There is nothing better than a weekend during football season when you and your friends get together to watch great games of football. But in recent years America’s favorite sport has faced some major problems. When it comes to the topic of the dangers of football, especially head injuries like concussions, most would agree that it is a serious issue that is affecting almost all players. Where this agreement usually ends however is on the question of how it should be addressed. Some argue that the sport is too dangerous and should be banned, while others argue that the players know the risks involved in playing. I’m certain that if the sport wants to survive the quickly growing controversy, and maintain support among its fans and countless Americans, it will need to make serious advances in player safety and evolve into the future.

CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy and it occurs when someone suffers repeated blows to the head. The repeated blows cause the brain to bounce around in the skull and suffer damage to the neurons and brain cells. It is especially common in athletes who have played contact sports and was originally known as dementia pugilistica, or just punch drunk syndrome in the 1920s. However, doctors always believed it only affected boxers and not regular sports, but they were proven wrong by Nigerian neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in the 2000s when he would discover CTE in deceased NFL football player Mike Webster. He worked to investigate Webster’s brain because of confusing and unexplained behavior prior to his death, and he and his team at the university of Pittsburgh eventually discovered massive brain damage in Webster because of repeated concussions while playing football. He would release a report in 2005 named “"Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football League Player” which would rock the football world for years to come and would start a fierce debate about the future of football. However, at its release, it was not met with a reaction he expected. The NFL committee for brain injury at the time called it a ‘failure’ and called for its retraction. Omalu would again study former NFL players brains in 2006. He investigated Terry Long’s brain and found that it was similar to "a 90-year-old brain with advanced Alzheimer’s"(Veasay). He would release the report and claim it was caused by his career of playing in the NFL. In 2007 he presented his report to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during a concussion summit, but the findings were ignored again. It was not until 2009 did the NFL acknowledge that repeated concussions from playing football could cause CTE. Dr. Omalu would also go on to partner with Boston University and the Veterans Administration to form VA-BU-CLF, a brain bank led by concussion expert Dr. Ann Mckee of Boston University. The bank helped doctors understand the CTE disease far more and has found hundreds of cases of CTE in people’s brains.

The biggest problem with CTE and football is that there is no real solution currently, besides not playing of course. It’s almost impossible to diagnose players with the diseases while they are playing or still alive. There are certain symptoms that show such as mood swings, headaches, and memory problems but is no way to reverse the damage once it has been done, it be like trying to unscramble an egg. It’s one of the reasons why many players have so many problems later in life. For example, Antwaan Randle El who is only 36, and played in the NFL for 10 years says he has trouble going down the stairs, “I have to come down sideways sometimes, depending on the day” (Knowlton). He also says he has frequent memory lapses and will ask his wife the same question multiple times. There are countless other players who have died and found to have CTE, a study from Boston University found that 97 to 99% of former NFL players had CTE at the time of death (MS). This is an astronomical number that has taken center stage in the controversy. The good news is that there may be some breakthroughs coming. Back in September, Boston University researchers claimed they had potentially discovered a way to recognize the signs of CTE in living players. They were able to identify an inflammatory protein present in spinal fluid that could prove CTE was possibly present in the players brains. However, it’s just the first step and the group seek to later develop a blood test to tell if an athlete needs to potentially retire or alert already retired players of their level of CTE. It’s a huge step in the right direction for the sport and the NFL needs to support it strongly. The league made a huge mistake back in the early days of the 2000s when they ignored and outright rejected Dr. Omalu’s CTE research. The NFL owes it to their players and can’t afford to keep having the majority of past players suffer severe drawbacks from the effects of the disease. How would it look to a young child if their hero and role model they look up to suffers extreme affects from football induced brain damage? That kid is likely going to not want to play the sport and possibly look to alternative safer sports like basketball or baseball. It’s no wonder the sport of football has seen a decrease in participation in recent years. According to ESPN, football saw a 9.5% drop in youth participation from 2010-2012, when the concussion controversy was still starting (Fainaru). So, it’s clear without real change and progress the sport will continue to decline due to fear of concussions. That’s why the need for ways to detect and possibly treat the disease is so important.

A common belief in critics of football is that it should be banned. While I disagree for higher levels of play like college and professional, I do agree somewhat with the current lower level play of football. Players at higher level understand the risks involved and our capable of making their own decisions and have the best medical help possible. Younger players I believe do not fully understand the risks and have nowhere as good help. Youth football needs to do a better job at protecting its players, and needs new rules and regulations. It’s not just professional football players that can be affected by CTE, new research by Boston University shows that even nonprofessional players are victims of CTE. They found that 67 out of 91 or 74% of non-NFL players had the disease (MS). It is not just this shocking number that is frightening, Boston University also claims that former NFL players who did play football before 12 years of age, are more likely to have symptoms of CTE as they grow older (Moran). Julie Stamm, the study leader says “There’s increasing evidence that children respond differently to head trauma than adults. Kids who are hitting their heads over and over during this important time of brain development may have consequences later in life” (Tracy). This new claim contradicted old theories that a child’s brain could handle the stress of hits more than an adult could, and are actually more vulnerable to long lasting affects since the trauma occurred during a critical period of growth for children. With this new data we must ask ourselves, is it worth letting our children play at such a young age? While there are many positives when participating in youth sports, it is not worth the risk at such a young age. Dr. Stamm also adds “But the findings support the idea that it may not make sense to allow children—at a time when their brain is rapidly developing—to be exposed to repetitive hits to the head. If larger studies confirm this one, we may need to consider safety changes in youth sports” (Tracy). It is clear with the present data that the current youth football cannot continue without serious changes or even stopping playing all together. For example, the state Illinois has started a policy that gets rid of contact in summer football, has required concussion education test for coaches, and restricts the number of contact practices during the season. Since football is the number 1 most participated sport in youths, so making sure they are protected is extremely important to the future of the sport. The only problem is most non-professional football leagues and teams can’t afford the many new safety equipment that the NFL and colleges can. Spencer Hall of Sbnation talks about the issue,

