How Beneficial Is The Football For Our Health

Football is way too violent and should be abolished as a sport. Even some NFL players admit that they would not let their own sons play football. Then there are others, fierce advocates who think football is a wonderful game with tremendous benefits to its participants and think all of the media hype about injuries are just overrated scare tactics and headline grabbers.

But the majority of us are probably somewhere in the middle and aren’t quite sure what to think. So why don’t we spend a little time sifting through all the facts and emotions and see if we can make some logical decisions about the subject. I have an interesting perspective in that I am a sports medicine physician who is a true fan of the game, has played the game, has sustained injuries and has a son of my own.

Dementia, CTE, chronic headaches, depression, the list goes on and on. It’s not just long-term orthopedic problems anymore. It’s not just the chronic knee pain or back pain. These athletes suffer from cognitive, psychological, psychiatric, social, emotional and daily functional problems that even lead some to take their own lives. From this perspective it is easy to ask oneself the simple question: Is it worth it?

Especially when I have a 4-year-old son who is so innocent and has his whole life ahead of him. I ask myself: Is this what I want for him? On the other hand, football is a beautiful game. It is the No. 1 sport in America for a reason. Not only is there the physical strength, speed, technique and skill that it develops in its athletes, but it also provides a structure to develop other skills. Learning about hard work, strategy, teamwork, social and trust building skills, these are all life lessons that provide our youngsters with tools to not only tackle their opponent, but to tackle life.

From a spectator perspective it is also a fascinating game to watch. The strategy of the play calling and the intricacy of the formations, the feat of skill of an amazing catch, the excitement of an interception and of course the energizing violence of a hard fumble-causing tackle. Finally, for the athletes themselves there is also the social status of being a football player on the high school or collegiate level. And for some there is the lure of playing professional football with all of the fame and fortune and opportunity that it provides. For many it is the last hope and a way out of an otherwise troublesome life. So how do we balance these two perspectives?

Well, as with any decision in life we must weigh the risks and rewards. So let’s take a logical look at the risks. There is tremendous risk in football. Every year football players in this country die from head trauma or sudden cardiac death or heat illness. Also injuries leading to paralysis and permanent disability are not as rare as we would hope. But what are the true relative risks? It is a fact that head trauma is more common in bicycling than it is in football. Football is then closely followed by playground accidents. Concussions may have a higher incidence in girls soccer than in football. What about the risk of death?

Perhaps the greatest is education and awareness. Proper pre-participation screening, heat illness prevention, proper equipment, proper tackling technique, concussion baseline testing and injury monitoring, and there are many others. We also reduce risk by reducing exposure. Limiting the number of hits by limiting full contact practices will reduce injury rates. Rule changes such as on kickoffs will change play dynamics and reduce injury exposure as well. Penalizing dangerous technique such as hits to the head and hits on defenseless receivers and fining flagrant acts of dangerous unsportsmanlike conduct will also reduce risk.

Changing the culture of the game will also go a long way toward limiting violence and increasing injury reporting and monitoring. Should the violence completely disappear? Should the game be more about pure skill and less about physicality? It probably shouldn’t. After all, what does a non-violent, non-physical football game look like: It’s called the Pro Bowl. And nobody watches it. So I don’t think the game needs to be radically changed and the violence completely eliminated, but clearly there does need to be change. Luckily that change has finally arrived.

Football has gone through periods of significant change in the past. From being saved from extinction by Teddy Roosevelt in 1905, to the development of the forward pass, to the fearlessness of the hard-helmeted athlete, there have certainly been many periods of change. I think we have now arrived upon another one. An age of enlightenment so to speak. An awareness of the importance of injury prevention and a culture change of what it means to be an injured athlete. I do not think that the game of football that has been played over the last decade will be the same as that played by my 4-year-old when it is his turn.