Professional athletes today are faced with many mental and physical risks and conditions, as daily practices and grueling games are played, many times, at the expense of a players' health.  Concussions in particular are becoming a huge problem in all sports today, and especially in football. While many sports are involved in the concussions crisis, the main sport headlining the crisis is football. Recently, due to the increased attention by the media and the fans of the game to this severe issue, more medical research has emerged and many doctors and analysts are urgently informing game officials of the hidden dangers of the continued playing of contact sports. Based on the overwhelming evidence that concussions suffered by football players are extremely detrimental, there is undoubtedly a need for policy change or implementation addressing how to prevent these concussions for professionals. 

Football itself has an absurd amount of head to head contact, and players pay for it in their day to day lives even after they have retired from the league.  In George Lundbergs's article about brain trauma, he goes into detail about how harmful head to head hits are by giving examples of the hits on defenseless. In another article written by Zack Furness, he utilizes one on one interviews with retired football players who talk about how much the game has meant to them.  Interestingly, in almost all of these interviews, the players gave a negative review, saying they either have brain trauma or serious migraines occurring frequently, or, even more jarringly, that the game simply wasn't worth it because of the pain they have to go through along with the strain put on their families each and every day.

Another upsetting viewpoint on this topic is the fact that people are so oblivious to the concussion crisis.  The amount of concussions grows each and every year, and, as stated by Ken Belson, there has been a 31.6 percent increase in concussions in the past year alone. Obviously, these are a prominent problem and will continue to occur until a higher power with the appropriate resources such as the NFL and commissioner Rodger Goodell actually start trying to do something to fix this problem- instead of letting it just slide over. Scholars such as Lundberg bring up many more relevant points about how Goodell is putting some policies in place to try to slow down the problem, but unfortunately more so trying to hide the problem from the public. 

Rodger Goodell's first reason for trying to hide to the problem of concussions from the public is because it is the most popular event in history as quoted by Anthony Riccobono.  Riccobono states that the Super Bowl in 2015 was the most watched event in TV history and that doesn't even account for the amount of people in the stadium at the time or the amount of people watching on a single persons TV.  It was reported that approximately 114.4 million people watched that one football game, which is just an estimate, and could easily have been understated. The reason this statistic is brought up is because it provides evidence that the issue is extremely relevant. If millions of people are watching the game of football, then something should definitely be done to stop or limit the amount of concussions and protect the players that are filling our TV screens. 

Rodger Goodell's second reason for hiding this problem from the public is for good reason, as he proposes that instead of just trying to blindly change the game of football itself, he would like to perform studies about the injury to find different ways to stop and cut down concussions without completely changing and ending the game. One proposed change to attempt to cut down on head related injuries such as concussions requires taking a player's helmet away in practice so the players can learn not to use their helmets as weapons when tackling. However, the other answer to the problem has been used much more- simply just making the equipment more protective. For example, a new company, Xenith, is supposedly the future of football pads- especially focusing on helmets.  These helmets are supposed to limit the amount of concussions occurring, but surprisingly the amounts of concussions are still increasing each year.  This clearly exhibits that there needs to be other things implemented, such as technical changes effected at practices and trainings to put increased focus on safety.

The statistics and media coverage geared toward concussions in football overwhelmingly support the need for reform to support safer contact sports. In one particular article, it is pointed out that this year alone, there has been a 58 percent increase in the amount head injuries and concussions. This statistic was taken just days before the 2016 Super Bowl, so the information is very recent, making this fact both extremely relevant and worrisome. The article then goes on to report that a man at the age of 27 died based off a brain injury that was caused by playing in the National Football League.

The counter argument to all these statistics and opinions is that the game has always been the same way and that it should not be changed because it is America's past time.  People also believe that's the price players pay for being professional athletes, and the risk is accepted with the job. This argument is also supported with the fact that professional football players make millions of dollars every year playing this sport- therefore a head injury is just a minor detail.   This argument is shown by the article "Football, So Beautiful for Fans, Scars Players with Dementia," as seen by the title itself.  This article talks about how the fans are just blocked out by how much they love the game and they don't actually understand what is going on behind the game of football, behind the scenes.  Fans love to watch a big hit, and oftentimes do not comprehend the severe damage to the brain that the one hit can incur.

