Football is not meant to be played safely. Gargantuan athletic phenoms constantly colliding with each other creates a recipe for pain. To quote Kurt Warner, “My first year out, I remember standing on the sidelines and just watching the game thinking to myself, I can’t believe I ever played this game.”
Injuries have always been a part of football. At the highest level, they are plentiful. However, it seems as though there has been a stark increase in not only injuries, but the frequency of severe ones. I spoke with Steve Mariucci, a member of the Player Safety Advisory Panel about the recent increase in injuries.
He brought up a lot of significant points, with a thesis surrounding the idea that notable injury spikes have resulted in changes to the game.
The NFL moved kickoffs to the 35-yard line in an effort to produce more touchbacks. Mariucci stated that most injuries occurred during kickoff returns, so the NFL made sure to address that immediately, and it’s proven to be effective. Concussions have been cut back by 33%, so while protective rules have annoyed some (i.e late hits, leading with the helmet becoming more penalized), they’re doing wonders in terms of slashing concussion numbers.
However, ACL and MCL injuries have trended the opposite direction. Players are getting hurt at an alarming rate, and perhaps the amount of media exposure nowadays is placing a greater spotlight on each individual injury, but it seems like this game is more violent than ever.
November 1st, 2015, seventeen players exited their respective games due to injury. Seventeen. Mariucci looked to John Madden, one of the heads of the Player Safety Advisory Panel for discussion on the matter.
“I was texting John Madden going, ‘Did you see how many injuries this week?’ This week was probably the worst week we’ve had with injuries in I don’t know how long.” Based on Mariucci’s response, and the impressive spike in injuries in recent weeks, it wouldn’t surprise me if more rule changes were made to accommodate player safety.
It’s difficult to pinpoint what is truly contributing to this recent surge of injuries dating back to last year, when players were dropping like flies in the pre-season.
A Boston University study found that 96% of NFL players they conducted research on had some form of CTE, a degenerative disease. 91 deceased players’ brains were studied. 87 of those 91 had some form of CTE, which bears symptoms such as memory loss, depression, and dementia.
These guys make unreal amounts of money to play a sport, but with a practical guarantee that they’ll live their retired life with a degenerative disease. It’s still a heck of a lot of fun to play and to watch, but this sport is profoundly dangerous to the human body.
Here’s a list of All-Injury Team notables for this 2015 NFL Season.
QB: Tony Romo, Ben Roethlisberger
RB: Le’veon Bell, Arian Foster, Jamaal Charles
WR: Jordy Nelson, Kelvin Benjamin, Steve Smith Sr.
TE: Rob Housler, Dennis Pitta
LB: Terrell Suggs, Shane Ray, Elvis Dumervil
O-Line: Will Montgomery, Ryan Clady, Nate Solder, Maurkice Pouncey
DB: Orlando Scandrick, Joe Haden, Louis Delmas
D-Line: Dante Fowler, Cameron Wake
K: Shaun Suisham, Cody Parkey