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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

Summarizing: "Because this activity is so dangerous, and results in many head injuries, we've spent $60 million developing a framework for manufacturers to make helmets that will mitigate the injuries from the this entirely voluntary activity."

Umm, has anyone considered just not doing this activity? I don't mean to be trite, but that's what it looks like from the perspective of one who has little interest in football. If so much protection is required to not turn participants into literal mental cases, the logical next step would be...

Sure, the same could be said about, say, motorcycling. But at least my motorcycle takes me places. OTOH, no one is paying millions in broadcast rights so that people can watch me ride a motorcycle on TV.

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Many people know the risk and still choose to play because they love the game. It's a weird function of the human psyche, where a person knows the potential consequences but can't help themselves, like smoking or base-jumping or being trite.

One of the ironies being that footballers can hit each other so hard _because_ of the padding and helmets. The better they make 'em the harder they'll hit and I suspect this is an arms race that will continue.

Nothing's gonna stop that snap-back that causes the brain to slosh around like jelly.

I've yet to be shown evidence that rugby players are suffering the same kinds of injuries NFL players are. Seems to be the same case with bare-knuckle or UFC fighting vs boxing.

A sufficiently large and soft helmet would mitigate the impact to the brain.

The trouble is size. In order to spread out the impulse in time, the helmet must spread out the impact in space. There's really no way to do that by an order of magnitude without making the helmet much larger.

The point that the comment above you is trying to make is that a lot of head injuries aren't just impact related but can in fact come from adverse directional acceleration. Anecdotally, I've talked to people who have gotten brain injuries in car accidents without hitting their heads whatsoever.

>no one is paying millions in broadcasting rights to that people can watch me ride a motorcycle

I feel like you must be aware of the professional racing scene and have just momentarily forgotten? It's a massive industry and it's driven the majority of advancements in street-bike technology.

As a MotoGP fan, I am quite aware that folks will pay tons of dosh to watch, say, Marquez. But not to watch me. That's okay, all that MotoGP tech can get me to work a few seconds faster, and a MotoGP-inspired back protector can assist in keeping me walking should it all go sideways.

But it was more about the utility. Dangerous as it might be, I can at least get to work on a motorcycle. No one is dashing to work 10 yards at a time in pads.

Wait lol then I don't get it, the original comment is why does anybody play football professionally, doesn't the same argument apply to why does anybody ride motorcycles professionally?

It seems you've answered your own question?

It was a bit of a rhetorical exercise, yes.

You aren't going to get the activity of football to go away even if it is risky and bad idea for ones health. Just look at all the dumb stuff our country does already.

To pose a different question, I always wonder if this is the wrong direction. Why not remove the helmets altogether? Or go back to the leather ones? Has their been any comparative studies from head injuries back before the plastic shell was introduced? Or perhaps relativeness to Rugby head injuries?

> You aren't going to get the activity of football to go away even if it is risky and bad idea for ones health.

It will never go away completely but it is already shrinking:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-footbal...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-kids-tackle-footba...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-fo...

The younger you get the larger the loss in popularity. Contrast that against "soccer" (football) which has gained in popularity over the same period:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/shane-paul-neil/soccer-is-her...

And basketball has also been surging in popularity:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/dec/12/nba-surpassed-...

I live in a town that lives and breaths college football and this trend is very visible in the youth and HS level sports. Soccer is extremely popular.

I have paid for season tickets to college football for the past 18 years. Recently I've been reading more and more about this problem and I feel guilty for contributing to injury of players, willful participants or not. I'm considering not renewing and not watching, and I think we'll see the end of football (as we know it anyway) in our time.

However I do find the strategy and team aspect of the game compelling. I wonder if it's possible to take the violence out and retain the tactical/athletic aspects that make it interesting to watch.

As someone who has no knowledge of the American version, I wonder if the actual play could just be simulated? For a noob, how much is skill on the players part Vs strategy?

That's one thing that makes me wonder about viability w/o violence. The athletic ability of the player to take a hit and keep going, or break/slip out of a tackle, or make a perfect throw/catch etc is quite astounding.

More interesting is the subtle strategic parts that are easy to overlook: how you line up a offence/defense (coach), play calling (coach), decision making (players/coach), reading offensive/defensive schemes and adjusting (players), etc. etc.

One thing I think is really unique (maybe I'm wrong about this) is that it's a team sport, half of the game is played by the other half of the team, each depending on the other to put them in a good position.

I don't know about studies, but players died from head injuries before modern helmets were introduced.

> Umm, has anyone considered just not doing this activity?

Since I've become aware of the long term repercussions of repeated head strikes, I've pretty much stopped watching football. I used to watch every game (NFL and college) I could and now I'm down to basically tuning in for the Super Bowl and that's it.

On the plus side, I've started watching baseball more and I think I enjoy watching that game more than I ever did football.

But you actually can't even say the same about motorcycling. Football players get minor brain damage in practically every game they play, which accumulates over time. On a moto you only suffer injury when something goes wrong.

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