On November 12, 1982 the Allegheny Athletic Association football team defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Clubwas in what was the first official professional football game played in the world (Birth). Since the first football game has been played, the sport has evolved into one of the most popular sports in the United States. There are currently 32 teams in the National Football Association (NFL) and the sport is being played at a higher speed and level than ever. It was not until 2002 when Dr. Ben Omalu performed an autopsy on Mike Webster, who was defensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers who died at the age of 50, and discovered something that would change the NFL forever (Miller). Dr. Omalu discovered an abnormal amount of Tau built up in his brain, and after performing autopsies on several other deceased NFL players he discovered a link between football and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE, which is caused by repeated concussions or severe impacts to the brain. When CTE was linked to football the NFL initially denied the reports, but eventually made some changes to the rules to help protect the players from concussions, but these changes have not been enough. I believe that additional steps need to be taken in order to protect football players of all ages and help reduce the risk of players developing CTE later in life.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy was discovered in the 1970s, but was originally only found in boxers. It was not until Mike Webster's case in 2002 that CTE was linked to the NFL. Symptoms of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy are disordered memory and executive functioning, behavioral and personality disturbances, Parkinsonism, and, motor neuron disease. Personality disturbances include apathy, depression, irritability, impulsiveness, suicidality (Gavett). CTE is very similar to Alzheimer's disease, but is found in much younger people and is the result of repeated blows to the head. Getting multiple concussions is not the only way to develop CTE, it can also develop from a lifetime of sub concussive blows to the head that cause the same damage to the brain over time. 

Many people do not realize the significance of CTE and what it actually does to a players mind and health. As of 2015, there have been 87 former NFL players diagnosed with CTE (Bellware). The list of diagnosed NFL players continues to grow and because it was not discovered until 2002, many players have passed away without being diagnosed. In order to find CTE, an autopsy has to be performed on the brain of a player, which also means that not everyone with CTE has been diagnosed. The most famous case was of Mike Webster, who was the first player ever discovered to have the condition. Once Webster retired from the NFL his health took a turn for the worst. Mike Webster ultimately died of a heart attack at age 50, but the story of his life before death is heartbreaking. Webster had a wife and four children, but after football he slowly fell apart. He stopped filing his taxes, paying bills, and opening his mail. He would often leave the house without saying where he was going and disappear for days at a time. He became very irritable and was always angry and upset. His wife put up with it as long as she could, but eventually she divorced him a few years later and he moved back to Pittsburgh where his life continued to spiral out of control. He was so overcome with nervousness and depression that he bought a tazer gun, and began zapping himself 15 to 20 times a day to try and "calm his nerves". In the final days of his life his hands shook so bad that he could not drive his son to school and according to his son, has a ghostly white expression and had purple lips. After many attempts, his son finally convinced him to go to a hospital to seek medical help. In the hospital he had a heart attack and died in a coma several day later (Gordon). For his old teammates, friends, kids and ex-wife, watching his final years were painful and excruciating. No matter how much they tried to help him there was nothing they could do. The story of his life, and the hundreds of stories like his are why immediate changes need to be made to football to ensure that no more friends, families and players have to go through this. 

In reaction to the health concerns of players and criticism about the league, the NFL has made some changes to the rules to help better protect the players. In 2010, the NFL finally admitted that there was a link between the NFL and CTE. This came after eight years of firmly denying the link and calling all reports made suggesting the link flawed. In July, 2010, the NFL required all NFL locker rooms to hang a poster that reads "[concussions] may lead to problems with memory and communication, personality changes, as well as depression and the early onset of dementia. Concussions and conditions resulting from repeated brain injury can change your life and your family's life forever". This was a big step for the NFL, because the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one, which the NFL refused to do for eight years. Later that year they donated 30 million dollars to the National Institutes of Health for research into brain trauma. In 2011, the NFL moved the kickoff up 5 yards to cause more touchbacks and less returns, which is where a lot of the biggest hits happen on the football field. In 2013 the NFL announced that an independent neurologist will be placed on the sidelines of every game to evaluate injured players and determine if they are eligible to return to play or if they have a concussion. The key word is independent neurologist, meaning they are not affiliated with the team so it does not benefit them by sending a player back into the game who should not be cleared to play. Whereas before team doctors evaluated the players, and could be encouraged to send players back on the field to help the team win. Later in 2013, the NFL banned "crown of the helmet" hits outside the tacklebox, limiting blows to the head. The NFL has also banned targeting, which is when a player hits a "defenseless" player in the head, and the collegiate game has made it an automatic ejection from the game if a player is penalized for targeting. The NFL sends out hefty fines for illegal hits to the head and can suspend a player if he violates the rules more than once (Ezell). Although the NFL has made these changes, additional rule changes need to be made to protect the players and limit head injury. 

The first and what I believe to be the most important change that needs to be made is that all levels of football need to have the same rules and regulations for concussions. The NFL has made some important rule changes to protect the players, but these same rule changes need to be passed down to college, high school, and youth leagues. Players in the NFL can be as young as 19 when they enter the league, which means that they could have been playing football for 10 to 15 years before entering the NFL. Most of the great football players only play in the NFL for 10 to 15 years, which means half of their life playing football, and half of the hits to the head in their lifetime occur prior to playing in the NFL. 

