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NFL could limit concussions if it wanted to

Robert Kraft

The NFL doesn’t care about its player’s brain health.

Roger Goodell and the owners act like they want to improve this issue that plagues the league with their speeches and public outcry against concussions. But in honesty, they don’t care as much as they should.

Their actions throughout the years have shown they aren’t worried about player brain health. But they could show that they do care if they adjusted a few things.

Instead, they reportedly pulled funding to a Boston University study that is supposed to help them figure out how to help diagnose CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in living humans per ESPN. Not surprisingly, the NFL denies this report.

If the NFL actually gave a damn about player brain health, they’d pay whatever it took to help these players.

There are three things the NFL could improve if it really wanted to make a difference: tackling techniques used and taught around the league, helmet designs and the medical care players receive after they are out of the league. Once the NFL addresses these issues, then it can say it actually cares about the long-term brain health of its players.

When it comes to head injuries and helmet design, two major examples come into play from the animal kingdom as questions worth looking into.  How do rams bang their heads together and not sustain concussions or major head injuries? And how do woodpeckers not sustain concussions despite literally banging their head into a wall or a tree?

When it comes to woodpeckers, they have very small brains nestled inside average-sized heads for their body. They also have very well defined necks that act like shock absorbers. So, because of the brain size issue, when it comes to humans, the anatomy of a woodpecker doesn’t compare well on this issue.

On the other hand, rams compare very favorably to humans in this situation.

Rams are animals who not only have big brains, but they continually butt each other in their heads as part of their mating rituals. So why are rams rarely affected by the continual head-butting?

Andrew Farke, a PhD in Paleontology, explains the reason for this to Dr. Ainissa G. Ramirez in the book Newton’s Football: The Science Behind America’s Game.

“…a sheath of keratin is very, very thick in animals that head-butt. And the great thing about keratin is it deforms easily.”

The combination of large amounts of surface area and length of impact due to the shock absorbent nature of the keratin in their horns helps reduce the impact of the hit. The NFL should look into the concepts behind this for their helmets. The idea of using a hard outer shell in a helmet (current designs) doesn’t make a ton of sense for shock absorbent factors.

Think about eggs. If you take two eggs and smash them together, you’re going to find your hands covered in yolk and shell. Apply that same concept to football helmets, and the yolks that are players brains end up getting tossed around the inside of the helmet. If that thought disturbed you, you aren’t alone.

There are multiple helmet designers out there who are in the process of trying to fix this. But the best possible designs might be better if they include a softer padding on both the inside and outside of the helmet. Something similar to the neoprene we find in our beer koozies every Sunday could be an ideal material for the outside of and padding inside helmets.

The question then becomes what the look of the helmet is. How do they maintain the sleek look of current helmets if they add padding to the outside of them? Does it really matter if they look sleek if they can protect players from getting head injuries? Why not have a two-shell design with a padding in between to help absorb the impact while maintaining the sleek look?

So many questions can be asked when it comes to helmet design. And it’s a very important factor when looking into concussion prevention. But helmet design isn’t the only way to reduce the occurrence of head injuries. Dartmouth professor Rick Greenwald, PhD explained that to MIT.edu writer Sarah Jensen:

“It is unlikely that we can develop a helmet that will completely eliminate head injuries,” says Greenwald. “Players get hit hard and they get hit often.” But, he believes, as we better understand the physiology of concussions and other head and brain injuries, helmet design will continue to evolve and the incidence and severity of such injuries will be reduced even more.

Achieving that goal is not without its challenges. Helmets and liners must be comfortable and made of low-cost materials that fit the budgets of parents and school athletic departments. Adding weight to the helmet could lead to other injuries as strain is put on the player’s neck. And the helmet must not be so large that it becomes impractical. It’s no small task, but Greenwald remains hopeful that a balance between safety, appropriate materials, and aesthetics can be reached. “That’s all up to the engineers,” he says.

So while helmet design is important to fixing the NFL’s concussion epidemic, the league has yet to really make significant improvements on a design they’ve been using since the mid-1970’s. It’s been nearly 40 years and the helmets used today aren’t all that different from the helmets used back in the heyday of head injuries.

Another aspect regarding both woodpeckers and rams is that both animals contain more blood in their skulls as a cushion, which helps when they’re repeatedly banging their heads on hard surfaces. There are ideas along the same lines that would cut bloodflow back to the heart from the brain like the collar seen in the video below. A combination of the collar and a better helmet could definitely help reduce some concussions.

As important as helmet design is when preventing concussions, the technique that players use while tackling is just as important. The idea of wrapping up and leading with your head or shoulder is an outdated concept that leads to more concussions than rugby tackling or heads up tackling techniques.

Rugby tackling is a great way to learn how to minimize concussions while still making effective tackles one-on-one. The idea is to use leverage from the body with a twisting, pit bull-type motion in taking down a ball carrier. It looks very similar to a double-leg take-down in Olympic-style wrestling.

By doing this, it allows the tackler to take the ball carrier down without slamming his or his opponent’s head in the ground. A widespread implementation of this techique could help prevent concussions. Watch the video below to see how the Seahawks teach this technique.

Heads up tackling methods should also be explored. As seen in the video below, the tackling techniques used in this method are focused on leverage and hitting from a lower angle within the strike zone than what we normally see on Sundays.

Tackling using hip technique and explosion, there will still be some big hits, but the head is out of the equation, and that should help with concussion prevention.

Once technique and helmet design are addressed, the preventative measures to help limit concussions must be covered much more thoroughly than they currently are by the league.

The NFL needs to make sure it provides proper post-career care for its players, especially as it relates to the potential CTE they might be dealing with. Not enough players are given help through their issues after they retire.

The NFL needs to provide insurance for every player who has played a single snap within the league for general medical, and it also needs to make sure these guys are getting proper care psychologically and neurologically. There isn’t a way at this time to determine who has CTE while in living persons, but with improvement in medical technologies, that is coming soon enough.

The league could help speed it along, though. A mandatory yearly neurological exam would be something teams should look into. On top of that, sending the brains of every player who passes away to a foundation that is examining the effects of concussions and CTE would be the wise and caring thing to do.

Right now, the NFL is reportedly pulling money away from studies that could help players instead of investing heavily into such measures.

That’s not how you show you are worried about players’ brain health. That’s not how you give players the right preventative or post-career medical care. The NFL has a long way to go before it can say that it really does want to protect players’ brains.

By improving tackling technique and teaching methods, re-designing helmets that make a real difference and providing proper medical care, the NFL could show that they do give a damn about player safety. Until then, I won’t be convinced.

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