Bengals Jacob Bell retires due to brain injury fears

Quoting the most important line of the article - and they're starting to confirm this is the case. It isn't simply the number of KO concussions that matter, it's the cumulative damage of "bell-ringing" hits.

For all of NFL's denial that they downplayed concussions in the past....they're definitely keeping the blinders on about this, keeping the focus 100% on definable concussions.

 

I guess some people won't be satisfied until the NFL is forced to either change the game into something unrecognizable or perhaps shut down the league entirely.

 

Sports rise and fall. Baseball used to be the most popular sport and its not that anymore.

 

Or maybe the NFL is more barbaric than some of us want to admit. I used to be a huge boxing fan until the Boom Boom Mancini vs. Duk Koo Kim fight. Gave it up pretty much cold turkey after seeing that. Now I think professional boxing is trash.

Maybe there should be significant changes in football. I don't want the game to be messed up but let's get more information on long-term damage and be open-minded to changes.

 

Aren't concussions taken really seriously in boxing/mma? Why it isn't in football is why people are outraged.

 

No one wants the league shut down. Everybody's irked by the current rules that lead to Watt getting a 15 yard penalty for wrapping up Dan Orlovsky around the waist.

But to ignore what's happening to these players is beyond callous and self-absorbed.

There's a slew of guys I loved watching in the 90s that are going to have early onset Alzheimers this decade. It's inhuman that folks want to look the other way and not see them suffer (or care) because they're out of the league and no longer entertaining us.

You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater though. They're taking a decent step with the heavy crackdown on head hunters - guys like Harrison, Roman Harper, Bernard Pollard, etc need to go. Box safeties as we see them today in general need to go.

But I think they are going to have to consider a radical redesign of the padding and helmets. People aren't hurt because they're being hit...they're being hurt because they're being hit with hard helmets and hard shoulder pads. Lose the plastic and go back to foam-type materials.

 

I have a lot of respect for guys who retire around the 30 year mark.

Get your rookie contract, work hard, land your big free agent deal, then retire a millionaire without any significant mental or physical impairments.

Smart cookies.

 

I think one of the issues here that nobody is touching on is this....

Helmet and shoulder-pad safety innovations have contributed to concussions and brain injury in football rather than helping to prevent them.

Think about it this way......

Back in the old days of football, when players wore leather helmets and leather pads, defensive players tackled offensive players with their hands & arms, and by undercutting them at their feet. They never hit an offensive player by leading with their helmet.

As helmets and pads improved, defensive players began hitting offensive players with their helmets first, like a human missle. The defensive player thinks he is better protected, and is willing to play with more abandon, increasing the chances of injury to himself and to the offensive player.

Thoughts? Or am I completely full of crap?? Discuss.....

 

Lots of good ideas here. Go back to leather helmets and no shoulder pads.

Would you really want to go head first into someone with a leather helmet?

 

NFL plays every week. Boxers have a few fights per year.

NFL's not changing anything. Just put a waiver on their contracts and see how many choose not to sign.

 

I wouldn't get rid of the padding - it is there for a reason, and there are enough shoulder injuries and collarbone fractures as it is.

No issues with rigid padding on the back - you need to protect the spine and kidneys, and they aren't used to hit people.

Otherwise, I think they've got to take a second look at soft or semi-soft materials for helmets and padding.

 

This is most likely true - but on the flipside, what other types of injuries has it prevented? Has it prevented other neck and head injuries that used to occur? And if so, how do you weigh the benefits of each? There's also a huge open question of how many former players also got just as many concussions but no one knew because we didn't know nearly as much about concussions in general.

There are multiple factors in play here - one is the heavier equipment, but the other is bigger, faster, and more athletic players. So it's hard to say whether going back to the older equipment would fix things if that equipment is being used by bigger/faster/stronger players. O-Linemen used to not always be 300 pounds minimum - I assume the same is the case for other positions as well, so you were simply getting hit by less force.

 

I think a reduction in shoulder pads would help as well.

That is by far one of the most enabling pieces of equipment players wear.

Keeping it rigid in terms of its collapsibility on the horizontal axis is important to prevent sprained shoulders and broken collar bones from the tacklee, but the bulk that it provides for blunt force trauma inflicted by the tackler needs to be scaled back.

 

Sports Science: NFL vs Rugby tackles
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You might as well just what you're trying to say and call the dude a p*ssy.

 

I don't think there is an easy answer to this. Going with a leather helmet and reducing the shoulder pads sounds like a good idea, but you are still going to have some crazy individuals that will still risk injury to be the best. Leather helmet or no helmet wont stop a Ronnie Lott type player from changing their game. The injuries will be more severe.

How about this?