Should Football Be Banned

Should Football Be Banned

So I like sports.I’m a competitive person so I love any good, honest competition.And sports are perhaps the most pure example of skill-based, head to head competition.Beyond that, I just have a deep respect for people who have trained their whole lives to become so athletically excellent.Like have you ever tried to hit a baseball with a bat?It’s impossible.But my favorite sport, by far, is football.I love football!AMERICAN football, get this garbage out of here!Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!I’m just kidding, I like soccer too.But football is such a great sport in my opinion.The culture of American football can be a little obnoxious and flashy sometimes, but the sport itself, is beautiful.It’s kind of like chess, except with people as the pieces.Which sounds a little dark when you say it out loud…Now, because of the physical nature of most sports, athletes often experience injuries.Especially in sports that involve physical contact between players.Anything from limited contact sports such as softball all the way up to sports where the objective is to literally knock your opponent out.And these injuries can be relatively minor like cuts and sprains, but they can also be disastrous and life-altering, if not ultimately life-ending.And we’re starting to notice that my beloved football is a disproportionate source of that second category.Hi, I’m T1J.(WEIRD VOICEOVER): Follow me!In an NFL game a couple weeks ago, Ryan Shazier, linebacker for the Pitsburgh Steelers was involved in a nasty collision which resulted in a spinal contusion that left him unable to move his legs.Usually when there’s a bad injury on the field like a dislocated joint or a broken bone, as fans we say, “Wow that sucks, my thoughts are with him.We just want to watch a good clean game where nobody gets seriously hurt.”But we’re not usually THAT bothered by it because we know that the injuries are fixable.But this one felt a little different .Shazier’s recovery outlook is kind of up in the air, but in the back of my head I know that this type of injury has the potential to lead to devastating consequences.And this might seem like a freak occurrence, but spinal cord injuries are not uncommon among football players.In the NFL alone, Devonte Holloman experienced one in 2013, and so did Jermichael Finley and David Wilson the same year .Jameel McClain had one in 2012.So, you get the idea.And it makes sense, because the main cause of spinal cord injuries is physical trauma.So if you’re in a situation where you’re exposing yourself to constant physical trauma,then obviously the risk of this happening shoots way up.“But a lot of sports are violent; why a specific focus on football?”And it’s true, athletes in many other sports experience injuries and maybe we should take a look at those sports.I think boxing is a serious offender in particular because of the long term effects of repeated head trauma, Which is also a problem in football, as I’ll talk about more later.Basketball is also an interesting case, because it has a disproportionately high number of injuries in spite of its limited contact.But I think football is uniquely vicious for various reasons.For one, the players in American football tend to be much bigger and stronger than the participators of most other sports.When you’ve got these huge  monsters knocking each other around, I think the odds of destruction happening are much higher.Secondly, the rules.Now a lot of rules have been changed and added to help protect the players, but just the nature of the way football is played allows for some nasty hits to occur.This is one of the reasons why there are more injuries in American football than there are in rugby even though the sports seem very similar.Because most of the tackles you can do in football are illegal in rugby.Like this hit right here, 100% legal.I don’t know it just seems like you shouldn’t be able to do that.But that’s part of the problem.The big nasty hits are part of the enjoyment of the game.And honestly part of the strategy that teams use to win.Oakland Raiders running back and all-around hilarious person Marshawn Lynch once described his strategy in a 60 Minutes Sports interview like this:MARSHAWN: If you just run through somebody face, a lot of people ain’t gon’ be able to take that over and over and over and over and over again.They just not gon’ want that.And as fans, we like watching Marshawn Lynch run through people’s faces.It’s like watching an action movie or professional wrestling, another physical spectacle that I enjoy, that is also rife with injuries by the way.But in wrestling, the moves are scripted and done with the full cooperation of every one involved.Not so with football, players often find themselves in violent encounters that they definitely didn’t sign up for.“Bruh, everybody knows that all professional sports are fixed by the Illuminati.”So physical dominance and intimidation is definitely part of the game.Which kind of leads into the next problem.The culture.As implied before there is definitely an obnoxious atmosphere of machismo and boastfulness, particularly in the NFL.Players are generally not content to just win the game, they also want to embarrass their opponents and show off for the audience as well.Which inspires them to attempt riskier plays or go for exaggerated tackles, which leads to more injuries.Ironically, football players are also encouraged to play dangerously because of all the padding they wear.All the bulky armor makes them feel invincible so they’re more likely to put their bodies at risk.The modern football helmet is probably the worst offender.Rugby players don’t wear helmets, Well some of them wear scrum caps but those are mostly to protect your ears.So they have to specifically learn how to protect their heads when going for tackles.Less emphasis is put on this in football because it's like, 'you’re wearing a helmet who cares?'But, they should care.Players often lead with their heads when tackling, which incidentally is what leads to the spinalcord injuries I mentioned earlier.And all this head rattling is also associated with another big problem that disproportionately affects football players.Concussions.Now concussions