
Concussions have been happening ever since football started.  The problem is that people did not take it as seriously as they should have.  Now players are coming out talking about how they have head problems and headaches.  The only entity that they can seem to blame is the National Football League (NFL).  By looking at ways to make football safer, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) after death, and the number of former players that have brain damage, one can see that the NFL has to do regarding this concussion problem.  Therefore, we must make people more aware of this problem.

I've had many personal experiences with concussions in the past.  I've gotten all of my concussions from playing football.  After I used to get a concussion, I was put on concussion protocol.  That means that the trainers would watch me for a week or 2 to make sure the symptoms of a concussion did not come back.  If at any step in the concussion protocol my symptoms came back (let's say because of light jogging), then I would have to start the protocol over.  It really put a damper on things; but, I knew that the trainers were looking out for me because if I had gone back too early and had another big hit, I might have had a bigger problem.  It's all about precautions.

One thing that the NFL has to do to start preventing concussions from happening is presented in all three articles that I used in the two ILPs.  In Sean Gregory's article, The Problem with Football: How to Make It Safer, he talks about how to make football safer and what needs to be done to fix the concussion problem.  Gregory also addresses that maybe the NFL needs to change the rules, change equipment and training, and change the culture of football.  There would be no way to change the culture of football unless we can get the players to realize how serious of an issue this concussion problem is.  This article has major values because it talks about all the ways to make football safer.  A quote that shows the value that this article has for the NFL is, "Take the purposeful helmet hit out of football, for both blocking and tackling" (Gregory 5).  Gregory says that, "Football players could probably benefit from fewer full-contact practices" (Gregory 6).  If they benefitted from fewer full-contact practices, then the number of concussion might drop a little.

The second article by Jason Hanna, Debra Goldschmidt, and Kevin Flower more or less describes the consequences of playing in the NFL.  This article, 87 of 91 test ex-NFL players had brain disease linked to head trauma, starts off by saying how 96% of former NFL players' brains have tested positive for brain disease.  The article talks about how postmortem CTE diagnosis is the outcome of brain disease and the number of former players that have been tested for brain damage.  The major values that this article has is how doctors have become aware of CTE after death.  Hanna discusses that, "The overall rate of incidence of CTE among NFL players can only be determined after a number of brains from players who did not exhibit or experience any symptoms of CTE" (Hanna, Goldschmidt, Flower).  This quote shows that we really do not know about CTE until after death.  We need to learn from the deaths of these players and need to study their brains for more data.

Another thing that the NFL has done to prevent concussions is discussed in the final article by Jason La Canfora.  The article talks about how the VP of the NFL has become aware of the concussion problem.  It then discusses about how we should implement medical timeouts after a player has received a hazardous hit and many more ways to help prevent concussions.  In the article, La Canfora says to, "Give the spotters a device that signals the head official" (La Canfora).  This quote talks about how if a spotter sees a player seem to have a concussion, he will signal the official.  The official would then take the necessary steps to take that player out of the game.

The National Football League has to start preventing concussions from happening or more players are going to have brain problems.  I talked about three articles that discussed the seriousness of preventing concussions.  They all gave important insight and talked about how to improve the game whether it be changing the rules or changing the equipment.  I think that changing the equipment is the first step in the right direction.  If we don't find a way to diminish the number of concussions in the NFL, the players are not going to last long. 