In 2010, a High School football player by the name of Blake Ripple was famous in the greater Austin, Texas area. However, over the course of his career doctors believe that he suffered "anywhere from thirty to forty concussions and sub-concussive hits". He was a major Division 1 football recruit, but unfortunately multiple concussions forced him to quit playing football. During the 2009-2010 season, Ripple suffered from and complained of constant headaches, nausea numbness to one side of his body, and dizziness. Despite reporting this to the coaching staff, they continually encouraged him and forced him to return to play before his initial brain injury healed. Because of his coaches negligent actions, Ripple now cannot play football, go to college, or live independently (Hunsucker). Blake Ripple is just one of many examples of this happening across the country to young football players. Players are taught from a very young age to respect and follow orders from their coaches. Unfortunately for Ripple and many other players, it cost him his future and a chance to play at a big Division 1 college football program. Something like this could never happen in the NFL, because there are such strict rules on concussions and because there are now independent neurologists that do not care about the final score of the game, but only care about keeping the players safe. But in high school, coaches and the players both want to win the game so if nobody is going to stop a player from entering the game they will. High school leagues need to take action and make sure that this type of situation never happens, because it altered a kid's life forever. Maybe the coach and Blake did not know the risk he was taking by entering the game before his brain had healed, or maybe the coach just did not care and only cared about winning, but either way the players and coaches need to be more aware of the risks and coaches need to be held accountable. 

A study was conducted by Boston University showed that NFL players that began playing football before the age of 12 performed "significantly worse" on three measures: estimated verbal IQ; executive function, which includes reasoning and planning; and memory impairment. The study concluded that repeated impacts to the head between the ages of 10 and 12, a critical and sensitive window for brain development, can increase the risk of later-life cognitive impairment. During this age, the brain is still rapidly developing and building connections between neurons. This study came as participation in youth football league has declined 29 percent, as 1.3 million fewer children across the country have participated in youth leagues. The top medical official for Pop Warner, the nation's largest youth football organization, dismissed the study as "flawed" (Farrey). Pop Warner's reaction to this study is the exact reaction that the NFL had when initial reports came about that there may be a link between the NFL and CTE. It only makes sense that head injuries in younger players can lead to problems later on and that the younger a player begins to play football, the more susceptible they become to developing CTE in the future. Young players cannot afford to have another ten years pass before changes are finally made to the youth league to protect the players from head injuries. Pop Warner deny the allegations because they fear it will jeopardize their league and scare parents away from signing their children up, but both the parents and the children deserve to know and be aware of the risks of playing at such a young age. This source is not to imply that children cannot play football at young ages, but it does suggest that there is evidence that it can lead to issues later in life. The first step in fixing the problem is to have Pop Warner to admit that playing at a young age is dangerous, and then to come up with solutions to protect the kids. They could perhaps require coaches to explain to the players the risks of concussions, and explain they will not be punished but are instead encouraged to tell their coaches if they experience a hard hit and do not feel right. Coaches could also reduce the amount of contact they have in their practices and find ways to improve the young players without necessarily having them cracking their helmets together every day. But these changes start at the top, and start with the heads of youth leagues admitting there is a problem and making the game safer, so that parents can feel safe about having their children play and know that the league and the coaches care about the kids safety as much as their parents do. 

The NFL has done a lot to help better protect the players from head injuries. However, from 2014 to 2015, the amount of concussions reported in the NFL rose a significant 58 percent. There were 271 reported concussions in the NFL last season (Seifert) and this number has caused a big reaction in the media and around the league. Some could look at this number as a good thing, and say that the number rose because more players are coming forward when they are injured and doctors are getting better at diagnosing concussions. Another view however, is that the concussion problem in the NFL is not going away, and more changes need to be made. 

Another change that needs to be made in football are the helmets. The NFL and the companies that manufacture the helmets have been working together over the years to try and solve the concussion crisis and how to innovate the helmet to provide the player's heads with more protection. Every helmet must pass a test administered by the National Operating Committee for Standards in Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) to be approved for use.  NOCSAE drops each helmet (without a facemask) on six different locations from a height of 1.52 meters. The test administered is mainly to protect players from skull fractures which is very uncommon in football, but does little to protect heads from concussions and has not been changed since 1973. The biggest problem that helmet manufacturers face is that it is not exactly known what type of hit is the most dangerous for concussions. Studies are being performed to determine what area of the head are hit most often, and whether rotational acceleration is the cause of concussions or if it is linear acceleration directly to the head. It has been determined that different positions are more susceptible to certain types of hits. For example, a lineman should have a different helmet and padding then a wide receiver does or a safety does. Clearly, the NFL needs to fund more testing to determine what types of hits cause concussions the most, as this is the only way the helmet manufacturers can improve their design. The testing for the helmets is not applicable to football because almost no hit is directly to the center of the skull, which is all the helmet test accounts for (Polnerow). 

In conclusion, football clearly still has serious flaws that need to be addressed in order to help protect players from head injuries and possibly developing CTE later in life. The NFL has made some changes, but the changes they have made are not enough as reported concussions continue to rise in the game. High school and youth coaches need to be held just as accountable as the NFL is in making sure their players are safe and able to take the field. Youth football associations like Pop Warner need to address the problem of head injury and make sure that the kids who play the game are protected, as they are the most likely to get injured and have brains that are still fragile and developing. Football is a great game and loved by millions of people around the world, but cases like Blake Ripple and Mike Webster show how head injuries can ruin a person's standard of living and can ultimately lead to death.

