Disease Found in 99 Percent of Brains Donated by NFL Families

[The Conservative]

Disease Found in 99 Percent of Brains Donated by NFL Families

Over the last decade, one of the biggest stories in sports has been the mounting evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in football players. The degenerative brain disease develops after repeated blows to the head, and a new study finds a strong link between playing football and CTE. As Daniella Emanuel at CNN reports, the brains of 110 out of 111 NFL players that were donated to the researchers showed signs of the disease.

The study, published this week in the journal JAMA, was based on autopsies of 202 deceased football players including those who did not play beyond the high school and college level. As Emanuel reports, in addition to the NFL players, the disease was found in 48 out of 53 college players and 3 of the 14 high school players.

The brains examined for the study came from subjects that ranged in age from 23 to 89 and from every position on the football field, from punters to linebackers, Joe Ward, Josh Williams and Sam Manchester report for The New York Times. In the brains examined, the largest number of CTE cases were found in linemen, running backs and defensive backs. Eighty-six percent of the professional players in the study had severe cases of the disease as did 56 percent of the college players.

“There's no question that there's a problem in football. That people who play football are at risk for this disease,” Ann McKee, director of Boston University's CTE Center and coauthor of the study tells Emanuel. “And we urgently need to find answers for not just football players, but veterans and other individuals exposed to head trauma.”

Is there a future for professional football in the U.S. with this sort of problem? What responsible parents would urge their son to play a sport that puts them at serious risk for destroying their brains? Would you exchange the opportunity for great wealth for a sure case of brain damage?

A Rookie in the NFL gets base salary about $365,000 for a single year if they are a no-name. It goes up between 5K to 10K a year unless they are signed elsewhere or demand more money due to performances... The average is 1.9 Million a year...

Do it for two to three years, and you are set for life, do it for 10+ like most and you are sitting on "Fuck You" money and then some... They get compensated heavily for the abuse they do to their bodies... want to look at fucked up brains, look at rugby players...

[StCapps]

In all seriousness though - what's going to happen to football and/or boxing? Evidence is in, isn't it? Seems like they'll have to make rule changes....

NFL? No idea.

You could fix boxing immediately by removing the gloves. You would have to stop more fights from bleeding, but there would be less concussive damage since without the glove padding, you can't wail away on someone's head whole-hog without breaking your hand.

You would also see body shots increase dramatically as well, since they are a) more effective without big bulky gloves, and b) head shots would be less effective.

Gloves were implemented to protect a fighters hands, not their heads, you make a good point about reducing the size of the gloves would save the boxers some brain damage, but boxing wouldn't be safe all of a sudden if you did. Broken hands are lame anyway, and isn't good for the longevity of fighting career to break your hands that often, they changed the rules in the first place for a good reason, I don't think removing the gloves would reduce the brain damage enough to be worth the hand damage you would sustain in that trade off. Athlete safety shouldn't be pursued at the cost of making the sport worse.

[heydaralon]

In all seriousness though - what's going to happen to football and/or boxing? Evidence is in, isn't it? Seems like they'll have to make rule changes....

NFL? No idea.

You could fix boxing immediately by removing the gloves. You would have to stop more fights from bleeding, but there would be less concussive damage since without the glove padding, you can't wail away on someone's head whole-hog without breaking your hand.

You would also see body shots increase dramatically as well, since they are a) more effective without big bulky gloves, and b) head shots would be less effective.

Gloves were implemented to protect a fighters hands, not their heads, you make a good point about reducing the size of the gloves would save the boxers some brain damage, but boxing wouldn't be safe all of a sudden if you did. Broken hands are lame anyway, and isn't good for the longevity of fighting career to break your hands that often, they changed the rules in the first place for a good reason.

I was of the understanding that the gloves actually fuck the players heads up more, because in bare knuckle boxing you had to be mindful about breaking your hands so you were more cautious in throwing punches. The gloves now protect the hands, so the brain gets pummeled even more...

[Montegriffo]

Disease Found in 99 Percent of Brains Donated by NFL Families

Over the last decade, one of the biggest stories in sports has been the mounting evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in football players. The degenerative brain disease develops after repeated blows to the head, and a new study finds a strong link between playing football and CTE. As Daniella Emanuel at CNN reports, the brains of 110 out of 111 NFL players that were donated to the researchers showed signs of the disease.

The study, published this week in the journal JAMA, was based on autopsies of 202 deceased football players including those who did not play beyond the high school and college level. As Emanuel reports, in addition to the NFL players, the disease was found in 48 out of 53 college players and 3 of the 14 high school players.

The brains examined for the study came from subjects that ranged in age from 23 to 89 and from every position on the football field, from punters to linebackers, Joe Ward, Josh Williams and Sam Manchester report for The New York Times. In the brains examined, the largest number of CTE cases were found in linemen, running backs and defensive backs. Eighty-six percent of the professional players in the study had severe cases of the disease as did 56 percent of the college players.

“There's no question that there's a problem in football. That people who play football are at risk for this disease,” Ann McKee, director of Boston University's CTE Center and coauthor of the study tells Emanuel. “And we urgently need to find answers for not just football players, but veterans and other individuals exposed to head trauma.”

Is there a future for professional football in the U.S. with this sort of problem? What responsible parents would urge their son to play a sport that puts them at serious risk for destroying their brains? Would you exchange the opportunity for great wealth for a sure case of brain damage?

