Goodell wants to Ban 3-point stances

[Fox1994]

I thought about mentioning the mouthpiece thing, but college kids are required to wear them (if I'm not mistaken) and they suffer concussions too. Most of the studies that I have read were conducted at UNC and players are even getting them in practice. Plus there is even data that suggests players who never advance past high school develop the same brain tissue damage.

So while that's a good step, it's not gonna completely solve the problems.

The only thing that's gonna completely solve the problem is if these folk stop playing football.

[Sven Draconian]

All the data I received was from the same Malcolm Gladwall article from NYT magazine:

Football, dogfighting, and brain damage : The New Yorker

I never liked that article (and this isn't an attack at you, just the article). Not because it "attacked football" more becaue it is in no-way "scientific" despite presenting itself as such. Just for starters:

1) They don't know what "Tau" does if anything.
2) They don't actually know what causes Tau
3) They don't konw what these people do besides football.

It's readily acknowledged we know almost nothing about the brain, and we know nothing about alzheimers. Yet, based on looking at a pretty limited sample of brains we know what is happening now?

For example, if said 18 year old has the Tau of a 70 year old man with Alzheimers, shouldn't he be suffering from it? What is the Tau doing. They can't really answer that, but they'll certainly point out the correlation. Bad science.

It's a launching point for more investigation (and, rightly so), but there is such a massive over-reaction to something we think we migh thave found but we aren't really sure what it means yet.

[NAHSTE]

I never liked that article (and this isn't an attack at you, just the article). Not because it "attacked football" more becaue it is in no-way "scientific" despite presenting itself as such. Just for starters:

1) They don't know what "Tau" does if anything.
2) They don't actually know what causes Tau
3) They don't konw what these people do besides football.

It's readily acknowledged we know almost nothing about the brain, and we know nothing about alzheimers. Yet, based on looking at a pretty limited sample of brains we know what is happening now?

For example, if said 18 year old has the Tau of a 70 year old man with Alzheimers, shouldn't he be suffering from it? What is the Tau doing. They can't really answer that, but they'll certainly point out the correlation. Bad science.

It's a launching point for more investigation (and, rightly so), but there is such a massive over-reaction to something we think we migh thave found but we aren't really sure what it means yet.

I agree that it's not totally reliable. I don't really like Malcolm Galdwell either, he tries to push pop science on uninformed masses so he comes off as a genius. But somewhere in there the lady acknowledges that she needs to see at least 50 more samples to determine anything, which could take decades.

The concussion research at UNC is certainly interesting though. If guys are suffering concussions in practice, even in shells, that's a little troubling.

[Sven Draconian]

Yea, the UNC thing was eye-opening. Very good stuff. The only issue I had with it was that it's the helmet that is taking that impact, not the skull itself. I'd really like to know how much of that force is being absorbed and defelcted by the helmet.

It's similar to the sports science show where they show how much "force" Urlacher hits you with, and have him tackle a dummy with a sensor in it. Sure, if he hits a stationary object with direct contact. However, rarely, if ever, do two players make direct contact without defelcting off.