I’m starting to wonder if American football may soon be a thing of the past.
It is not a secret that the lifespan of a professional football player is significantly shorter than that of the average man (football players die in their 50s on average). Common sense suggests that the abuse a player’s body takes throughout the course of his career is what leads to an earlier demise. But revelations made over the past few years that have shown the effects of the head trauma football collisions cause has me wondering how long this beautiful-but-violent game has before it is simply deemed too unsafe to play.
Over the last several years, the medical community has revealed more and more that head trauma – especially the kind prevalent in football – leads to an ever-widening array of medical problems. Concussions, once considered to be not especially serious, are now being treated with an extreme level of care. Science has revealed that players who suffer repeated concussions – which is a bruising of the brain – can increase their odds of long-term damage exponentially. It is the bruising of a not-entirely-healed brain that can lead to many ailments including paralysis and dementia, among others. Recently, a Boston University study found that head trauma can lead to ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The National Football League, for its part, has become proactive in making rule changes to try and lessen the potential for such head trauma in the game. But as the years roll on, and more and more disturbing information is released about the long-term health risks football players take, I can only wonder when the time will come that the league is forced to change drastically, or cease to exist altogether.
Given what we have learned about the relationship between football, brain injuries and the consequences thereof, I wonder how much longer American football will continue to be, and what it will look like if it is still around in ten, twenty years.