I told a good friend 5 years ago that within the next 10 years you will not be able to hit the quarterback below the waist while he's in the pocket and it's dawn close to that now with the Brady rule. I still have 5 more years on that. Bottom line is again within 10 years football as we know it will be totally different then what we watched the last 10 ago.
It's called a mandatory release form, problem solved
Unfortunately, release forms, consent forms, etc often do not always hold up in court, especially in front of a jury, when "Junior" gets wheeled out in front of the jury.
Trial lawyers across the country are drooling in anticipation, awaiting the rulings on these cases.
But it's not like football is some cult that 99% of the country never heard of and feel like it's a bunch of pagans sacrificing children to the gridiron.
It's a sport. A tough, physical sport.
In a litigious society, everything that is detrimental to you is eligible for a lawsuit to make amends. EVERYTHING. Because there is no dividing line. The only reason most things don't result in a lawsuit is because A) most people don't have the time or inclination to sue, B) They just casually accept it, and C) the financial reward isn't worth the time.
Guy cuts you off: emotional distress. Your egg mcmuffin was cold: false advertising. Your windows that were supposed to reduce your electric bill by 20% only reduced it by 19%: and on and on. To the letter, you could sue. it's there.
The issue I have is that these players with concussions feel like they should sue, but a player that breaks a leg and then 20 years down the line has horrible knee and ankle pain due to the prior injury doesn't sue.
It's all the same. You wear down over time. Your body will not be what it was at 18 when you're 30. It just won't. It can't. The value of what toll you take is in the money you make. And these players, even the poor rookie free agents made decent money by anyone's standard.
I don't know that this will blow up and change football but I do hope it changes practice. I think there are many cases that could hold up in court, those being when coaches are negligent at practice. I think that if you went to every practice across all levels of youth and high school football for every team, you would find that there are a lot of coaches that put players through very tough physical drills, that lead to concussions and other injuries. There are some drills that many coaches use in practice every day that should be banned. Many tackling drills are ground zero for concussions and coaches want players to hit each other as hard as possible during these. This is where all levels of football at the youth and high school level are vulnerable to lawsuits. You may sign a waiver and want your kid to play football but you don't sign him up to be coached and put through dangerous drills every day in practice at full speed, that could lead to perminant damage.
"Football people" like to downplay this scenario and say it is ridiculous that this could ever happen.
It's probably more plausible then most realize. You have two issues. The first is the NFL lawsuits which will trickle down to the NCAA at some point. NFL is a cash cow and they will get through it one way or the other. Impact on NCAA programs is less clear. Most BCS (or whatever we're supposed to call it in wake of the new playoff system) football programs are in the red. It will be easy for some programs just to walk away from it and would also solve their Title IX problems.
The second issue will be whether high schools will be able to carry insurance to cover themselves against both catastrophic and long-term, repetitive injuries. Waiver or not, schools will be liable if a coach sends a kid out there who's already hurt and gets further injured. Google San Diego high school football lawsuit. And don't be surprised when private, personal insurance policies stop covering football related injuries.
We can all hang on to our tough guy football personas, but once we really have the data about what the sport can and does do to people's long-term cognitive functions how long can you ignore it?
I appreciate the "Chicken Little" scenario from the Lake Catholic/St. Ed's hybrid guy. It isn't farfetched to consider, but really...football isn't all that different from many other sports. Head injuries are common in all of the contact sports...lacrosse, rugby, soccer, boxing, MMA, etc. If you really go after football, you're going to have to go after all of them.
I don't think the American polity will allow youth sports to be shut down in the manner that that the asbestos business was shut down by litigation. If it appeared to be moving in that direction, I would expect the legislative branches of the states and federal government to move in.
it took a law suit to bring pitch count to AABC cincinnati... so talking about kids and law suit... I see changes because "if" a law suit it coming......
I think this is completely different than the other sports you mention. First of all, MMA and boxing are individual sports that don't involve schools. Specifically, we're talking about brain/spinal cord injuries and conditions here not broken bones and torn ACLs. Always a risk in any activity but this really is a football specific issue.
And at the high school level, we're largely talking about minors so they can't reasonably make decisions about when it is or is not safe to stay in a game or practice. That's up to trainers and coaches and you're back to the liability problem.
There's going to be a lot more data coming out over the next couple years about the affects of even routine/legal repetitive contact in football (I think Va. Tech has done a lot of the research using their own team). It's not likely to be good news for the sport.
The real alternative is not that football necessarily goes away but that it is no longer offered by schools and becomes a club team/private organization sport (basically how sports are run in Europe).
Quote:
Originally Posted by CatAlum
I appreciate the "Chicken Little" scenario from the Lake Catholic/St. Ed's hybrid guy. It isn't farfetched to consider, but really...football isn't all that different from many other sports. Head injuries are common in all of the contact sports...lacrosse, rugby, soccer, boxing, MMA, etc. If you really go after football, you're going to have to go after all of them.
I don't think the American polity will allow youth sports to be shut down in the manner that that the asbestos business was shut down by litigation. If it appeared to be moving in that direction, I would expect the legislative branches of the states and federal government to move in.
Not sure high schools will be able to handle the lawsuits
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