The insurance crisis that may soon bring an end to football

T

TahoeLegend

Pretty much a regular
This is a lot closer and a much bigger threat than people realize. This story is long, but even reading a few paragraphs will illustrate the great danger football at every level is facing.

The NFL now has only one--ONE--insurance company that will even consider writing insurance. Pop Warner may have to fold for the same reason. High schools are being forced to drop the sport. Numerous junior colleges--including one from Arizona that won three national titles-- have already dropped football. Insurance companies just refuse to insure the sport because of the traumatic injury problem,

The one thing the story doesn't deal with is that modern coaches brought this problem to the game. For decades no one led with their helmets on any level of football. it's insane to do so and the coaches knew it. But over the last 30 years of so the majority of coaches on defense decided leading with the helmet would injure the offense more so they started teaching it. And many of them still do. They ignore the fact it may injure their own players as well and the fact penalties are now called.

Iowa State lost two of their best players in the bowl game and it was clear both did it intentionally. Texas Tech had five players who were disqualified at least twice this season. One of them missed the first half of a game and as soon as he got on the field immediately did it again and missed the first half of the next. Coaches don't seem to think it is important.

http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id...ing-major-threat-nfl-pop-warner-colleges-espn
 
Yeah been saying for awhile that football won't be around too long...not like immediate but it's definitely nearing it's end just due to money.
 
A bunch of these guys are on the streets, acting like thugs and doing drive by shootings and the like if they weren't playing football. Football saves the lives of a lot of these people and other people who would otherwise lose their life if these idiots weren't playing sports instead.
 
I think POp Warner is dead , not even sure they have it where I live anymore . High School also probably dead except for the very few high schools that actually generate revenue

I could see with influence from the NFL at getting states to Cap the amount one can get from a settlement to try and curb this , similar to what happened with a lot of states in medical mal practice
 
really there is no reason to let little kids play tackle with helmets. what is the point? we played tackle as kids just in the backyard. no one ever got an injury that sent them to the hospital.
 
Good point, cubsker.

If it were just kids playing injuries would be rare, but there is always failed-athlete-guy who wants to be a youth coach and yell and scream at players to be tough, and this is war, and hit harder, and lead with your helmet. You see more of that nonsense in youth football than any other level.

I'm steering my boys away from football because of too many moron coaches. And the funny part is, the coaches are doing most of the work for me. Coaches now insist players work out all summer and try to keep them from playing any other sports. My kids will never go for giving up skiing and beach volleyball.

Football is my favorite sport, but it has big problems. There are smart people trying to enact changes to address the problems and I hope they succeed.
 
The problem is that most of the rules that would protect players ruin the game.

What has really led to the increase in concussions is the emphasis on passing games now.

It seems like most of the concussions happen on the QB or a WR

1. Rule changes to make passing easier have made the QB drop back more, thus increasing concussions.
2. Targeting rules and the ease with which flags are thrown, and the teaching of kids to not lead with helmet, etc., has created a situation where the wide receivers are no longer protecting themselves out there. When wide receivers were crossing the middle in the old days, they would protect themselves from the big hit and now they just expect to not be hit.
3. The Pass Interference call, which was originally put into the game to prevent beaten players from just interfering to stop a big play has been morphed into any contact prior to the ball arriving, or being in the way when the ball is under thrown. So if you cannot defend by having good coverage, a lot of players are using the technique of waiting for the ball to arrive and then jarring it free. So the new way PI is interpreted is leading to a lot more concussions out there.
4. There is zero self-policing out there anymore because it is expected the Refs will take care of it.
5. Players are just dumber now to begin with and not nearly as tough.


I really think there should be a way of explaining the risk to people, and letting them decide for themselves if they want to play. There was a time you could sue the tobacco companies but now it is pretty clear that you are smoking cigarettes at your own risk. Why can we not treat football like this?

Certainly for the NFL, the player should be able to decide if he wants to take the risk to earn his living or not, the same way a Fisherman does (A very dangerous occupation).

Obviously, the biggest problem is solving it at the youth and amateur levels.

But it is very clear that football is in trouble .. and players are only going to get bigger, faster, and dumber.

I blame most of the trouble on the rules to help offense. If they eliminated those, the game would be a lot safer.
 
Hate to know how many concussions were doled out in our neighborhood games in the day. rocks in the yard and one sideline was a tree line. Took some serious headshots in the day
 
Pretty sure most concussions happen along the line where there are collisions on every snap. They just aren't obvious or even looked at.

