PS, you see the same thing with skiing. In the 80s nobody wore helmets, except like pros skiing gates. Nowadays it's rare to see anyone with any ability not wearing a helmet.

Look at Natasha Richardson. I think she was on like a green bunny type slope. Fell backwards, brain hemorrhage, dies from it.

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"I would challenge you to a battle of wits but I see you are unarmed."

Actually according to most recent studies, basketball is the most injury causing sport.

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“The Steelers drafted guys who were bigger, stronger and faster than I, but they never found one who could take my job away from me." Jack Lambert

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I gotcha. I wasn't commenting on single moms. I was talking about the men who complain about "the nanny state" without realizing the irony that if the nanny state exists it's because they're not doing their jobs!

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"I would challenge you to a battle of wits but I see you are unarmed."

Football is not a sport for pussies. With the pussification of America, it only stands to reason that the acceptance of football will also decreased due to the increased amount of pussies. No?

It makes sense, RS.....Popularity of football, and the acceptance of the essence of the game stands in inverse proportion to the preponderance of pussies in the general American population.

I would.

How many millions of people played contact football at some level in this country? Out of that number, how many suffered life altering traumatic brain injuries? Sure, the most dramaticly injured pro athletes make the headlines. Those spectacular cases appear to be rare even for Pro athletes. Have the studies been able to segregate brain injury caused by collisions as opposed to brain injury caused by steroids / HGH/ whatever supplements?

I played high school football as a starting lineman and don't seem to have suffered any ill effects. Neither did my friends/teammates as far as I can tell. My brother-in-law played college ball (DIII) as a lineman and does not seem to have suffered any ill effects. High schools are aware of the risks posed by concussions now. They'll be more cautious in the future. Without more convincing data, I see no real reason to forbid my son from playing.

As many have noted, there's risk in everything. I wouldn't want my kid to ride a motorcycle. I wouldn't want my kid to do MMA or box. However, I'm not convinced that football is too risky. Frankly, I'd feel more comfortable with my son playing football than baseball. Anecdotally, it seems as though I hear/read of more kids killed in Little League or High School from a line drive to the chest or head than I do from some on-field football injuires.

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"[Willie Colon] is of no use or help to anybody"- Paul Linta, Willie Colon's Agent

My two favorite sports to watch are football and MMA. I would prefer my son not partake in either, but I'd support him if if he chose to play football. That would change pretty quick if he got a concussion. I know there is a 99.9% chance my kids will make their livings with their brains down the road and a one in a million chance they'll make a living in athletics. I'd prefer to keep them involved in activities where the chances of their brains getting scrambled are at a minimum.

If you are being honest, violence and collisions are what make football great to watch, but subjecting our kids to those things isn't great parenting.

So evenutally, the more affluent and thus "pussies" of the USA will no long allow their children to play football. Football will only be relegated to the poor and underpriveledged who have grown up in with violence all around them. Then, the affluent pussies will be the only ones who can afford to pay the ticket price and go watch the poor kids beat the shit out of each other on the football field. They will cheer and cheer for harder hits at the football game, while little johnny is playing soccer the next day. Sound familiar? Maybe Adrian Peterson had the whole slave mentality thing correct.

Gladiator culture in the truest sense.

Growing up though, probably all of us knew kids whose parents wouldn't let them play football...and invariably, and often through no fault of their own, they were labelled pussies.

Funny, my high school coach, Bill Priatko, whose mom was a Russian immigrant at first wouldn't allow him to play football, wanting him to focus his time and attention on playing the violin. Then, when Bill broke his orbital bone playing for North Braddock Scott against Munhall, his mom flipped the fuck out.....out in the street, literally, wailing, how he could never play football again. His brother brought him to the drug store in Braddock, got him some leaches...honest to Christ....to get the swelling to go down. Then, and I"ve told this story before, his high school coach, Johnny Reed, a rival of Paul Brown (Canton McKinley vs. Massilon) had Bill go to Braddock Hospital to be x-rayed. When young Priatko told Reed the results of the x-rays and that the doctor told him he was done for the season, Reed said...."What's he know? You'll be alright," and had him back on the practice field that afternoon. True story