are usually considered minor brain injuries whose symptoms subside in acouple of weeks.But getting concussion after concussion because of repeated head trauma, as many athletes do, can lead to the awful disease known as CTE. CTE stands for Chronic Traumatic En-ce-pha-lo-pa-thy.And it’s basically a disease where your brain has gotten banged up so much that it permanently stops working correctly.Have you ever   up your phone, like dropped it or got it wet, and after that it still turned on, but something about it just didn’t work correctly.It’s kind of like that, except with your brain.As it is a result of brain damage, CTE can lead to cognitive and behavior problems, motion impairment and even dementia.It’s often associated with people’s personalities completely changing or them becoming in explicablyviolent or suicidal. CTE is a particularly difficult disease to deal with because symptoms typically don’t appear until many years after the original injuries,And also, CTE cannot be decisively diagnosed until after the person has died.But we do know that repeated head injuries is the factor most closely associated with getting the disease.And we’ve actually known about CTE in boxers since, like, the 20s, but only very recently has it been studied for athletes in other sports.And even then, it’s still a poorly understood condition.But according to the Boston University CTE Center, over 90% of the brains of deceased former NFL players that they studied were positive for CTE. That’s what we call a problem.“Well okay, but the players voluntarily signed up for this.Who are we to tell them that they can’t play this dangerous game if they fully agree to do it, knowing the potential consequences?”Do they know the potential consequences though?Are they really making an informed decision?Of course, most players understand that there’s a risk of injury.But if before being added to a team’s roster, every player had to sit down in a room and be told, “Uh, by the way, you’re probably going to get irreversible brain damage from playing this game.”How many of them do you think would agree to play?Former NFL star Bo Jackson --whose football career ended because of an injury by the way--said in an interview this year that he would have never played football if he knew about the CTE risks.And he said he doesn’t allow his kids to play football.But a lot of these players are young and inexperienced and are enticed by dreams of glory or fame and riches, and might be convinced to do something they really ought not to.So the NFL and it’s team owners have a lot of things that they can and have been criticized for.And one of those things is not taking the health and well-being of their players seriously enough.Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the NFL by current and former players seeking compensation for what they perceive as occupational hazards.Now the NFL is just one of many football organizations out there, but it is the premier professional league .And the actions that it takes will definitely have a trickle effect onto other leagues.And this pressure against the NFL has inspired them to donate millions of dollars to CTE research.But that’s only one step.I would be very sad to see football get canceled, but if that’s what it takes to protect the safety and health of these players, “Who are often disproportionately non-white by the way!”Then I’m gonna be in full support of that.But maybe we can save the sport.We need to first and foremost ensure that players are 100% informed about the nature and danger of the game.And then we need to train them to play safer and not take unnecessary risks.And possibly change the rules to encourage cleaner play.And then we need the league, team owners, and coaches to take injuries seriously when they occur.Like when your guy has a concussion, don’t put him back in the game!Honestly, sit him out for a couple weeks!All of this would result in fundamentally changing the game of football, and maybe it would end up being less entertaining.But at this point, entertainment needs to take a back seat.Or maybe we can just replace them all with robots or holograms.“Robots taking our damn jobs again!”DAS JUS ME DOE.What do you think?Thank you for watching my video. Let's check the voicemail!This is an interesting question that inspired me to do a little bit of research of my own.And it turns out, it's very complicated so it’s hard to really say.Now in my biased brain, it makes sense that disallowing younger people from drinking alcohol would result in less accidents, and less bad decisions.Or at least slightly less bad decisions.But I don’t know if that’s true.I don’t have the data.The United States actually is one of only about 13 countries where you have to be 21in order to drink alcohol, but it still has a relatively high alcohol-related death rate.But the laws are so different country to country that its really hard to compare.In some countries the legal drinking age is 20 or 19 or 18, or as low as 16 in several countries.In some parts of India, the drinking age is 25.Also many countries have a different age for when its legal to buy alcohol versus drinking it.In some countries, anyone can drink alcohol as long as they're accompanied by an adult.Apparently, in Cambodia there’s no age limit whatsoever.And many countries have laws on the books but they only lightly enforce them if they’re enforced at all.And a lot of things tie in to alcohol, like drunk driving, mental illness, depression,things like that, and party culture.It just seems like there’s too many variables to really compare drinking age limits to alcohol-related deaths.I suppose every country just has to analyze their own culture and decide what’s best for them.But thanks for calling.If you’d like to ask a question or make a comment, call the number on your screen and leave me a voicemail.And maybe I’ll respond to it in a future video.If you like this video, please the hit the like button,and if you’re not subscribed, hit the subscribe button for more videos like this one.And ring that notification bell to make sure you never miss a video.Check the link in the description or at the end of this video if you’d like to support me on Patreon .Thanks as always to my exquisite patrons.And remember, Stay HAKO.