Guy that used to play softball with travels to universities now to teach appropriate blocking techniques specifically due to concussions. His numbers for linemen were staggering, can't recall but he's been at it for a few years now.
 
Nothing for nothing I much prefer the game now that the cheap shots have been removed. I always hated the cheap shots. Taking dirty out of NFL is good. A WR going across the middle not worrying that Vontez breaks his neck, is a good thing. NFL is also so much better because of replay, different thread, it is nuanced, but I want the play called correct.

The injury I also think about is the Earl Campbell, basically Gronk knee destruction. Those legal hits these TEs take on the legs are brutal. The sport is brutal.

The article I posted shows how the owners/commissioner and scumbag attorneys continue to game the process. NFL owners are mostly dirt. This process needs to be called out. People that acted in bad faith need to be paid a visit by the karma police.

NFL players are warriors.
 
My predictions.

Money and Technology.

Throw enough money at the problem with technology and a new safe helmet will be designed.
This is all but guaranteed

Other solution is the environment changes.

The game should be played with 10 players.

Widen the field on both sides by 3 yards.

I think if you do that there is more room and less collisions Dowbfield
 
Less players and more space equals more speed and more violent collisions Samuel, why the NFL basically making the kickoffs irrelevant
 
Soccer has plenty of concussion issues of its own but guessing not to the level insurance doesn't want to cover it
 
Got a black eye from a soccer ball to the face in a soccer club tryout. Led the team in goals and combined goals/assists that year.

I crushed at soccer
 
Indoor soccer, man that was footy on crack. Loved it...not only headbutts but wall cracks to the noggin too
 
hubs89 said:
Seriously, make the players sign a waiver detailing all the possible long term effects. They know exactly what they sign up for. And most will still do it because they get to make millions playing a game they love to play.
Click to expand...


Pretty much all they have to do is to make it legal proof.

Signing a waiver is the way to go!!

Like nascar drivers obviously aware of the risk of death.

Nfl is only liable because they don’t have players signatures on the contract detailing all possible injuries that accrue from playing football.

Medicinal marijuana details everything. Every possible side effect for patients to sign waivers essentially making them legal proof and zero liability
 
Football has been in trouble before and was on the ropes. Teddy Roosevelt stepped in when he was president and football was about to be outlawed and got the flying wedge prohibited. Head slaps were outlawed, spearing was outlawed, hitting out of bounds started getting called. All that helped and every time the neanderthals screamed, "they are ruining football." And every time they protected the skill players the game got more popular.

I hope they find a way to solve this problem.

Just having a waiver works as long as players are made aware of the dangers they are waiving. A player has to KNOW the dangers and what rights he is waiving and for years both college football and the NFL claimed there were not an abnormal number of concussions and, even if someone got a concussion, no permanent damage was done. Even now the NFL refuses to admit the problem.

What both college and pros should do is shower the players with information--videos, seminars, reports, studies, and then quizzes to make sure the players have received all information possible and understand it. Problem with that is, once they admit it to cut liability in the future, they will be admitting the danger existed all along and they lied to hide it in the past.

The first step is to make targeting penalties so severe no one will do it. And coaches have to be punished as well. The player misses three or four games, the coach at his position is fined several games checks and suspended the same length of time as the player. That will stop it in a month.

Nothing can be done about the gigantic liability hanging over the sport from the past. We've only seen the tiny tip of the iceberg of that problem. And, as the NCAA did in that case mentioned in the story, most of the time the teams are going to have to settle. In that case the attorneys had a line of ex-teammates of that player who were going to testify the coaches told them to lead with their heads and ignored injuries and concussions players suffered as a result. it's suicide to go to trial on a case like that.

And that was a 40-year old case. What happens when the case of the Washington State QB who committed suicide and it was revealed he had brain damage as severe as a 65-year old comes to trial?

Self-insuring might work in the NFL and in the big colleges, at least for a while, but it won't work for high schools, junior colleges, and any level below the power five teams.

When hard-headed, bottom-line insurance companies refuse to even discuss insuring teams at any price you know self insuring is not an idea teams want to face.

And traumatic head injuries are only part of it. Many of the crippling injuries old players; suffer from are from years of lifting hundreds of pounds of weights year-round for years. Muscles might be able to take it, but joints and tendons and ligaments cannot, and the heart doesn't care the huge amount of extra pounds it is straining to support was put there on the advice of strength coaches. All the heart knows is that it is stressed.

