He'll regret it when he can't do math after he retires because of the encephalopathy he gets from repeated head trauma.
Didn't seem so much at first considering the number of players who've gone through the NFL but it was surprising how long I had to scroll to get through the list of players who are plantiffs in the lawsuit regarding concussion related injuries received while playing. The list is even incomplete and only contains less than half the actual number of players.
Also, a paper[1] I found via wikipedia references estimated an encephalopathy prevalence rate of 3.7% (and that's a conservative estimate according to wikipedia).
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_players_with_chroni...
They make contact with other players with less time for anyone to get to full speed. The guys they're hitting aren't generally going in exactly the opposite direction, the way defenders' targets are. That contact is mostly on the body. And they aren't targets the way ball carriers are.
Also, they're some of the biggest guys on the field. That means they've got more neck muscle holding their head in place.
I mean, if I were an exceptionally speedy, brick-wall linebacker, I wouldn't get kicked out for causing extra concussions, I'd be given trophies and expensive contracts.
I think you are conflating speed and quickness. Offensive and defensive lines rely on quickness (i.e., acceleration) to beat the opposing team and make a play, while other collisions (e.g., tackling) often involve speed.
I am not saying that linesmen should not be expected to sometimes suffer head trauma; I was just noting that how often a player runs into another player is not the only factor.
Sounds to me like you're arguing for no reason.
[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/concussion-watch/#po...
Centers (3), OTOH, have by this estimate about half the risk of guards (6). This guy should move to center. That's where you want someone really smart anyway as centers have to set up blocking assignments at the line. Also I see the scouting report recommended him for center based on his body type and playing style.
There's probably some truth in this, but as a guard, he has to pull and lead on outside runs occasionally. Plus there's always a chance of getting kneed in the head in a pileup. The risk is far from zero.
He may also be asked to play on special teams, where the risk is probably the greatest.
Here's some data wrt to OL being the worst position actually.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play
This is a crucial point. Much of the attention in the football world, in the past few years, has been on concussions—on diagnosing, managing, and preventing them—and on figuring out how many concussions a player can have before he should call it quits. But a football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too.
That’s why, Cantu says, so many of the ex-players who have been given a diagnosis of C.T.E. were linemen: line play lends itself to lots of little hits.
I'd be very surprised if that was true. I got my bell rung more than a few times when I played in high school & college.
Keep in mind linemen are making intense physical contact every single play of the game. If it's a run play, it's unlikely receivers are getting knocked around, but linemen are.
In summary, his choice of sport does increase the risk of neurodegenerative disease presenting as dementia in later life, and CTE in particular has a distinct neuropathology that distinguishes it from other presentations at autopsy.
In fact, almost all the personalities on the FOX and CBS pre-game shows are ex-pros, and I find their abilities to reason and elucidate quite advanced, and they all admit to having many, many instances of head trauma in their careers.
That's how I'd reconcile it. What you see on TV is not a random sampling, before you even get to the selection process of the networks to pick the best available.