A Rookie in the NFL gets base salary about $365,000 for a single year if they are a no-name. It goes up between 5K to 10K a year unless they are signed elsewhere or demand more money due to performances... The average is 1.9 Million a year...

Do it for two to three years, and you are set for life, do it for 10+ like most and you are sitting on "Fuck You" money and then some... They get compensated heavily for the abuse they do to their bodies... want to look at fucked up brains, look at rugby players...

Fewer brain injuries in rugby,

So which sport is more dangerous? Rugby players wear far fewer pads, but it’s those pads that enable and embolden someone to hit another player with greater speed and force—and it’s the sudden stopping, not the impact itself, that causes the brain to crash into the inside of the skull, causing a concussion. Rugby players don’t wear helmets, but rather scrum caps, which do little more than prevent cauliflower ear—though again, it’s the helmet that allows for harder hits and a harder projectile, so helmets can be more dangerous for players than caps.

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/10/rugby/504143/

[StCapps]

I was of the understanding that the gloves actually fuck the players heads up more, because in bare knuckle boxing you had to be mindful about breaking your hands so you were more cautious in throwing punches. The gloves now protect the hands, so the brain gets pummeled even more...

That's correct. Hard to fight with a broken hand, so they changed the rules so it would happen less often, before that boxing was bare knuckles.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

In all seriousness though - what's going to happen to football and/or boxing? Evidence is in, isn't it? Seems like they'll have to make rule changes....

NFL? No idea.

You could fix boxing immediately by removing the gloves. You would have to stop more fights from bleeding, but there would be less concussive damage since without the glove padding, you can't wail away on someone's head whole-hog without breaking your hand.

You would also see body shots increase dramatically as well, since they are a) more effective without big bulky gloves, and b) head shots would be less effective.

Gloves were implemented to protect a fighters hands, not their heads, you make a good point about reducing the size of the gloves would save the boxers some brain damage, but boxing wouldn't be safe all of a sudden if you did. Broken hands are lame anyway, and isn't good for the longevity of fighting career to break your hands that often, they changed the rules in the first place for a good reason, I don't think removing the gloves would reduce the brain damage enough to be worth the hand damage you would sustain in that trade off. Athlete safety shouldn't be pursued at the cost of making the sport worse.

I think that boxers would learn to control their punches so they didn't break their hands, and strategize for more body blows. I really think it would make the sport quite a bit better, to be honest... but that is a matter of taste.

[The Conservative]

Disease Found in 99 Percent of Brains Donated by NFL Families



Is there a future for professional football in the U.S. with this sort of problem? What responsible parents would urge their son to play a sport that puts them at serious risk for destroying their brains? Would you exchange the opportunity for great wealth for a sure case of brain damage?

A Rookie in the NFL gets base salary about $365,000 for a single year if they are a no-name. It goes up between 5K to 10K a year unless they are signed elsewhere or demand more money due to performances... The average is 1.9 Million a year...

Do it for two to three years, and you are set for life, do it for 10+ like most and you are sitting on "Fuck You" money and then some... They get compensated heavily for the abuse they do to their bodies... want to look at fucked up brains, look at rugby players...

Fewer brain injuries in rugby,

So which sport is more dangerous? Rugby players wear far fewer pads, but it’s those pads that enable and embolden someone to hit another player with greater speed and force—and it’s the sudden stopping, not the impact itself, that causes the brain to crash into the inside of the skull, causing a concussion. Rugby players don’t wear helmets, but rather scrum caps, which do little more than prevent cauliflower ear—though again, it’s the helmet that allows for harder hits and a harder projectile, so helmets can be more dangerous for players than caps.

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/10/rugby/504143/

So brain injuries ok, spinal, meh... we can ignore those... who needs to walk.

As The Guardian notes, “In rugby it is spinal injuries from scrums that are the most dangerous (110 rugby players in Britain have been paralysed by playing the game).”

[StCapps]

I think that boxers would learn to control their punches so they didn't break their hands, and strategize for more body blows. I really think it would make the sport quite a bit better, to be honest... but that is a matter of taste.

It would decrease the importance of defense, because without gloves it isn't as easy to evade or parry punches. It would make boxing less strategic as a result, it would make it much worse, not only the fighters hands, but on our eyeballs. They changed the rules in 1867 for a reason, then those rules stuck for a reason, and those reasons were well thought out, just saying.

[heydaralon]

Would you guys be cool with seeing fights to the death? I think if both parties signed a waiver, and agreed to keep fighting until one person died, there would be a bunch of athletes ok with that, as long as the payout was big enough. Would that be morally wrong? Is dying from a fight immediately worse than living for a few decades like a vegetable from brain damage caused by fights from your youth? I'm not sure I have an answer, though I would probably watch a fight to the death with a kind of morbid curiosity.

[StCapps]

Would you guys be cool with seeing fights to the death? I think if both parties signed a waiver, and agreed to keep fighting until one person died, there would be a bunch of athletes ok with that, as long as the payout was big enough. Would that be morally wrong? Is dying from a fight immediately worse than living for a few decades like a vegetable from brain damage caused by fights from your youth? I'm not sure I have an answer, though I would probably watch a fight to the death with a kind of morbid curiosity.

Fighting to the death is dumb. Fighters never get to learn from their loses, makes for a shittier sport, though I'm not sure the average Roman would agree with me.