Former NFL receiver Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football

[DaKCMan AP]

Former NFL receiver Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football

Former Washington Redskins and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antwaan Randle El is perhaps best remembered for his 43-yard touchdown pass in Super Bowl XL that aided a Pittsburgh win over Seattle, but a decade later, the physical and mental drawbacks have been so significant that he regrets ever playing in the NFL.

“If I could go back, I wouldn’t” play football, he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a Steelers-themed project posted Tuesday. “I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn’t play baseball because of my parents. They made me go to school. Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now, I could still be playing baseball.”

Randle El, who played in Washington from 2006 to 2009 between two stints in Pittsburgh, said he regularly experiences trouble walking down stairs — “I have to come down sideways sometimes, depending on the day” — and has serious memory lapses.

“I ask my wife things over and over again, and she’s like, ‘I just told you that,’ ” Randle El told the Post-Gazette. “I’ll ask her three times the night before and get up in the morning and forget. Stuff like that. I try to chalk it up as I’m busy, I’m doing a lot, but I have to be on my knees praying about it, asking God to allow me to not have these issues and live a long life. I want to see my kids raised up. I want to see my grandkids.”

In 2013, Randle El and three other former players filed a lawsuit against the NFL in a Manhattan federal court alleging the NFL “has done everything in its power to hide the issues and mislead players concerning the risks associated with concussions,” according to The Village Voice. In 2015, after that suit was consolidated with more than 2,000 others, he was one of more than 5,000 players that received more than $900 million in settlement money from the NFL to resolve a concussion lawsuit.

Since retiring in 2010, Randle El helped to found the Virginia Academy, a Christian high school in Ashburn, where he serves as the school’s athletic director. Originally, he was a proponent for the development of a football program at the school, but he has no remorse after it was cut two years in when it became too expensive.

“The kids are getting bigger and faster, so the concussions, the severe spinal cord injuries, are only going to get worse,” he said in the interview. “It’s a tough pill to swallow because I love the game of football. But I tell parents, ‘You can have the right helmet, the perfect pads on, and still end up with a paraplegic kid.’

“There’s no correcting it. There’s no helmet that’s going to correct it. There’s no teaching that’s going to correct it. It just comes down to it’s a physically violent game. Football players are in a car wreck every week.”

Randle El is not naive to the profitability of the sport or the impact it has on society, but with the concussion and life-long injury issues getting more attention than ever before, the nine-year veteran thinks the end may be near.

“Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if football isn’t around in 20, 25 years.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ying-football/

[Sully]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I largely agree that they won't prevail, but is it your sincere opinion that the sentiment that footballs is too violent, misogynist and dangerous to society is so fringe as to be near nonexistent?

That's like an ardent states rights advocate saying that racism is completely over in society.

Too "violent?" I guess there are some housewives that probably see about 3 minutes of the sport a year and conclude that. but i don't believe that is any grand amount of people. I've never once heard any complaints of football being misogynistic (any more than any other male-dominated sport) or "dangerous to society." So yeah, I would say that the sentiment you described is so fringe as to be near nonexistent. I certainly don't think the discussion about concussions is due to some cabal of anti-football libbies.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Sully

Too "violent?" I guess there are some housewives that probably see about 3 minutes of the sport a year and conclude that. but i don't believe that is any grand amount of people. I've never once heard any complaints of football being misogynistic (any more than any other male-dominated sport) or "dangerous to society." So yeah, I would say that the sentiment you described is so fringe as to be near nonexistent. I certainly don't think the discussion about concussions is due to some cabal of anti-football libbies.

First off, I'd say your complete dismissal is rarer in society than the detractors.

Second I didn't say, nor do I think anyone is, that the concussion issue is a fabrication or exclusive vehicle of detractors. It's just information that they are exploiting to bolster their opinion.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

Kids don't really need to be tackling before they turn 14, IMO.

You may be right.

That said, I didn't play organized ball until I was 13 or 14. I played pickup ball where we tackled each other, but never anything structured. Then I played organized ball against guys that had played since they were 8. Those guys did everything better than me. They were more decisive, more technically sound and simply more in control of their bodies than people that came to the sport later. They weren't all better athletes than me, but they all know how to move control themselves a hell of a lot better than I did. They also weren't thinking through things but rather reacting and as every coach will tell you, indecision will absolutely get you hurt on that field. Be the hammer, not the nail.

