“There is a national conversation taking place about football, and we welcome it,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recently in a speech at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The subject of concussions to NFL and NCAA football players took center stage during the 2012 football season as literally thousands of ex-NFL players filed suit against the league because they suffered heavily from concussions during their tenure in the NFL. Some have serious cases……some are only in it for the money.
Junior Seau recently passed away after having a very bad time for years after taking way too many head to head hits when he played with the Chargers, the Dolphins and the Patriots during a 19 year career in the NFL. His family is also suing the NFL.
Goodell calls the concussion issue the biggest challenge that his office has ever faced and the biggest obstacle will be actually “changing the culture” of American football. The commissioner’s office is also facing some tough questions from the press as well as the public concerning the proposed 18-game schedule which has been rumored about all last season.
Goodell is reported, by people around him, to have an inordinate fear of an NFL player actually dying on the field during a game. That would definitely put a damper on the game for a lot of people. No one wants to see anything like that go down, so……what are they going to do about these horrid head to head hits that we keep seeing week after week.
A guy butts the quarterback in the helmet and knocks him dizzy. He is not ejected from the game. He is right back in there trying to repeat the feat on the next play. On Monday morning Goodell’s office announces that the offending player will be fined something like $30,000……more or less a day’s pay for these guys. That obviously is not going to stop the head to head hits……it has not so far anyway.
“In recent years there’s become a sharper focus on concussions in football,” Goodell said. “Scientists and doctors know more about concussions than they did even a few years ago. This is our biggest challenge: changing the culture to reduce injury risk, especially the risk of head injury.” “The helmet is there for protection, it should not be used as a weapon.”
