NFL Players With Long and Short Careers Have Similar Death Risk, Study Finds (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared 2,933 athletes who played in the National Football League for an average of five years to 879 "replacement players" who filled in for three games during a mid-1980s strike, finding no statistically significant difference in rates of death from all causes. Critics said the research had several flaws and pointed to a study released last year that found 99 percent of deceased former NFL players whose brains were analyzed post-mortem showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease linked to repeated hits to the head that can lead to aggression and dementia. The latest study found that the leading cause of death among the NFL career players was cardiometabolic disease, which entails greater risk of heart attack and stroke, followed by transportation injuries and unintentional injuries.

"This new study seems to support other previous studies that have not shown an increase in mortality among NFL players when compared to similar cohorts," an NFL spokeswoman said. "As with all new research on this topic, we will look at it closely to see what we can learn to better enhance the well-being of our current and former players," the spokeswoman said.

Comments

It's time.

[Gravis Zero]

It's time we start ending school sponsored football programs. There are plenty of other sports that don't involve brain damage. I'm not saying outlaw it, just don't promote it at schools.

Re: It's time.

[SeaFox]

So you enjoy watching people kill themselves for your entertainment?

I knew it was more than a coincidence that modern football stadiums have such a likeness to the Colosseum.

Re:It's time.

[argStyopa]

Or maybe let people make up their own minds instead of taking a nanny state approach?

My father played football, including division 1 collegiate, until he was knocked cold while tackling Jim McNamara. He woke up the next day in his dorm room, had trouble reading ever since (which we know now for sure was a result). At age 70, he suffered a massive paralyzing stroke which may very well have been a result of umpteen concussions.

I played football in high school and was being recruited for college play but was unable to continue due to significant injuries to my knees and back, as well as a dislocated shoulder, broken ankle, and 7 bones in my hands on one instance.

My oldest son played football in high school and college, having an injury free career until 2 concussions left him with some memory issues.

My sister asked us all the other day at dinner if we would play again, knowing what we would have to suffer. My answer was easy, as my injuries have only left me now a little pain & slow to get up it 50. Even I was surprised when both my father and son absolutely, immediately, said yes as well.

So maybe you don't choose for us, and let people make their now better informed choices by themselves ?

Re:It's time.

[Shotgun]

When I was in high school, I noted that football was the only sport that had an ambulance on standby. I found that mind blowing, even at the time. They pretty much ASSUMED that within the next two hours someone was going to be injured badly enough to need an ambulance. How the HELL was this EVER supported by the school administration?

A football career doesn't start in the NFL

[Pinky's Brain]

They start their competitive career in inducing brain damage in high school.

Why would it kill you any sooner? Headaches aren't lethal and you don't need to be a genius to get old. It's about quality of life, not duration. Of course for NFL millionaires it might all be worth it, it's the much larger number of players who don't get drafted but are still forced to live with migraines and other fun consequences of concussions who are the real losers.

Re:A football career doesn't start in the NFL

[Aighearach]

And guys like these "replacement" players, who were obviously already playing frequently. It isn't like the brought in tennis players during the strike, they were all still football players putting enough time into it that they were aspiring pros! So even if the problem was early death rather than quality of life, this would still not really be very significant; just comparing players with fancy uniforms to players who only got to wear fancy uniforms a few times.

Re:A football career doesn't start in the NFL

[Kiuas]

They start their competitive career in inducing brain damage in high school.

Why would it kill you any sooner? Headaches aren't lethal and you

Erm... as someone who's had cerebral palsy since birth due to damage to the motor cortex caused during a premature birth I have some news for you: the consequences of brain damage are not limited to headaches and migraines.

It's about quality of life, not duration.

Exactly. And if you look at what chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which to my knowledge is the most common neurodegenerative condition for contact sport athletes with repeated head injury causes, you'll find a whole host of symptoms, quoting the wiki:

Symptoms of CTE, which occur in four stages, generally appear 8 to 10 years after an athlete experiences repetitive mild traumatic brain injury.

First-stage symptoms include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as well as confusion, disorientation, dizziness, and headaches. Second-stage symptoms include memory loss, social instability, impulsive behavior, and poor judgment. Third and fourth stages include progressive dementia, movement disorders, hypomimia, speech impediments, sensory processing disorder, tremors, vertigo, deafness, depression and suicidality.

Additional symptoms include dysarthria, dysphagia, cognitive disorder such as amnesia, and ocular abnormalities, such as ptosis.

The condition manifests as dementia, or declining mental ability, problems with memory, dizzy spells or lack of balance to the point of not being able to walk under one's own power for a short time and/or Parkinsonism, or tremors and lack of coordination. It can also cause speech problems and an unsteady gait. Patients with DP may be prone to inappropriate or explosive behavior and may display pathological jealousy or paranoia

Now, I don't know about you, but to me these are all things which impact one's quality of life significantly and are far more serious than headaches.

