Re: Head Trauma
 

Kids have been playing football for generations and the risk isn’t any higher now than it has been in the past. If anything there is less of a risk these days.
Yes, there is definitely a chance a kid could get hurt playing football but you take the same risk when you throw them down 100 foot water slides, let them skate board, bike ride, etc. etc. Not to mention the crap kids do that you DONT know about.
How me and my friends survived is beyond me. Anything From sawing open shot gun shells to play with gun powder, back yard boxing matches without gloves, body slamming each other, building rope swings, tackle sandlot football to skateboarding off roofs onto trampolines.
Kids these days are pussified enough.

Re: Head Trauma
 

Im just got off the medical reports that have the linemen the worst off in terms of trauma. Granted the hits I've seen on so e receivers look far worse. Often by a QB walking them I to a window that will get them lit up.


Im not even sure what I'm getting at starting the debate to be honest. Just some parts of that in depth podcast left me a bit uneasy with some things in various sports I've loved

Re: Head Trauma
 

I remember reading once that playing O-Line is akin to being in a car accident 65-80 times per game.

Re: Head Trauma
 

Its very seldom the singular big hits that causes the problem but the repetitive hits over a career where linemen are a lot more exposed than other positions.


I played as a lineman for 16 seasons and I have to admit I'm a little worried about my long term health. I had my last concussion in 2017 and I still feel some effects of it today.

I'm not sure I would want my sons to play if I had any.

Re: Head Trauma
 

I was reloading my own shotgun shells when I was 12, so I had much easier access to the gunpowder. ;) Then again, I experienced a very fluke hunting accident at age 16 when I took both barrels from a 20 gauge over and under from three inches away in the lower leg. And, yes, I was out in the open field after three months of physical therapy (with still open wounds) playing tackle football with friends. Of course the docs and parents didn't know. Left a pretty damned impressive conversation piece of a scar. I still get asked about it to this day. Usually from young kids that have not yet been "pussified" by their parents.

Re: Head Trauma
 

Damn dude. Glad you made it through that. Would have been a different story if you were using buckshot.

Re: Head Trauma
 

#8 birdshot. Still have an ounce or so still floating around between my mid-calf and ankle region of my left leg 46 years later. Took the full load of both barrels includng the wadding. Miraculously missed the bone and arteries and took out a good section of the muscle. Just so happened the six top USAF surgeons were at the local base for a conference. They all had extensive battleground experience and several of them handled the surgery. No way they could clear out all that shot. Makes for an interesting xray. LOL!

Re: Head Trauma
 

I was born in 70' and safety was never a consideration lol. At 8 I received my first chemistry set along with my father telling me the ingredients for gunpowder so I made my own, it came with potassium nitrate (salt peter) and sulfur... mom beat my arse for destroying a cheese grader on a charcoal briquet. I also dabbled with black powder firearms as a teen and a few ounces if black powder in an empty whippet (CO2 cartridge) with a firecracker wick and a dab of wax and you can take a mailbox off its post.

I had my arm broken by someone that fell out of a tree, stepped on 1/2 a broken coke bottle with no shoes playing hide and seek, had my nose broken by a Frisbee, used to have 1 pump pellet gun wars, jumped everything I could find with my bicycle, tore my hamstring, couldnt tell you which fingers haven't been broken or jammed, ...

After that childhood, 6 years of football, 9 years of baseball, 4 years in the ARMY, 6 months of combat , 5 years in Nigeria, more mosh pits than I can count, and 12 years on drilling rigs throughout the world one would think I set out to die or become dismembered at some point... I didn't, it didn't happen.

I have daughters but if I had sons I would'nt stop them from playing any sports.

Boys don't come with vaginas, don't treat them like they do; emergency rooms and health insurance are for the accidents. Size is irrelevant, every team needs Safety's and punt returners.

During my time in Nigeria I watched infants ride on moms back or belly wrapped in a sarong as she worked in the field or the streets, children are resilient and a hell of a lot more durable that modern society recognizes. We would have never survived evolution if they weren't.