Football is without a doubt the most popular sport in the United States, particularly professional football, namely the NFL with an estimated 180 million fans of the league according to a poll conducted by ESPN. While the game is popular due to its excitement and violence, this may ultimately be the cause of the downfall of the sport. In recent years, after the discovery of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, by Doctor Bennet Omalu, an anti-football initiative has been gaining popularity as more and more people realize the dangers of the game. CTE is defined as a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma and has been linked to football after the examination of hundreds of brains of former NFL players yielded a 99 percent rate of diagnosis of the disease. Due to the dangers presented with playing the sport, several schools of thought regarding what should be done to protect the players have formed. Many people believe that the key to making the game safer lies in changes to rules, penalizations, techniques, or helmet technology; however, there is a growing movement to eliminate youth leagues, and some even want to end football as a whole, causing trouble for the NFL as they search desperately for a solution.

Football is known for its violence, but it was not until a few years ago, that it became known for the effects this violence has on its players. After the NFL came under fire for the link made between football and long-term head injuries, they implemented new rules to protect players from concussions. For example, head to head contact between a defensive player and a “defenseless” player such as a wide receiver in the motion of making a catch, or a sliding quarterback is now considered “targeting” and results in a 15-yard penalty and a fine and ejection for the defensive player. The NFL has also moved the touchback from the 20 to the 25-yard line to incentivize kick returners to abstain from running out more kicks, as many of the injuries sustained during the course of a game are on kickoffs. While some of these rules have been implemented into the college game, they rarely are enforced in youth leagues such as Pop Warner. In response to the increase in head injuries among children, one possible solution that has been proposed is to put an emphasis on safer techniques that are taught in these Pee-Wee leagues. While the current method taught, the “Heads Up” approach, is successful in reducing neck and spinal injuries, it does little in the way of preventing repetitive head trauma. While concussions can be reduced by avoiding massive hits, such as on kickoffs or passes over the middle of the field, the main issue with football is the thousands of sub concussive hits that players suffer over the course of their career, and the only way to eliminate these blows would be to change the way the game is played entirely. 

While football and rugby draw many comparisons, and both have a certain danger that comes with playing the sports, rugby has one massive advantage over football: the lack of widespread cases of CTE in retired players. As Will Strecker writes in his article titled, “How Rugby Can Save the NFL from its Concussion Problem”, whereas between 95-99 percent of deceased NFL players who had their brains examined were diagnosed with CTE, as little as one to two rugby players develop CTE annually. This disparity between the long-term danger of the two sports could be the turning point for a major overhaul in the way football is played. Already, some NFL personnel have changed to a rugby style approach to the game as opposed to the traditional approach. As Jeanna Thomas writes in her article titled “Rugby-Style Tackling Could Be the Future of a Safer NFL”, the Seattle Seahawks, coached by Pete Carol, have switched from the standard “heads up” approach to a rugby style system of blocking and tackling, which is not only safer for the players, but according to Carol is more effective. While playing football more like rugby could help protect players, one major difference between the sports separates how head safety is approached: helmets.

While most people agree that helmets are an essential part of football and help protect players, some argue that extra protection is actually detrimental to the safety of the players as it emboldens them to use their heads as weapons, causing more head injuries. As Lindsay Gibbs writes, in a study conducted by Dr. Eric Swartz, players who participated in drills without their helmets witnessed a 28 percent decrease in sub concussive hits for the rest of the practice session with their helmets. Dr. Swartz believes this is because of the conditioning of the players to abstain from using their heads as weapons when they are not protected. While this study is promising research pointing to a possible solution to football’s biggest problem, Dr. Swartz doesn’t feel that removing the helmet altogether is the best option. He believes that teaching young players how to tackle without a helmet can make them much safer once they don their head protection.

Youth football is one of the most popular children’s sports in the country, but after study after study shows the negative effects football has on the brain, less and less children are playing each year. Not only are youth leagues seeing a decline in the number of players every year, but there is a growing movement to put an end to youth tackle football as a whole. Scooby Axson quotes Dr. Bennet Omalu as saying football “Is the definition of child abuse.” This strong statement by the doctor who discovered the disease have led some to trying to have the game banned for all children under the age of 14. While the future of the youth game is in question, perhaps the more important issue is the future of the multibillion dollar company that is the NFL. 

The NFL is one of the most recognizable brands in the world with its trademarked shield logo and intense theme music. While it still makes incredibly large profits in the billions each year, it has seen a sharp decline ever since the anti-football movement has been picking up steam(ESPN.) Because the NFL has so much at stake when it comes to the future of football, they have been the largest voice against Dr. Omalu and other medical professionals who publicly condone the sport. While league commissioner Roger Goodell still maintains that football and long-term head injuries are not linked, he has implemented rule changes to protect players and eventually came to an agreement with the NFLPA to a one-billion-dollar settlement. While they still have not conceded that football is a dangerous sport, this settlement proves otherwise. At its current state, the NFL is still much in control of its own destiny, however as more research keeps stacking up against the league, the future of the league and the sport could be at risk unless a solution to the CTE problem is found.

Football is the new national pastime, but in the face of overwhelming evidence that the sport is too dangerous, it is at risk of the public feeling the same way towards the sport as they do about gladiator fighting. However, the sport is not necessarily doomed to the same fate if a solution can be properly implemented to protect players. The most popular proposed strategies are to remove helmets or practice without helmets, teach a safer technique for tackling, or more drastically, ban the game for children. The best solution in the face of all the studies is to occasionally practice without helmets in order to prevent players from using their heads as weapons, while also reducing the number of blows to the head they suffer over the course of a season, given that most hits are sustained during practice. While this system may not be perfect, if it is paired with teaching young children the proper technique and reducing the amount of full contact practices they participate in, the future of football can be much more secure. While football will never be a safe sport as injury is a risk associated with every full contact sport, steps can be taken to prevent the needless deaths and mental deterioration caused by the current state of football.
