Concussion: Movie Analysis

Walter Camp was the founding father of the game football, which has been around since 1880. He started off by being a member of his college rugby team at Yale University and later became the inventor of football. He invented the pads, helmets, the uniforms, the cleats, and of course the rules. When you sign up for the game you know what you are getting yourself into whether it is minor injuries or very severe injuries. Football players know the risks to their health and thus should be allowed to play the sport without any additional rules or equipment modifications.

Football is a very simple game, there is an offense and a defense, the offense wants to score a touchdown and the defense’s job is to stop them. There are always

a total of eleven players on the field no matter what position they are playing, offense or defense. For the Government to try and stop the game of football is not right. Jay Cutler quarterback for the Chicago Bears said in an interview that, “We signed up for this” (Cutler1). He signed up for the game, he knows the rules and how it is supposed to be played so therefore, he will play it correctly on the side of his fellow teammates. In his interview he also stated how it is very hard for the defensive player to make a decision on where to tackle the player running the opposite direction of them in a split second. There are many other football players’ professional and non- professional players who agree with what Cutler has said. People watch football because they like to see all of these big hits and big plays because it makes the game more interesting and more exciting. Of course people love to watch the game because of the celebrations after that big hit a player makes or because they scored a touchdown in a big game, it can make the game more entertaining than just someone running down the field with a football in their hands trying to get to the other side and avoid everyone in between. Trying not to get tackled in this game is hard because everyone’s purpose is the same, to tackle the one person who has the ball. Many injuries can come about trying to avoid being tackled by other players.
Injuries during sports has been a topic for discussion for the past 5 years now and is still continues to be a big topic today.

Recently, they have made a movie of major injuries it is called concussion. In this movie they show former football players who have had concussions and what it is like after having one. In ‘Concussion,’ forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu discovers a neurological deterioration, something that is very similar to Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of former NFL football player, Mike Webster. Later in time, Omalu named this disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Many other athletes face this same problem with the same disease in the brain. Doctors are still trying to raise public awareness about the dangers of football-related head trauma. This movie has been a big part in changing the rules of football and how it is played. Researcher for CNN, Dr. Julian Bailes has said that, “We are taking out unnecessary head contact out of the sport, out of practice. We're enforcing rule changes," Not only has the movie ‘Concussion’ made an impact on how they feel about getting rid of the game of football overall but it also has many people in agreement, such as well-known doctors, that the game is a dangerous sport. Football players know that the game is a hard contact sport; they have to take every hit, hard or soft. These athletes that have been injured know what the game is about and all of the rules that go along with it. Therefore, the injuries that happen to them are on them if they sign up to play football, not because of the

rules.
In the game of football the rules are very different from other sports games. Some rules are, when a team has possession of the ball, meaning that they are on offense, the object is to move the ball forward into the end zone and to move the ball a minimum of ten yards in four attempts to reach the first to fourth downs. If the offense fails to move the football forward the required ten yards, the ball will then be given to the opponent and they will start with the ball at that same point of the field. Meaning that the defense now becomes the offense at the exact place where the offense has been stopped. On fourth down the offense has the option of kicking the ball to the opponent when they were not successful of making it those ten yards on the third down and have absolutely no chance of going the remaining yards on the fourth down to receive a touchdown. Where the fourth down happens is either a make or break because if the offense is closer to their own end zone than to their opponents, if they give the ball to their opponent at that place on the field, they have given their opponent an easier way and more of an advantage of scoring against them. That is where the option of kicking the ball down the other side of the field comes into place so that they do not come down with an easy touchdown. Of course there are many other rules in the game of football, those were just some of them and how the game is played between the offense and the defense. Now for equipment that the players have to wear during the game to protect themselves are; helmets, shoulder pads, mouth guards, thigh, hip, and knee pads , and gloves. Each of these parts has their own purposes. A helmet protects your head to prevent injuries, shoulder pads protect your shoulders, mouth guards protect your teeth and your jaw, thigh pads, knee pads, and hip pads protect everything in those areas of the thigh, hips, and knees, and gloves protect your fingers and hands and gives you more of an ability to catch and throw the ball. The rules of the game and the equipment that is required to be worn while playing football are a big reason why football is at risk but it has been played for many years with the same equipment being worn and the same rules to play by and it does not seem to be going anywhere because people have agreed to play the sport that they know the rules that go along with it. Not to mention that most of the people that agree are the ones being paid to play the game of football.
Playing any professional sport will pay you very well. Football is a very high paying sport where you can make over five million a year. So you are playing a sport you love and getting paid a lot while you are at it. Philip Rivers, quarterback for the Chargers has a salary of $31,117,647 if that’s not enough to make someone happy then I don’t know what else could plus you get a signing bonus. Odell Beckham Jr., wide receiver for the New York Giants thinks that football players should get paid more; he said that, “I think that we should make more money, personally” (Beckham 2). He later explains his theory of why football players should get more pay, stating that, “You have people running who can run 20 miles per hour and they are running downhill to hit you, and you are running 18 miles per hour. That is a car wreck. It is just the career is shorter. There are injuries that you have after you leave the game, brain injuries, whatever it is, nerve injuries” (Beckham 3). Different players will get different pay depending on how good they are at their positions and how good their skill level is. Different positions also have a higher chance of getting a concussion or getting injured. The skilled positions which are the ones that get more money, such as, quarterback, running back, and wide receiver. Football pay can change lives and you do not have to do it for 30 years you can be comfortable with the pay after 5 years if you are good enough. When football first started the pay was not very high, it took time for players to reach their high paying salaries. Now the pay has tripled for players now and seeing that is going to get more people to play and work hard to become a big time football player. Players like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger, make millions of dollars for playing the game. Of course these players are all quarterbacks but even median players make thousands of dollars for playing the game that they love and truly aspire.
This is a job that these people like to do even though it is not always pretty but this how they make their money. Everyone has their way of making money and playing football is there way of doing it.
Football players know the risks to their health and thus should be allowed to play the sport without any additional rules or equipment modifications. The pay that the players can receive, the games that players have played in where the rules have been the same, the injuries that can be received no matter what sport is being played or what rules to play by, and of course how simple the game can be if it is played correctly with the required equipment on can help the justification that nothing about the game of football should be changed and it should continue to be played the same.