By Jay Levi
Football is the most popular sport in the United States of America, but it is also one of the most dangerous sports. Players retire with concussions, arthritis, bad aches and pains that never go away, broken bones, bad knee’s, you name it.
The sport is what it is a high contact sport with the primary goal of the defense is to tackle or make a stop before you can score any points. They can intercept the ball, or prevent yard gains causing the offense to punt the ball with 4th and yards left.
But the thing that attracts so many fans to Football is the vicious hits, tackles and sacks. The runs are awesome but when people see a hard hit like two freight trains going at it and colliding it makes featured video on sports news and YouTube playlists all the time. Some of the hits can be so hard that players can wind up paralyzed.
Football players from High School to the Pro level are just as likely to suffer concussions as professional boxers do.
You hear the stories of football players forgetting where they parked their car, and suffering temporary memory loss.
The NFL has tried their best to reduce or find a solution to prevent these type of devastating injuries but the truth is it’s just something you have to realize will happen when you play this type of sport.
Just like a boxer knows there is a chance he can die in the ring or become punch drunk, a football player knows he can wind up with severe career ending injuries. It’s the chance these athletes take and many of them know full well of the consequences.
Safety measures will help but the chance of injury will always be there, unless they decide to take away tackling altogether and make it flag football.