The National Football League is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference. The NFL was founded in 1920s and ever since then has been a representative of the "All-American, Family Entertainment, Sport". Football is played from kids starting at age five to adulthood and is very popular throughout different races and social classes. With the increase of people playing football, came the increase of the sports related injuries. League of Denial is a documentary film, about traumatic brain injury in the National Football League (NFL), particularly concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). League of Denial follows the …show more content…
Mr. Webster would even ask to be tased because he could not fall asleep. Eventually, Mr. Webster became homeless and medications did not help him function. In the year 2000, Mike Webster issued a lawsuit to the NFL stating that football caused his head trauma, dementia, brain damage, and cognitive issues. During this lawsuit, the NFL denied all allegations and in 2002, Mike Webster died. The longer that football was on television, the more intense the publicity for the NFL became. The Monday Night Football Logo showed to helmets hitting together forcefully, the NFL marketed the violence and captured the tension between violence and the art of football. In 1994, Dallas, Cowboys Troy Aickman took a knee to the head and suffered a concussion, during a game. Soon after, while in the hospital with a friend, Aickman repeatedly asked the same sequence of questions, showing signs of …show more content…
Omalu attempts once again to show the NFL doctors and scientists that these changes in the brain cause the brain cells to suffocate .In return the NFL attacked Dr. Omalu and asked him to retreat his published findings, but the findings were not extracted. In the meantime, 2nd Steeler , Terry Long died. Terry Long played along Mike Webster, and was an avid steroid user and committed suicide by drinking anti freeze. Dr. Omalu found symptoms of CTE found in his brain and Omalu added another research paper towards NFL and the NFL stated he was "performing voodoo". The NFL continued to hold their belief about head injuries and dementia in NFL, and still do till this day, regardless of findings. Watching this documentary made me sympathize for players and their lack of knowledge of themselves (their bodies and nutrition). Being a former athlete, I remember how I was always told to keep pushing regardless of my pain or injury; athletes are conditioned to believe the negative affects of the body are normal or okay. On the contrary, players tend to try to deceive coaches, or fight doctors to continue playing in their specialized sport. This documentary shows how willing corporations are to make a dollar than protecting the people behind making the money for
America’s newfound favorite pastime, football, came from a bizarre chain of events. Football started when a soccer player got fed up with just kicking the ball, so he picked up the ball and ran to the goal. His actions of picking up the ball and running with it fathered a new European sport, rugby, which was soon brought over to American shores, and was altered slightly, the shape of the ball and a few other small rules. The sport became organized into a league and produced the NFL(National Football League). The NFL had a slow beginning, but has picked up popularity, currently having a $9 billion yearly revenue.
The Frontline episode entitled “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis” focuses on the injuries incurred by players during football and the impact of such injuries. Throughout the episode many acronyms are used, such as TBI and CTE. The effect the sport of football has players can lead to certain injuries also discussed in the episode. Meanings of these acronyms and their consequences are explored in the following paragraphs.
Holland, J. (2013). NFL Concussion Deniers See a “Liberal Sports Media” Conspiracy. Plastics News, 25(27), 0004.
Playing football comes with several risks factors that players’ acknowledge prior to playing the game starting a young age. Regardless, these players still chose to play the game, which they end up loving and cherishing despite all the risks accompanied with it. Football is one of the toughest sports in the world; it takes a certain amount of strength, speed, and aggressiveness to play 48 minutes of hard-nosed football. However, the National Football League (NFL) is in the midst of a controversial issue. Is the NFL getting soft? This has been a debatable issue for several years. While some believe that implementing all these rules in the NFL is progressively turning the game soft, others say that the NFL is not getting soft; it is just trying to make the game safer for its players.
What does Jovan Belcher, Ray Esterling and O.J. Murdock Have in common? They all were famous football players who commented suicide. Each player had something called chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. This is a condition where sufferers have had repeated hits to the head that leads to concussions and ultimately head trauma. In this research paper, we will go over the data about the NFL to see could they have prevented CTE in these players if they had placed the player’s safety first.
Al Toon, father of Saints receiver Nick Toon, was forced to leave professional football after sustaining nine concussions in eight years of professional football. Football is one of the most dangerous games. As the years go on, more and more rules are being written to prevent the danger, but danger is the nature of the game. Most of these rules are for the protection of the players, but there are times when injuries can be a good thing. The Philadelphia Eagles were 3-5 to start the year, but Michael Vick was injured and the backup quarterback led the team to be 10-6, win the division, and almost beat the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs. "About 1.7 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year, about three-quarters of them mild TBIs, or concussions" (Clemmitt). Traumatic Brain Injuries are used as the main form of evidence in Richard Cohen's claim that the end of the NFL is near, and quite frankly, his argument is pretty solid.
