussions.

I think it's quite likely he just loved the game too much and couldn't face retirement.

Research has shown that it isn't just big hits that cause damage - the effect is cumulative. Sometimes it isn't a helmet-to-helmet that causes a concussion, it can be a glancing blow. It depends on how your body prepares for the hit. But everytime a guy "gets his bell rung," that's causing damage to his brain. I'm pretty sure that, clean hits or not, Junior had his bell rung a few times.

Hardy-r-r: Belichick has him listed as 'questionable' on the injury report.

He'd have to. Even dead he's still a better linebacker than most of the league.

Babwa Wawa
Link

Check out the American Football players section. There are only a handful of actual documented cases, because it's diagnosed posthumously, and they only recently started looking for it. Of the diagnosed cases, a good number of them are leatherheads - old folks like Lou Creekmur.

Seems like a safe assumption that this has been a problem for a long time. I clicked on John Mackey. What a sad story.

patcarew

In the interest of accuracy, I went and checked Seau's stats and the number of tackles I suggested are WAY off....he was actually credited with about 1600 (solo and assists) over his career....I stand corrected on that point, but I believe the rest still stands. Guy took some shots to the melon over the years...

Iblis824: ElusiveWookiee: Are they providing the Shop Vac?

He shot himself in the chest, so his brain would be intact for researching

And yet people will still scream modern players are pussies and the NFL is getting soft.