So if you prevent tackling until kids turn 14 (right about the time they've started to grow out of their parts anyway), you're going to have a lot of kids that have little/no body control out there and I don't think it will actually do much to prevent serious injury. In fact, the rate of traumatic serious injury could very easily go up, IMO. I could see an argument that it would prevent brain trauma by simply reducing the volume of violent collisions kids are subject to, but I think the tradeoff would be more limb/spinal injuries and by a fairly substantial amount.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

It's just information that they are exploiting to bolster their opinion.

That's fine. But as a whole, I don't believe the topic is being pushed by that fringe. i think it's a legit concern from a league and it's sponsors who want the cash cow to keep producing, to make sure that it is still wholesome enough for those non-hardcore followers. The fact that a few barnacles on the bottom of a boat does not mean they are floating the thing.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I feel like you and I are close enough to the same age that we probably played within a few years of each other at worst.

Beyond that, however, I think it takes a ton of willful ignorance to suggest that players and/or parents didn't know that football can take a toll on your brain.

I don't think that anyone knew back in the late 70's/early 80's the extent of brain damage a concussion could cause. But even thought my high school played in three straight 6A state championships, we really didn't have any "monster" players.

I mean, guys were pretty strong and pretty fast for their size but there were very few that weighed more than 200 and those few that did, if they were any good, went on to play a JC's and a few at Division I.

But I never saw any vomiting and I certainly don't recall anyone getting a concussion. I can absolutely assure you that my parents had no idea.

But today? Good grief. When Jadeveon Clowney plays at 6'5, 255 in high school, yeah, the rules are different.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I don't think that anyone knew back in the late 70's/early 80's the extent of brain damage a concussion could cause. But even thought my high school played in three straight 6A state championships, we really didn't have any "monster" players.

I mean, guys were pretty strong and pretty fast for their size but there were very few that weighed more than 200 and those few that did, if they were any good, went on to play a JC's and a few at Division I.

But I never saw any vomiting and I certainly don't recall anyone getting a concussion. I can absolutely assure you that my parents had no idea.

But today? Good grief. When Jadeveon Clowney plays at 6'5, 255 in high school, yeah, the rules are different.

So we are NOT close to the same age, then. I played (by the loosest definition of the term) in the mid-late 90s and yeah, we had plenty of concussions by then.

In the 70s and 80s, the NFL had no more of an idea than you did about any of this. Should they have known? Hell, I don't know - they weren't 'the shield' then; they weren't the massive corporate monolith with money to burn. They were still a fairly small shop with teams genuinely at risk of folding much of the time.

Anything that happened before the early 90s, I think the NFL largely gets a pass on. They weren't actively burying data then and the incidents of head injuries were so rare as to not be worthy of additional study.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Sully

That's fine. But as a whole, I don't believe the topic is being pushed by that fringe. i think it's a legit concern from a league and it's sponsors who want the cash cow to keep producing, to make sure that it is still wholesome enough for those non-hardcore followers. The fact that a few barnacles on the bottom of a boat does not mean they are floating the thing.

Sounds like the early 90s when we were working on a safer cigarette.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Sounds like the early 90s when we were working on a safer cigarette.

Yes. I believe the NFL is doing half-measures to make it look like they are trying, as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I don't think that anyone knew back in the late 70's/early 80's the extent of brain damage a concussion could cause. But even thought my high school played in three straight 6A state championships, we really didn't have any "monster" players.

I mean, guys were pretty strong and pretty fast for their size but there were very few that weighed more than 200 and those few that did, if they were any good, went on to play a JC's and a few at Division I.

But I never saw any vomiting and I certainly don't recall anyone getting a concussion. I can absolutely assure you that my parents had no idea.

But today? Good grief. When Jadeveon Clowney plays at 6'5, 255 in high school, yeah, the rules are different.

Yeah, back then it was a joke to get a concussion. People would laugh if someone "got their bell rung". I don't think anyone thought of a concussion as something more than a short-term inconvenience. It's kind of incredible to think about that now, but then again, we still have boxing as a sport in 2016 so maybe we haven't evolved that far.