“Your high school, unlike St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, cannot afford a squad of robot tackling dummies at $8,295 a pop. A rural high school in Utah will not have the mythical handheld medical equipment needed to diagnose a concussion instantly, nor have officials with the resources and support needed to parse out the complexities of the latest targeting rules” (Hall).

That’s why changes need to come in other ways, so changing the rules and basics of the game to protect the players is the best option currently. It may not be the most loved or accepted option, but the health and safety of the players comes first.

One potential solution to the controversy is new technology to protect players. Helmets are easily the most important safety equipment a player wears during play. But are they really helping players avoid head injuries? From 2012-2015 the NFL found that the majority of concussions were caused by helmet to helmet hits (Tracy). This shows what the major causes of concussions are, and that the current helmets are not capable of protecting players properly. Luckily there is a new helmet being developed that could potentially save the sport and people’s brains. A pediatric neurosurgeon named Sam Browd, with his colleagues founded VICIS, a company that wanted to reduce the risks in the sport. After years of development, millions in funding, and help from dozens of former and current players, the company released the Zero1 helmet. It is a revolutionary new helmet that buckles like a car when it is impacted to reduce the force on the brain. The reason this is so important is explained by Browd, “Current helmets were never intended to deal with concussion,” “To take a product that is built for one purpose and to try to retrofit it to address concussions is a very challenging task” (Tracy). Numerous NFL and even some colleges have picked up the helmet and used them in in spring practices. It was found that the Zero1 performed better than 33 different competitors, which should give teams and players a solid reason to give the helmet a try. If the Zero1 can cut down on even some head injuries, then it would be a huge success for the future of the sport. Another promising invention starting to be implemented that could help football is sensors that can detect if a strong hit could have caused a concussion. The sensors are placed in the inside of a helmet and would send a signal after the hit is registered. This can help the sport tremendously and help concussion experts have a better idea about CTE. Kevin Guskiewicz, of the NFL subcommittee on safety equipment and playing rules says that “The biggest hits aren't always the most damaging, he discovered; location and repetition matter too” (Shyr). So, the need for more data and understanding of concussion is extremely important. Teams are also starting to use special cameras that only watch players to see if there are any signs of a concussion after a hit. If the team doctor sees potential symptoms the player can be removed from the game and be forced to take a concussion test that measures a player’s memory, concentration, and balance. If the player fails the exam, he is disqualified from the game. There is also a new invention from the army research lab, which was originally going to help soldiers but was never implemented. It is a material that responds to the force of a hit. It is applied to the player’s lower helmet bar and connected to the player’s chest. It is capable of preventing the head from snapping back and forth following a strong hit. All of these new technologies are all impacting football for the better but, more work is obviously needed. A future where no player is ever at risk of long-term effects of concussions is one we all should strive for. It will be in the sport’s best interest to support these new technologies and find ways to implement them in the game. 

The CTE controversy isn’t the first controversy the sport of football has had to deal with in its long history, especially ones about the safety of players. In the early 1900s, there were dozens of deaths that occurred during the games, mostly due to the leather helmets that didn’t protect players. There we also extremely dangerous formations known as the ‘flying wedge’ which would cause injuries in many games. Players would also lead tackles with their head which would cause serious head and spinal injuries. The sport was also seeing a decline due to the sheer brutality of the games, and even some colleges on the west coast such as Stanford and Cal. dropped football altogether. It got so bad President Roosevelt called representatives from various colleges and threatened to outlaw the sport unless more safety precautions were put in place. 62 colleges would meet and discuss what could be done, and would end up forming the American Football Rules Committee. They would change dozens of rules, implement new ones, and even ban the more dangerous formations. The rules committee would eventually change their name into what is known now as the NCAA. Despite its rocky start, the sport would survive the violent beginning it had. The only reason the sport is still around today is because the teams and players were able to evolve the game into a move safer experience. 

Football is a part of American culture, without it the sports world wouldn’t be the same. Everyone has special memories from watching high school, college and professional football at some point in their lives. However, many critics have argued that football has no future because of the concussion controversy, but I will disagree. While the current controversy isn’t good for the sport, everyone will work together to keep it together. Millions of people watch it yearly and countless athletes take the field every year. The sport does have an ugly side, and it is extremely dangerous and can cause permanent brain damage from concussions. To prevent the sport from dying due to the quickly growing controversy the sport needs to change for the better. It needs to protect young players, develop new technologies that can prevent and sense concussions, and work with researchers in finding ways to detect CTE in living players and develop some treatments. If the sport can do all of these things, and work on stopping the CTE controversy, and put it behind the sport, it might just have a future.
