“At least 1-in-4 of all the people who have played in the NFL might expect to end up with chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE], according to a study of hundreds of cases over a recent six-year period.”
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“… at least” is so chilling. This is not news and it’s just so damn sad and selfish that this continues. Mamas, don’t let your children grow up to play American football. Ugh. Mind your brains, folks, you only get one.
I first wrote about the NFL and traumatic head injuries back in 2009. I quit watching football, in part because of CTE and the NFL's lack of action, in 2014. I really thought football would have to change significantly or face extinction, but I underestimated (or overestimated) America. Little kids, middle schoolers, high schoolers, collegiate athletes, pros...they all still play football, enthusiastically.
I also quit watching football around the same time. It's too bad—what a fun game, so tactically rich, so good at concocting suspense. And a great chance to hang out with my dad and brother. But couldn't the same have all been said of gladiatorial combat in Roman times?
I was struck by something Bill Simmons said recently on his podcast. He was talking about the ways the NFL suppresses player celebrity, in contrast to the NBA.
Of course then Simmons' next episode was all about football storylines. (I didn't listen; I'm just there for the basketball.)
Our society has this disappointing quality where the most prominent people often point at something bad, say it's bad, and then do absolutely nothing about that thing. This rottenness for a while spread slowly but now it's spreading with great vigor over every last surface.
My boys want to play tackle football, and it's getting harder and harder to talk them out of it as they get older. But it feels like I just have to throw my whole body in front of it at this point.
Yes, there is a big problem for football. But football itself is unimportant; it's entertainment that can be supplanted by other forms of entertainment. But CTE is haunting important people with important jobs, people who protect us, who risk their lives for us...the US Coast Guard. NY Times exposed this one, as well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/us/coast-guard-rescue-boat-surfmen-brain-injury.html
We don't need to minimize the dangers endured by one group of people (that includes children and young adults) to highlight dangers endured by a second group of people.
I didn't mean to diminish the suffering of football players, just the importance of football. It's not important, which makes their injuries that much more tragic.
Like all feelings we balance when consuming things in the world with the ethics involved, I maintain a sense of guilt watching the (obviously more violent) rugby union, but it's somewhat impressive to me how fluidly they usher players off for what happens so often they have an abbreviation for it - Head Injury Assessment. There are sensors in the mandated mouth guards (on top of the gps-ish sensors with a built-in pocket sewed into the top of the back on every players uniform measuring position/running) and sometimes players are very convinced they're fine and still get pulled of. I've seen some concern about preventable death for rugby players just the same, and if anything the way news becomes cacaphonous worldwide based on US stories/interest appears to help in this case.
According to the clankers (and therefore grain-of-salt) analysis, an average career of league/national rugby players is about double that of players in the NFL (7 vs. 3.5), as is the overall median (obvs considerably less at 5 to 2.5), but both rugby and American Football 'stars' can make it to over a decade. Hilariously rugby's been around much longer and yet it's relatively recent that it's been professional with decent salaries and modern conventions like 'substitutions'😅, I'm somewhat encouraged with the ways they consider very few rules sacrosanct in how it's played/officiated when changes may increase player safety.
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