Absolutely agree with the Bengals benching Andy Dalton. It’s not that Dalton can’t play, but they need to move on. Start over with a new QB. They’ve tried it with Dalton long enough. He probably needs a fresh start too.
[URL=http://s217.photobucket.com/user/bdog1321/media/jfk-1.jpg.html]it was short lived but it was fun <3
[ broke link: http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/c...sdb2e3340.gif]
Originally Posted by Kash
I Love Lex and want to have his babies
Hey, sorry, meant to get back to this but just forgot.
So I'm with you on the "so what?" part. I totally agree with that. In my opinion they shouldn't be so obsessed with the injuries in football. I know you know I don't like football but I'm a fighter, it's the same thing with that. It's fighting. It's supposed to be violent. Don't get into MMA or football if you don't want injuries, you're a grown ass man, and you know exactly what you're signing up for. Nobody is making you do it. I fought professionally from 18 to 25. At no point was I like "this is unfair it's not safe." I was choosing to step into a cage or ring with people I know are capable of killing me. Same with putting on football pads and choosing to step onto a field with other dudes that are so athletic and big they're going to hit you like a mac truck. You know what you're signing up for, you know you can very likely get brain damage. It'd be no different than going into the military and being like "this isn't safe we need to figure this out better."
So what I'm asking is in a vacuum. I know this will never happen, nor do I care if it does or expect it to. It won't ever happen, we both know that. It's just an interesting question.
You said you've never heard this posed before, but it's been a big topic of discussion. With all of the CTE stuff and head injuries, tons of medical personnel have suggested going the rugby route and eliminated pads. They've been pouring money into developing safer helmets in the NFL because the brain injury rate is so high. I actually was in medic school with Junior Seau killed himself and asked for his brain to be donated to science, so we talked about it a lot (I know tons of about CTE too if any of you want me to explain it in depth and what it is exactly).
The argument is that if you eliminated pads, the players would be more reserved and not hit each other as hard. Which is why rugby has less traumatic injury. You and I could put on pads and run at each other as hard as possible over and over. If you and I ran at each other as hard as we could without pads we'd be insanely injured. Which is just a fact. So there's been doctors involved with the CTE research that have proposed the best thing you could do is eliminate pads and go the way of hurling, Irish Rules Football, rugby, etc.
I don't think this should happen, or that there's even a remote possibility it would ever happen, nor do I want it to happen. Like I said, they're grown ass men that are signing up for this. All I'm saying is, I think those doctors are right. If you wanted to make football safer eliminating pads probably would be the best way to do it. A really good similarity is how boxing has way more brain injury and WAY more deaths than MMA. Like WAAAAY more deaths than MMA. They have huge padded gloves, and because of that, there's not nearly as much clean knockouts. So they just bludgeon each other over and over and they take way more trauma. Whereas if they weren't wearing huge gloves they'd knock each other out instead of hitting each other in the head recklessly over and over.
Just an interesting topic I suppose. It would obviously massively change the game, probably to the point that it would be unrecognizable. And like I said, I don't think they ever would even consider doing it. I'm asking from a medical standpoint, to me it makes sense and probably would make the game safer.
If you look at rugby as a comp, then sure. Removing pads from football would decrease trautic brain injury and major injuries. But a huge part of football, especially now, is the passing game. Football is not played solely in the trenches, like it used to be, and like rugby mostly is. Quarterbacks regularly throw for 300 or 400 yards a game now. It’s common. I don’t know what removing pads and helmets would do to those inevitable collisions that occur when multiple people are you going for the football on deep or over the middle passes. I don’t know how it would effect kick and punt returns either but if they were going to remove pads in an effort to make football safer then I’m sure kick returns would be eliminated also.
It would need to stay American football, not rugby 2.0. Americans don’t care about rugby. I think the data is in on that. I’m sure players would adjust to no pads and helmets and make the necessary changes if the league was committed, and eventually there would a game with more superficial injuries, bumps and bruises and black eyes, but fewer traumatic and long term injuries.
Having said ALL of that, no. I don not think that blueprint or plan would work or be successful. I don’t think the money or interest would be there to do it. Not saying nobody would watch ( there’s someone who will watch anything ) but the NFL would not “survive” it in my opinion.
At the end of the day, if NASCAR drivers raced riding lawnmowers, then NASCAR would be safer. No question. But it would not be better.
Those are a lot of awesome points Hugh. Points I admittedly didn't consider. Like I said, my question is more from a medical standpoint than a football standpoint.
The thing that's super interesting about football, and this is coming from someone who isn't a football fan, is how much the game evolves regularly. I don't think it's unfair to say the passing game today is nothing like how football was played even twenty years ago. The running game was much more prolific in the eighties (and correct me if I'm wrong). The only personal comparison I can draw is fighting, again. And I know you love fighting. If you watch early UFC it's nothing like it is now. It evolves as athletes find out better ways to do things and rules change.
Again I'm not approaching this topic from a fan stance, it's simply from an objective medical stance. I think you get what I'm saying though. Boxing would likely be safer if they could wear smaller gloves and knock each other out quicker. Which will never happen. The NFL would likely be safer if they could eliminate pads and force the players to think more about what they're doing.
Oh definitely. I’d say the evolution of football in the last 20 is just as dramatic as MMA, and I can’t think of another sport even in the conversation. It’s totally different.
If you look at the top 20 all time passing yards in a season, 19 of them have happened since 2011. Dan Marino somehow passed for 5,000 yards in 1984 but nobody did it again for almost 30 years. 2 QBs did it last year, and a 3rd was less than 100 yards short.
So yeah, football isn’t the clawing and scratching for every inch game it once was, and what I think rugby still largely is. I know rugby has evolved too but doesn’t have the air attack stuff that the NFL has pretty much built their whole model around now. Running backs used to be the stars of the league and not that long ago. Not anymore.
And yes I do get whet you’re saying. If they actually took all pads and helmets out of football but continued to play, the game and players would adjust and ultimately it would be safer and there would be fewer traumatic injuries I’m sure.
And the league would probably have like 6 teams and they’d show the games at 10pm on Tuesday nights after reruns of Walker Texas Ranger.
Lots of upsets yesterday which is quite odd.
Insanely poor kick at the end, but props to that kicker for the late lead, then late tie kicks from ~45 out to get to OT in the first place. When Russ threw that OT INT I thought it was going to the house, then that poor kick. Then the stop of the Seattle O and a punt and the 49ers should have run at least a run play. The Seahawks had no TO and if you run the clock even a bit it almost eliminates a Seattle chance at a victory completely (surely 8-0-1 makes losing the division race to Seattle a pain). Now it's 8-1 to 8-2 I think right? Jimmy throwing those two shitty passes to the reserve TE instead of even eating a sack and killing time was oof to me, but maybe I'm wrong.
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