And O-linemen are even worse off. Strength coaches have them drinking milk shakes and being gluttons in order to add pounds, even if the diets are insane and a huge amount of the weight is fat. There is not a cardiologist in the world who will not testify that is sure to cause heart problems, and every strength coach in the country does it.

Teams have to know this is harmful, but it is not even mentioned and no one warns the players. In fact, if a player asks they are told it is all healthy and will make them better players. All that liability exists too and there is going to be a tidal wave of lawsuits as all the cardiovascular damage begins to surface.

The game has to clean up all these things. They can do it if they have the will. I think they will. Football is too important to let the morons ruin it.
 
Oh great give Devin White three games for shoving Fitz lmao. You have to distinguish between egregious and non-egregious targeting. Otherwise offensive players are just going to make themselves small in the last-second before a hit so that the defender collides into their head and gets tossed out.
 
It seems like it could get so much deeper as well, the facilities can be sued, it's not just the league or school. If insurance isn't going to provide coverage, you gotta look at the long list of equipment manufacturers, dependents (in college obviously) so parents can be sued. The whole list of who's who in future lawsuits could be incredible.

Also, as Tahoe said….let's assume a handful of universities and the NFL could self insure. Where are the prospects coming from if they aren't playing until they're adults? Club football? Might as well be like any recreational rugby league.
 
If you take blocking, hitting and tackling out of the game, it is watching grass grow.

Everyone knows this. It loses everything that makes it appealing.

The solution has to be something other than making targeting worse. BTW knee injuries have skyrocketed because players are hitting low.

I probably get to watch it in some sort of pussified version. Probably be playing the super bowl in women's lingerie in a few years.
 
hubs89 said:
Seriously, make the players sign a waiver detailing all the possible long term effects. They know exactly what they sign up for. And most will still do it because they get to make millions playing a game they love to play.
Click to expand...

All players will sign it for sure. Even if they don’t publically admit it all players already are aware of the dangers of playing tackle football.
 
If they can make autonomous vehicles surely they can create a safe helmet that would absorb over 95% of impact.

However the motor vehicle industry is a trillion dollar industry and has poured billions into research.


Nfl comparatively is very small. They make 15 billion a year and owners are cheap and tone deaf.
Plus I’m not sure these dinosaur owners are looking 10+ years down the road.

But I don’t believe creating such a helmet would cost in the hundreds of billions.

The answer is likely some kind of autonomous helmet that changes form upon impact. Basically helmets woukd have sensors and LiDAR sensors. They would be able to scan the field 360 degrees and sense contact and then the helmets would contract and absorb contact.

I am pretty confident that the helmets will be autonomous. They are all linked together with artificial intelligence. Then they can pretty much prevent any collisions.
 
Sammy Meatballs said:
All players will sign it for sure. Even if they don’t publically admit it all players already are aware of the dangers of playing tackle football.
Click to expand...

BFD about the players themselves.

CTE studies are still in their infancy and long term effects (which will continue to evolve) likely have yet to remotely see the end game. Do you think girlfriends/spouses and their families will also sign these waivers? I realize it's only one case, but the Jovan Belcher case is real, the dead girlfriend is real, her parents are real and that murder/suicide may or may not have been a direct result of CTE. If I'm a betting man I lean towards yes.

You can say all you want about the risks involved to an individual, which is fine, but the depressed individual isn't close to being the only one at risk. If he/she were, that's one thing...you might become depressed and suicidal. But let's be real here, who needs or should have the opportunity to sign this "waiver" you're suggesting?

This is about prediction, not reflection on past results. Insurance companies aren't idiots.
 
KJ said:
BFD about the players themselves.

CTE studies are still in their infancy and long term effects (which will continue to evolve) likely have yet to remotely see the end game. Do you think girlfriends/spouses and their families will also sign these waivers? I realize it's only one case, but the Jovan Belcher case is real, the dead girlfriend is real, her parents are real and that murder/suicide may or may not have been a direct result of CTE. If I'm a betting man I lean towards yes.

You can say all you want about the risks involved to an individual, which is fine, but the depressed individual isn't close to being the only one at risk. If he/she were, that's one thing...you might become depressed and suicidal. But let's be real here, who needs or should have the opportunity to sign this "waiver" you're suggesting?

This is about prediction, not reflection on past results. Insurance companies aren't idiots.
Click to expand...


Only the player can legally sign the waiver. The player is the one employed by the Nfl. The legal liability and limitations do not extend to others.
The players brain and mental health is what is being waived by signing.

Difficult situation but in reality football is super dangerous. Concussions are real.

End of the day money talks and everything else is irrelevant.