Now don’t be confused on the word football, since I am not talking about “soccer” at all. Football which is otherwise known as the NFL or the National Football League, is an American based sport that involves thirty-two teams from cities all over the country that compete against each other through strategy and strength in order to reach one goal; to win the Super Bowl.
In recent years, there has been an increase in research investigating the long-term effects of repeated head trauma on the brain, especially in athletes. Following his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Dr. Bennet Omalu inspired a movement of research aimed at establishing better safety standards and protocols in football. It was not until 2002 that the initial connection between repetitive head trauma, such as concussions, and brain injury was suspected (Ott, 2015).
When the discussion about how the United States is different from other countries comes up people are quick to say football, the American way, but more specifically the NFL. The NFL, which stands for National Football League, was birthed in 1922 after changing its name from the American Professional Football Association (NFL 2013). Since the birth of American football, fans and players raised the NFL to become the most popular sport worldwide. According to Isidore (2013), the NFL had a profit of $9.5 billion, the highest of all American professional sports. The profit, however, barely comes from sales produced by women merchandise.
Concussions have become arguably the #1 most prevalent issue in football today. The number of concussions throughout football has been rising for the past 20-30 years and there seems no way of stopping them. However, the NFL and many private researchers are set on finding a way to conquer this issue. They want to stop these concussions from happening and prevent the diseases resulting from them that have ruined so many football families’ lives. In order to solve this problem, I think that these researchers need to combine all of their knowledge to solve an issue that so many want solved. As soon as we conquer this “illness” we can return to enjoying the game that we love.
Per utilitarian ethics, no matter the link between football and CTE, the research the NFL’s actions would be considered ethical. Lack of certainty in the research makes deontological ethics more difficult to implement. Since the research did not directly related football to the brain injuries, there is not the same obligation to disclose research that is not definite. Parallel to if the information was conclusive the NFL fell into the ethical traps of money and conflict of interest. The NFL still had to wrestle with ethical traps even if the it was considered ethical to not disclose the research. Since the research could not exclusively blame football concussion to permanent brain injuries, the ethical decision was not as black and white as
Nowinski, Christopher, and Jesse Ventura. Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis from the NFL to Youth Leagues. East Bridgewater, MA: Drummond Pub. Group, 2007. Print.
There are thirty-two teams in the NFL, however, they are split into two conferences. These conferences are called the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. Each team in the NFL is limited to a 53- man roster. Every year, the NFL holds a pre-season before the regular season, and then a postseason after the regular season. Before the pre-season begins, there is an NFL draft. The NFL draft is for the college players who are NFL-ready. College players are drafted into the NFL. There are seven rounds in the NFL draft with thirty-two picks in each round. NFL football players get paid each year. NFL games are usually one-hour long. NFL football teams have their own practice facility to practice in. The NFL goalpost is eighteen feet and six inches wide. It is also thirty feet high. The NFL pre-season consists of four games in four weeks. Primarily, the pre-season is for the rookies who were most recently drafted to showcase their talent and make a name for themselves. The regular season consists of sixteen games in seventeen weeks. There are seventeen weeks because each team in the NFL is given a bye week. A bye week is like a break week to rest players. After the regular season is over, then comes the postseason in which some people like to call it "the
One of the earliest players to bring awareness to brain traumas was Mike Webster, a former Pittsburgh Steeler. In April of 1999, he claimed to be disabled with the NFL Retirement Board. He also had dementia which was a result of the brutal hits he endured during his football career. Webster ran into many problems at the e...
In the modern day United States the sport American football has become not only entertainment but also a tradition whether it’s watching the BCS college championship or watching the super bowl with the family. The sport of American football is unique to the United States and has grown and became iconic over the years and has become a part of many Americans lives. American Football was made in 1869 and was modeled after the sport of rugby. They took the basics of rugby and changed it to make it fit better for them. The game has changed over the years but it also affected many Americans as the tradition of Monday Night football has begun. The game has had problems with the United States government as it was said to be too dangerous to play, this lead to an upgrade in the equipment and they tried very hard to make the equipment well ensuring player safety throughout the sport.