[Hoopsdoc]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

Fair enough, but my point is I think most of the attention and outrage on this subject... especially in the media... comes from the fact that many believe football is inherently evil and must be stopped.

If it is strictly being motivated out of concern for safety/public health, then there would be attention given to sports with higher concussion rates, including women's soccer and wrestling and their potential connections to CTE.

Was there any talk during the Women's World Cup last summer about how half of the women playing in the tournament might end up with CTE because of the prevalence of concussions in their sport?

Is there any talk of shutting down high school wrestling because of the concussion risk and CTE risk in that sport?

I think there may be something to this. Heck, I listen to Bomani Jones on the radio, simply because he's on during my commute, and he's always ragging about how terrible football is and how we shouldn't be proud of watching something so inherently violent and evil.

It's a golden opportunity for people like that to lecture us on what we should and shouldn't like.

[Beef Supreme]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah, back then it was a joke to get a concussion. People would laugh if someone "got their bell rung". I don't think anyone thought of a concussion as something more than a short-term inconvenience. It's kind of incredible to think about that now, but then again, we still have boxing as a sport in 2016 so maybe we haven't evolved that far.

Evolved ... we humans always like to think that we are more evolved than the last generation and particularly more evolved than people a thousand or two thousand years ago. We aren't.

If people want to get paid to get their head knocked in, that's the deal with the devil they made.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet

Evolved ... we humans always like to think that we are more evolved than the last generation and particularly more evolved than people a thousand or two thousand years ago. We aren't.

If people want to get paid to get their head knocked in, that's the deal with the devil they made.

I agree. I suspect that the difference is that people have more information now. A thousand years ago our lifestyle choices were probably much less well-informed. So what we tend to think of as 'evolving' or 'advancing civilization' is probably less about how enlightened we are, and more about how much knowledge we have before making decisions.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

I think there may be something to this. Heck, I listen to Bomani Jones on the radio, simply because he's on during my commute, and he's always ragging about how terrible football is and how we shouldn't be proud of watching something so inherently violent and evil.

It's a golden opportunity for people like that to lecture us on what we should and shouldn't like.

Bomani Jones has become a human wet blanket.

Everything fun, Bomani Jones shits on.

Then he calls you a racist and spends an hour talking about the NBA.

I liked him as a columnist going all the way back to his Page 2 days but his radio show is nigh on unlistenable.

[FloridaMan88]

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

I think there may be something to this. Heck, I listen to Bomani Jones on the radio, simply because he's on during my commute, and he's always ragging about how terrible football is and how we shouldn't be proud of watching something so inherently violent and evil.

It's a golden opportunity for people like that to lecture us on what we should and shouldn't like.

USA Today Sports Columnist/general blowhard Christine Brennan is another member of the media who uses every opportunity to attack football and its "inevitable downfall" because of concussions/CTE.

At the same time she is also an unabashed champion of women's soccer, and wrote several drooling columns after last year's Women's World Cup about the great future for the sport.

Why doesn't Christine's concern for concussions/CTE transfer from the NFL to women's soccer? Again women's soccer has a higher rate of concussions than football and also a higher rate of more severe concussions as well.

Where is Christine's outrage about concussions and women's soccer?

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

So we are NOT close to the same age, then. I played (by the loosest definition of the term) in the mid-late 90s and yeah, we had plenty of concussions by then.

In the 70s and 80s, the NFL had no more of an idea than you did about any of this. Should they have known? Hell, I don't know - they weren't 'the shield' then; they weren't the massive corporate monolith with money to burn. They were still a fairly small shop with teams genuinely at risk of folding much of the time.

Anything that happened before the early 90s, I think the NFL largely gets a pass on. They weren't actively burying data then and the incidents of head injuries were so rare as to not be worthy of additional study.

Yeah, I agree and mentioned as much. The guys pre-1990 weren't all 6'5, 325 pounds running 5.1 40's or 5'10, 210 running 4.4's. The on-field collisions from about 1990-2005 were brutal at times.

Fortunately, the game has changed for the better but I think it continues to change. Will it become flag football? I doubt it but I do believe we'll continue to see an evolution of the game and its safety.