That injury to Tua was hard to watch.
I have a few thoughts on this topic. One is helmets and the other is surface.
Helmets can be improved. You see them at practice. It is up to the NFL to come up with a design that is safer and aesthetically pleasing.
Surface: This is where injury happens. More concussions occur when heads hit turf than collisions. It is also the cause of leg joint damage.
Money is in turf. Sure they can use the fields for other events.
This is the NFL's problem - greed. They talk a good game and actually do very little.
Stadiums should be grass. Or, make a better surface that has give.
Tua was concussed last week. Their staff had to go through the protocol. If not the team should be sued. However, that is not going to fix the problem.
It is all about the surface and helmets.
Many have poo pooed my thoughts and viewpoints on the subject, when I supported the use of the PRO CAP...that had been successfully used in THE NFL and received positive endorsements from those NFL players who were interested in protecting their head and brain.
....ROGER GOODELL AND THE NFL IGNORED the value of the ProCap and eventually outlawed the use of it, even though there was no evidence that using the ProCap was detrimental to the health of any players who used them.
The use of extra padding on NFL helmets goes back to Willie Lanier's (1967) use of extra padding on his helmet to protect him from concussions and he wore that helmet for his entire career.
This year we see the NFL mandating the use of the Guardian..a ProCap like device that is down right ugly. It goes over the existing helmets just like the ProCap did...but the NFL won't mandate the extra padding for use during games.
Roger Goodell and the NFL owners created this entire cluster of crap and should be held responsible. I don’t disagree. The impact and bounce back trauma of the brain moving is extremely dangerous.
I recall reading something about boxing that is related. Back in the old days of bare knuckle boxing the boxers concentrated on body shots. Certainly traumatic but they weren’t damaging their brains. The development of boxing gloves resulted in head shots leading to the danger of a damaged brain. One wonders what we will see with MMA guys as they hit their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
Of course, I have heard commercials on the radio whining about the alleged pussification of football. Players today are faster, stronger and weigh more than players of the past. F=MA doesn’t give a damn about you nor do the momentum equations of physics.
