Essay peer review

Football is Becoming Safer When Less are Playing

Most of my life I have been playing the game of football, when I think of football I think of a beautifully dangerous game. some of the best and worst moments of my life have happened on a football field, but that’s the beauty of it, you never know what’s going to happen under the lights. Unfortunately, I can tell you head injuries have been a common sight in football. in my life I have had 3 diagnosed concussions and probably many more undiagnosed just from playing up to the high school level. While concussions today are a huge issue in football with recent research findings that repeated head trauma can lead to CTE. Today the game is changing to protect player, I feel like changes to the game are great for player safety, even though not as many kids are playing football today.  Here’s why, the rule changes for player safety can make more kids want to play or parents let their kids play if they feel safer.  In order to improve safety coaches, need to make changes on how their teams’ practice, including tackling form/technique. Something like this is so important for players, parents, and coaches to understand and get good at in order to stay as safe as possible while playing football. 

Before I get started here’s some background information about concussions and CTE, that make this such an important issue. Concussions are caused by a hard blow to the head that causes your brain to bump against the inside of your head which can leave you with strong headaches/migraines, irritation to light, as well as memory loss. Concussions are what’s been known to cause CTE in many athletes, “110 of 111 deceased NFL players were found to have some form of CTE in a study released in 2017” (Reinberg). In other words, the only way to completely identify if somebody has CTE is post-mortem in a brain autopsy, and CTE may be a bigger issue than we had originally thought. If your unfamiliar with CTE it can be defined as, “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma (often athletes), including symptomatic concussions.” (Boston University). CTE has no cure, and symptoms can include memory loss, depression, anxiety, troubling thinking and talking, amongst many other things. With how serious the consequences are it’s not that surprising that less kids today are playing football. 

Not as many kids today are playing football, and that’s something I’ve experienced myself. I’m from a Suburban town in Connecticut and when I was in the 8th grade we only had 6 kids sign up to play on our Pop Warner team, which made me go play football in a neighboring town 30 min away in the city, who had enough kids to play. Even in high school we had a small football team with most kids starting on both sides of the football, and a roster with only 24 varsity players on it. You can see a decline in football all around the country, even in a state like Texas less kids are playing football, “Just under 11 percent of high schoolers in the state played UIL -sanctioned eleven-man and six-man football. That’s a big drop from the year 2000, when the number stood at 14.5 percent” (Ferguson). Basically, what the author is trying to say that in the recent years especially in a state like Texas, where high school football is practically a religion and they drop millions of dollars a year on high school football stadiums as big as college ones. It would be surprising to see less interest in football but it’s happening all over the country. 

            Many kids or even their parents don’t want them to play football because of how dangerous it can be, however now I would say is when we would need more youth to start playing football. In the past few years they have changed the game to heavily protect and favor the offensive side. Adding the new rule in 2018 making it illegal for a player to initiate any contact with his helmet. As well as, eliminating blindside blocks in 2018 (a blocker to initiate forcible contact with his head, shoulder or forearm when his path is toward or parallel to his own end line.) and chop blocks in 2016 (an attempt by an offensive player to block at the thigh level or lower a defensive player while the defender is already engaged by another offensive player.) to help protect the players on the defensive side of the ball as well. But the most important thing to help protect yourself today while playing football is learning a relatively new, better, safer tacking forming. 

            When I was taught how to play football in our tacking form drills our coaches always told us on and angle tackle to keep our head I front of the offensive player. Now I think obviously you can see a flaw with that form your putting your head right in front of another moving human being running in a different direction and try to stop them. That tackling form is one of the reasons why so many players have gotten concussions or head injuries in the past. Not until more recently in 2017, when coaches had realized that the rules change how the game is played today, they decided for safety concerns that its time to try a new technique. They wanted to help protect players more and today coaches teach players Hawk tackling form, “in which the defender hits the ballcarrier’s thigh with a shoulder, grabs him and either spins him or powers him to the ground.”  (Staples) in other words with hawk tackling the defenders head goes on the back side of the ball carrier staying out of the way of contact and they wrap there legs and roll, bringing the ball carrier down. This form tacking is something I feel is very important for kids who play football or want to play football at a young age so they can master the skill later, while staying safe. 

            Despite how safe I’m saying football is somebody cold easy say “yeah but it’s still dangerous, nothing is changing really with these rules I still see players getting concussions and head injuries.” Which is a respectable opinion to think football isn’tsafe, but I must disagree with that claim. 

            After the new helmet and player safety rules have been implemented over the past few years, in the 2018 NFL season there was 135 concussions, but the number dropped 29% from the 2017 season with 190 concussions (Reyes) out of the 1500+ players on ever on every teams 53-man roster.  To put in other words, the amount of head injuries is going down at the professional level since they have been implementing safety rules and teams switched to practicing hawk form tacking. Now I’m not going to say that there won’t be any more head injuries or concussions but its football and anything can happen but if you do you job right and have good technique, you’re playing in the safest environment possible. 

            Today we need coaches everywhere to adopt new techniques for the safety of there players and if you are a player can bring this to your coaches’ attention if he still practicing a different form. We also need more kids playing football and I’d say now is one of the best times than ever for you, or for you to let your child play football, with proper coaches and how many rule changes have been made in the past few years head injuries have been decreasing in football, and that’s the way its going to be with more changes in the future as well.

            Football has become safer over the past few years, while less kids have been playing due to the fear of injuries, or how dangerous the game can be but as I’ve said before, today football is as safe as its ever been. The players have the most protection now more than ever as well, we want to start the younger generations first and teach them how to play football while staying safe, aware, and good technique. 

1. how can I improve thesis 

2. does it flow

3. how could I improve call to action or conclusion