Soccer, too.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

It's time we start ending school sponsored football programs. There are plenty of other sports that don't involve brain damage.

Soccer, too. That involves hitting the ball with your head, hard, repeatedly, and was shown to be causing brain damage even before (pigskin-style) football.

Re:Soccer, too.

[Gravis Zero]

It's time we start ending school sponsored football programs. There are plenty of other sports that don't involve brain damage.

Soccer, too. That involves hitting the ball with your head, hard, repeatedly, and was shown to be causing brain damage even before (pigskin-style) football.

Soccer has an easy fix, just prohibit hitting the ball with your head.

Re:Soccer, too.

[AmiMoJo]

Various professional football (soccer) bodies are looking at banning heading the ball for this reason. A lot of trainers don't allow younger players to do it already.

Re:I don't give a fuck about sportsball players

[Immerman]

Mostly because athletes get glorified in our society, encouraging mimicry by impressionable youth and idiots, while their celebrity insulates them from the consequences of their actions. That hits on two fronts.

First, you get a bunch of kids too young and stupid to know better inflicting brain damage for the chance at home-town celebrity and the perks that accompany it. And oft-times their parents aren't a whole lot better informed.

Second, that brain damage makes it much more likely that Joe McSportsball player is going to violently beat his girlfriend or that guy who looked at him funny at the bar, while his celebrity will get him off with a slap on the wrist and a lot of publicity. That sends a message to people everywhere that such violence is actually acceptable behavior.

Re:Yeah right

[PopeRatzo]

Billions of dollars are at stake with the NFL. You think that is just going to evaporate?

Boxing was the biggest sport in the world at one time. At all levels from CYO to Golden Gloves to amateur to pros. At all weight classes. In our lifetime. Now they struggle to find enough boxers to fill a card, and it's just a footnote. Yes, it can all evaporate. Pop Warner and high school programs are already hurting in most of the US because kids don't want to play football or their parents won't let them. Maybe it will become a regional sport, like NASCAR, but the end is just over the horizon for football as a national sport.

I love football, but it's on its way out. I don't think there is a way to save it.

How Much Death Risk Is That?

[Greyfox]

I'm guessing 100%, just like everyone else?

Re:Football will be gone in 10-20 years

[quantaman]

The CTEs don't kill you (unless you count the suicides), but they will turn you into a drooling wreck like Jim McMahon.

CTE leads to dementia, and that will shorten your life expectancy.

There seems to be two main criticisms of this study. First they're talking about players from the mid-80s, so even if they were 30 at the time they'd still be early-to-mid 60s, more likely they're late 50s. That's earlier than you'd expect CTE to really start shortening life expectancy (plus you might not have enough deaths to detect a smaller difference).

Second, they're comparing people who played football at a very high level to people who played football at a slightly higher level. If one group has CTE issues I'd expect both to.

The main thing that's been keeping the NFL afloat is gambling, and thanks to the much higher incidence of injury, the gamblers are finally starting to abandon it for more interesting games, like basketball, baseball, hockey. As a veteran fantasy football player, I can tell you that practically all of the skill has been taken out of it, making it much less fun. This year, I lost my stud, #1pick running back, David Johnson very early in the season, and I only made the playoffs because the other good players also lost their best picks as the season wore on.

And football continues to be a game of exploitation. Parents are putting their kids in football programs in the same numbers any more (except in the South, where brain damage is less noticeable) and I expect football to go the way of boxing. Another fine sport that just got to be too depressing to enjoy.

The attraction isn't gambling it's culture. Especially in the US South it's extremely ingrained into communities and football does have a number of fairly unusual characteristics among sports:
1) Virtually every male body type is well suited towards a position on the football field.
2) It has large rosters so significant portions of high school populations can participate.
3) It creates a very strict social hierarchy.
4) It has a much higher level of planning and organization than other sports

However, the large rosters are also its weakness, I expect CTE worries to drop a lot of schools below the critical mass of kids needed, and a lot of regions are going to lose high school football. And the kids who didn't play football will become adults who don't watch it, and football will become a regional sport in the south.

Replacement players?

[Bert64]

Did those replacement players only ever play 3 games, or did they only play 3 games at professional level?
Chances are those "replacement players" were just second rate players who weren't quite good enough to play for the major teams, but still played regularly as amateurs or for lower tier teams.

Re: Fuck You Kneelers

[Nidi62]

In football, as with many other sports, both teams will often kneel if a player is injured. Especially so if it is a major injury. Religions around the world have you kneel to pray, and people have been kneeling before royalty for centuries. Kneeling shows respect and a measure of subservience or devotion to the target of your kneeling. So why should it be "disrepectful" to kneel for the national anthem? If anythung, that should be more respectful than standing for it.