American football

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martint235

Dog on a bike
Location
Welling
This is just an opening post.

Just watched a bit of a St Louis game. Does all that padding and helmets reduce injury?

I'm looking primarily at the fact that every player has a helmet in light of current and recent legal cases. Plus the obvious comparisons to RU and RL

Discuss
 

twentysix by twentyfive

Clinging on tightly
Location
Over the Hill
This is just an opening post.

Just watched a bit of a St Louis game. Does all that padding and helmets reduce injury?

I'm looking primarily at the fact that every player has a helmet in light of current and recent legal cases. Plus the obvious comparisons to RU and RL

Discuss

Who knows? But it makes lots of dosh for the manufacturers. It's the appropriate "uniform" for amateurs too........
 

ayceejay

Guru
Location
Rural Quebec
No is the short answer. There is a movement attempting to ban football from colleges because of the rate of concussions.
This is not strictly due to the helmet itself but the way the head when covered with one is used like a battering ram.
 

Milkfloat

An Peanut
Location
Midlands
If you have ever held an American football helmet you would not be sunrises to hear of the damage they can cause. Think of a hollowed out ten pin bowling ball.
 

Milkfloat

An Peanut
Location
Midlands
Love some of the typos that creep in

Bloomin iOS autocorrect.
 

shouldbeinbed

Rollin' along
Location
Manchester way
There is a huge hundreds of millions of dollars class action law suit currently going on with former players and families of mentally damaged players and some that have taken their own lives rather than live with the psychological differences they felt occurred in their lives, a couple of high profile names in the game Dave Duerson and Junior Seau took that route.

There are now players coming out of college and turning down the opportunity of a professional career in the game, or retiring very soon into their careers citing fear of head injuries and long term percussive damage to their brains.

There has been a far more serious attitude taken by the authorities too, players can be excluded from games and for future ones if they are considered to have taken a significant blow to the head.
 

Wobbly John

Veteran
I played American football (in the UK) in the mid 80's. Yes, the kit significantly reduces the risk of injury. The problem is only this enables players to hit each other that much harder. The appeal for many amateur players at the time was that you could go 'full out' to knock an opponent on to their back, without the concern of causing injury to them or yourself. The appeal as a spectator sport is the game becomes more spectacularly violent.
 

deptfordmarmoset

Full time tea drinker
Location
Armonmy Way
My feeling is that the protective gear does nothing but allow the collisions and areas of critical contact to escalate. Escalate in cumulative brain injuries, that is, when we don't really have enough data on the effects of repeated headbanging.
 

Accy cyclist

Legendary Member
Are you allowed to play American football without helmets and padding? I don't like the game by the way. I can't see that small brown object they call a ball when it's in the air. How the hell the players do i don't know!
 
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