Concussions have long been a problem within the sports community and especially within most contact sports. This problem continues to grow as sports become more and more popular by the day, and coaches and/or organizations become more intense. This intensity causes players to push themselves further than they have pushed themselves. Thus, making them more liable to cause injury or become injured. With these injuries amongst contact sports, the most prevalent is often concussions. Concussions have a long lasting impact among every person who has had one. The impacts vary in severity but almost everyone feels some sort of impact. The most severe cases of head traumas occur when a person has repeated blows to the head and is not properly evaluated or diagnosed. This was a reigning issue inside the National Football League. Players were often misdiagnosed or just allowed to continue playing with concussion like symptoms. So within this essay I will show what the NFL is doing about concussions, and how they are preventing the spread of the awful disease CTE. 

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE is a severe brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head. Living with disease is awful, so awful that this disease is considered to be the main factor in many former athletes’ deaths. This diseases causes memory lapses, faulty motor functioning, mood swings, and confusion. These symptoms can become very severe. So severe that the families of these victims often say that they do not know who their family member even is anymore. This disease was brought to the limelight in the years 2011 and 2012 when two former NFL players committed suicide. The first was Dave Duerson who took his own life in February of 2011. Prior to his death Duerson wrote a note asking for his brain to be sent to be studied for traces of CTE. Obeying his request, Boston University obtained his brain and concluded that Duerson did have traces of CTE, and that it was from his repeated blows to his head during his career in the NFL. The second case took place in 2012 and is probably the most known CTE case. This is because the person who took his own life was Hall of Famer Junior Seau. It is also widely known due to his family suing the NFL for negligence. Junior Seau took his own life in May of 2012 after a prolonged struggle with mood swings and confusion. After his death his brain was also sent off to be studied. This study also found that Seau was impacted by traces of CTE. This bringing up more questions about the disease CTE, and what the NFL was going to do about it. 

With Seaus family suing the enormous organization that is the NFL and the family actually having science backing them the NFL was forced to take this seriously. As of 2012 the NFL denied that their sport and repeated head traumas could cause the traces of CTE that were in these players brains at the time of their deaths. The organization was sure that their precautions were safe and that the safety of each player was the number one priority. This was proven to be false when former and current players all came out saying that they had played with head traumas that they should have not been playing with. This ruined the NFLs safety reputation, and a lot of people high up in the organization were about to be fighting for their job. So the NFL had to save face. They had to ramp up their safety policies all the way through the organization. Although the NFL would not admit that CTE is caused by repeated blows to the head until 2016, they were in a scramble in 2012 to try to prove that their sport was indeed safe and that this disease was not a problem within football. 

Since these CTE related deaths the NFL has changed numerous things to try to prevent head injuries. They have changed the kickoff lengths to try to minimize as much full speed contact as possible. They have also constructed penalties for forcible contact to the head or neck area. Despite these efforts, concussions still occur and this means that the emergence of CTE on players brains will still remain. This will cause the NFL to explore other options to minimize these injuries and this disease as much as possible. It was not until recently that the scanning of the brain was brought up as an option. This scanning will allow for players to be screened before each season to see if their brain contains traces of CTE. This would be a huge step for the sport of football and also for the NFL. This will allow them to know beforehand if the player is in imminent danger of damaging their future health. If the NFL does not invest into this screening process it is basically screaming to the whole world that they do not care about the future health of their players. This would also mean that the NFL is okay with ignoring the scientific facts on the situation. 

One thing that the NFL is doing that could potentially help tremendously is the teaching and education of our younger generations. This teaching would include form tackling techniques, proper education on the game, and also the danger of the game. With this comes the teaching of the coaches as well. This means for them to be able to detect when a player is possibly concussed, when to stop pushing them, or when a player is not practicing the proper technique. The NFL has already started implementing these policies in our younger generations in some parts of the U.S. They have players go out to practices or games to teach the younger players the benefits of safety and how to play safe. Another thing that the NFL is now supporting is flag football at a young age. This ensures the safety of these young players by not having them tackle. Sure some accidents could happen during this game but it minimizes the chances to ensure the safety of our younger generation. Also, in New York it is now required for there to be a doctor present at all games no matter the age of the participants. This ensures further safety. This doctor is allowed to step in if he sees a participant on either side suffering from signs of a concussion. No matter the circumstance. When the kids get older they will have athletic trainers to do this job, but before this law there was never a requirement for a medical professional to be present at youth games. 

With the emergence of this new information and more people worrying about the safety of our players, the NFL was forced to take action. There actions, however slow, are increasing daily and making the game of football more safe for each participant. Some people argue to take the game away completely or either take the facemask off of the helmet. Each argument is silly to me. This is because if we take away the game, a piece of American history goes away. A game that so many love and play is now gone forever. This would not go over well. If we decide to take the facemask off, this I rule as equally as dangerous. This is because head injuries are going to continue to happen. No matter what you do, accidents happen. The NFL is now trying their hardest to minimize these accidents. Taking off the helmet is just one other way a player could sustain a serious head injury. This could lead to more cases of CTE. I doubt we will ever see a fully safe sport, but to minimize is to maximize in this case. 