Football: An American Game

By Ben Concussions have been a huge issue in football. In 2009 the National Football League found that retired NFL football players are 19 times more likely to suffer memory loss problems then the average man. According to the Daily News since 2011 at least 5 NFL players, current and retired have killed themselves. One incident was in 2012 when star Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher who had no concussion history whatsoever and just went out and shot his wife and himself. It was proven that he had suffered severe brain damage from the constant collisions on the football field but had been unnoticed. Although more blood was spilled on the field back in the 70’s when the NFL had less equipment, now with more equipment the NFL is said to have become even more dangerous then it was before. As an American who loves to watch and cheer on the Oakland Raiders every Sunday, as well as play football with my friends, this has really affected my insights on the game. For example, after reading all this concussion stuff my mom would not allow me to play football for my high school and it made me no longer feel great about playing football in general. Even when watching a game on TV I’m now concerned each time a player takes a massive hit but yet manages to stay in the game due his coach caring more about winning then the players health. I feel the popularity of the game of football is going down and several believe there might not be a national football league in 20 years. The reason for this is because many parents like mine have entirely discouraged kids from playing and going through the dangers of the game. As many Americans continue to watch football on Sundays and host super bowl parties as if the super bowl is a national holiday, Americans need to understand what they are encouraging. I wish they would see that this game they are watching is a game with all these men on the field getting hurt and suffering life-threatening injuries that are likely to effect them in the long term even if they don’t appear to be affecting them in the moment. I feel the NFL needs to change their rules with tackling and head to head concussions in order to make football safer and less danger-focused. I love the game of football but I would love it even more if it wasn’t so focused on players hurting each other and instead more based on the more important aspects of the game such as the outstanding catches and explosive runs.