Quote:
Originally Posted by loochy
yes, people knew that getting hit in the head over and over messes you up
people have known that for a LONG time |
I don't think that people knew to what extent is damages the brain.
There's a big difference between guys that played from the 1920 to the late 1980's. The speed, strength and mass were completely different than from around 1990-to present due to nutrition, training, performance enhancing drugs and salaries.
Salaries play the biggest role because guys are no longer required to sell insurance or work on the farm or any other financially motivated work because their earning cover them for a year (or more).
I don't think that Randle-El is "whining". I think he's stating that with the full information (which the NFL withheld), he likely would have chosen baseball over football.
That's going to be a trend in coming years unless the NFL and NCAA don't make further changes to the game. It's going to become like boxing, which used to be America's favorite sport in which Heavyweight Championship Fights aired regularly on Network TV, to becoming a "fringe" sport.
Some see the writing on the wall, some don't. But when Super Bowl winning players are saying "I wish I hadn't played", that's a big problem for the sport.