We are at a point in culture where money rules all.
 
But Sammy I'm guessing the victims of the act would surely be able to sue (clearly they'd list in a lawsuit) the NFL if it was shown the sport contributed to the act that caused the crime.
 
TahoeLegend said:
Iowa State lost two of their best players in the bowl game and it was clear both did it intentionally. Texas Tech had five players who were disqualified at least twice this season. One of them missed the first half of a game and as soon as he got on the field immediately did it again and missed the first half of the next.
Click to expand...
What a coincidence that the Big 12 has far more season-ending injuries than any other conference!
 
I'm not sure I believe it, but I heard TCU had 30 season-ending injuries this year. I'm not sure Clemson had a single one. And Clemson -- like Alabama and BC -- hits in practice all year long, I believe. It was funny to watch Addazio in the Coaches Film Room for the Alabama-Oklahoma game (it always is) when Gary Patterson said he didn't hit in practice the last two or three weeks of the season. Addazio reacted like he'd never heard of such a thing.
 
A waiver does nothing at all unless the person signing the waiver is informed of the risks involved. A player can release a team from liability, but only if the team informs him of all the risks he is assuming.

The NFL still is not admitting their policies contributed to CTE and still refusing to admit they knew anything about it and covered it up. A waiver is useless to traumatic head injuries as long as the player is not informed of risks the league knows exists.

Same thing in college football. Larry Fedora was so stupid he really believes what he told the press--that it is not been proven concussions tcontribute to CTE and that the game is under attack by people who are "twisting the data."

If he's telling the press that what do you think he is telling the players? They can't possibly sign a knowing waiver. And it's doubtful any court will enforce a waiver signed by a high school kid when guys like Fedora are publicly announcing the risk doesn't exist

There is no solution to the massive liability that exists for current and past players. If there were the insurance companies would be happy to just raise premiums and continue to do business with football.

They are in the business of assessing risk, then charging a price high enough to make a profit insuring against it. Right now they see the risk as so large they won't insure it at any price. That's where football stands now. The one thing they can do is make football safer for the future. They should. There is no logical reason traumatic head injuries should be a part of football or any other sport.

They are doing one important thing right now in putting a stop to targeting. If they make the rule so severe it stops--which is easy to do--fans will no more notice the absence of it than they notice the absence of the head slap or the flying wedge.
 
This all ends with criminal prosecution across the board in all sports, let's face it

I know the risk when I get behind the wheel, that some asshole could intentionally or unintentionally take me out at a high speed and he pays the price. I'm kind of amazed we've made it this far allowing sporting leagues to govern themselves in that manner for the most part
 
I got a concussion my sophomore year of high school. I caught a pass, did a spin move (because I'm a bad ass) got away from one and another guy came and lead with his helmet to my head and cleaned my clock. Of course I didn't remember how it happened, I saw it on tape. Little shit too, but he was 18 and I was 15. It was a scrimmage vs a shit school who just wanted to go balls to the wall to prove something. I remember getting up and barely being able to stand, no clue where I was just shaking my head to get what felt like real cob webs out. The next series I lined up in an illegal formation twice as I was in the slot as the Y WR. The coaches and teammates were like WTF are you doing, I was clueless when I glossed them over. It didn't make sense to me then, only the next week did I realize it's because I was concussed. The better question would be why didn't you dumb fuck coaches or trainers notice something? Of course this was mid to late 90s and concussions weren't a hot topic by any means yet.

I remember going to my Dr years later and telling him this story. He was furious and said it's because the coaches only care about winning at all costs. He knew a few and said the shit the coaches would ask him to do and how selfish they were made him disgusted.

On another note, years later playing backyard tackle football with friends I got another concussion as my head hit the ground and sprung up like a yo yo. Knew it right away and dr confirmed a few days later. No helmets involved. Not sure if related but by mid 20s through today I get migraines that I never got as a kid. Blurred vision usually the sign it's coming on. Probably related.

I love football, I want my son to play but I don't. If he wants to play not sure if I let him. Doubt it. He's 4 and when I ask he says not now because they are too rough. He's right and I should be listening to him now. It would only be selfish of me to allow him to play. If someone like me who loves it, loved playing won't allow his kid to play can't imagine how many others. don't now or won't in the future. Basically all of my friends say no way regarding their kids.
 
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Once a kid gets used to the weight of a helmet and is taught how to tackle it's pretty freaking hard to get hurt that bad in the head thru high school in football. At that age its heat exhaustion that is scary.

Division 1 and Pros is where world class athletes knock you out.
 
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