The next major issue when it comes to concussions is the fact that people do not deal with them or treat them correctly when they occur.  This problem is brought up by Ken Belson when she talks about the amount of players that play through concussions, or simply just do not perform the correct rehabilitation for their head injury that they need to. Tanya Lewis wrote an article pertaining to the human brain and all that it does for the human body- it showed rather unsurprisingly that the brain is by far the most important body part or organ.  This clearly exhibits that the amount of injuries happening to this organ need to stop because it is ruining people's lives, hindering them mentally as well as causing extreme pain.  

Concussions can cause many issues both short and long term to the human brain.  Short term concussion effects called mTBIs are much more likely to occur and easier to get.  Long term concussion effects called PCSs are much more traumatic and painful. Both of these concussion symptoms are extremely bad for the human brain, and effects can range from simple dizziness, or, in the more traumatic cases, pain so terrible that someone like Junior Seua would take their life because they have to deal with so much pain each and every day (Weill Medical College).  

Concussions have become such a huge problem and the players feel like their rights are being looked over so much that the player's organization decided to sue the NFL. The law suit was prompted because of a statistic released that stated that one in every ten players that have retired from the NFL has a strong possibility of getting Alzheimer's (Fox Sports).  If the NFL would agree to the settlement of the players, it would make the players of the league much happier and save them millions of dollars and the possibility of debilitating medical trauma.  Instead, this law suit is bringing attention to the game of football, but not the attention that the National Football League wants. There are thousands of lawsuits against the NFL that most people haven't even heard of, which further reiterates the need for more transparency in the league involving the effects of these brain injuries.  

All of these statistics and facts may make it seem like the NFL is making no effort at all to protect its players, but in fact, there are many who believe they are not doing enough. There are only five new rule changes happening in the NFL because of worries about concussions, and they are mostly all to protect defenseless players (NFL.com).  This shows that while the league is not doing an incredible amount to progress safety and education regarding concussions, it is at least doing something to try to help them out and give them a chance to make a play and defend themselves.

Many defensive players specifically have a problem with the fact that all these rule changes are being put in place because they think it is making it unfair for them.  All the rules that come up every year are put their in order to protect the offensive player from taking a huge hit, but all the defensive players believe that if they get there in that much of perfect timing where then they should be rewarded with being able to dish out a big hit.  I played defensive throughout my childhood, so I see where they are coming from with that argument- however, players oftentimes forget to think about their safety.  Either way, the player either getting hit or receiving the hit is in some way damaging their brain, whether they realize it or not. The rules changes are meant to take away the cheap shots of the game to improve player safety so that players do not get hurt of suffer serious injuries for no reason.

Concussions have become such a big problem lately that there has even been a movie making huge gains in the box office.  This movie really brought the problem of concussions to view of the public because it was very hidden before. This brought much negative publicity to the NFL because not all the things brought up in this movie were completely true, regarding both football in general as well as concussions. Will Smith is the star of this movie and brings up many problems with the NFL because of how biased the movie is against terrible concussions (Official Concussion Trailer).  The movie does not do the NFL any justice at all because it is all about negative things that happen in the game of football.  On the bright side, however, this did bring attention to the problem of concussions that most audiences or the public would have never known or thought about.  

The main problem with the problem of concussions is the fact that the NFL raises the most money of any entertainment event in the world.  This means that no one ever wants to change or do anything to the game itself, especially the board that run the league- they obviously do not want to cut into their salaries by messing up the game and losing customers or people that watch it on TV.  This would also strongly affect TV companies too because football is the most watched event on TV; If the game is changed and not as many people watch it, TV companies lose money.  

The aspect that I think is the worst when it comes to concussions is that they are frequently overshadowed by other legal problems.  Lately, concussions have not been thought of as the main problem in the NFL.  Concussions have been completely overshadowed by other legal issues that happen on the field because they are more worried about their image off the field rather than the pain the player goes through on the field.  The league focuses a lot more on the legal aspects of the game and its players rather than the health of the players.  While other legal issues could negatively affect players, teams, and families, it could be argued that it is no worse than people killing themselves because of the intense pain from a football-caused concussion.

Concussions will forever be changing the game of football until enough research is done to figure out to stop concussions.  Concussions are a very serious injury that occurs to the most important organ or body part of the human body.  Brains are what make people function and being repeatedly hit in the brain is not good or healthy for anyone.  When football is thought of the main thing that people think about is the violence of the game but they need to start to take in the fact that the violence takes a toll on people's bodies and can deeply affect the human brain.  The human brain is a very valuable and fragile thing that needs to be examined more so that concussions can be cut down on and or at least helped out.

