Injuries

smleh wrote:
How did Tinglehoff, Yary, Tarkenton, Eller, Page, Bill Brown, and Marshall go YEARS without missing a game and now every week we have an injury report that can fill a hospital ward?

Because injuries, especially concussions, are closely monitored nowadays. Back then, it was pure machismo keeping badly hurt guys in games.

Then came the CTE victims, and some overdue attention was achieved.

Zanary wrote:

Because injuries, especially concussions, are closely monitored nowadays. Back then, it was pure machismo keeping badly hurt guys in games.

Then came the CTE victims, and some overdue attention was achieved.

 Bud Grant, “The greatest ability is durability”.

Zanary wrote:

Because injuries, especially concussions, are closely monitored nowadays. Back then, it was pure machismo keeping badly hurt guys in games.

Then came the CTE victims, and some overdue attention was achieved.

Yes, nobody cared about head injuries back then.  Get them some smelling salt, get them back out there.

Zanary wrote:

Because injuries, especially concussions, are closely monitored nowadays. Back then, it was pure machismo keeping badly hurt guys in games.

Then came the CTE victims, and some overdue attention was achieved.

I think the toll that playing this game with little protection at the highest level began to only be recognized in the last ten years or so.

Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL All-Pro Bo Jackson said in a 2017 interview with USA Today that if he had known about the risks associated with CTE, he would never have played football, and he discourages his children from doing so.

I remember hearing Mark "Stinky" Schlereth respond to a question about the number of knee surgeries he's had (he was doing an announcing gig, a couple years after he retired from the NFL).  His answer?  "17".  Some of these guys can hardly walk in their 50's.

CTE cannot be diagnosed in living victims...only via examining the brains of deceased victims.  In a study of 376 former NFL players whose brains were examined (and the list reads like a "who's who" of NFL players), 345 of them were diagnosed with CTE (almost 92%).

It's like smoking cigarettes.  My dad, who had a non-operative form of lung cancer, told me about cigarettes (3 packs a day from age 17 to when he finally quit cold turkey at age 56...he died days before his 63rd birthday).  I'll never forget one of his final comments to me in the hospital..."they told us that cigarettes were good for us!"

Science and education cannot be dismissed.  These guys are getting a paycheck...and yeah, they'd like to be on the field, but the awareness of long-term health impacts is significantly different today vs. say 20 years ago.