Our View: Football’s toll is deadly; it’s time to fix the game

It would be terrible, on Super Bowl Sunday, the high holy day of sports, if someone got hurt; if someone had to be carted off the field, suffered a broken arm or a fractured collarbone. No one wants to see that.

But many players will be injured in a far more serious way during Sunday’s game – maybe even all of them who make it to the field. The only difference is that we won’t be able to see it.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is the term for getting banged on the head too often. It can lead to early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and more. Such diseases don’t become apparent with a single hit, but through dozens of hits and many, many years later.

Then, you can see the effects plainly. Brett Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game, says he can’t recall watching his daughter play soccer. He forgets names, words. His symptoms, so far, are mild.

Raider quarterback Ken Stabler was suffering from Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he died. His memory was shot, he suffered insomnia and headaches so severe he spent entire days in silence. Researchers say 90 percent of all NFL players suffer similar damage. You know their names – Jim McMahon, Junior Seau, Mike Webster, Frank Gifford, the list is at least 100 names long.

Football – especially played at this level – is dangerous. Terribly dangerous.

The NFL knows it. Two years ago, it settled a lawsuit with 4,500 former players for $765 million. It could not ignore the Will Smith movie “Concussion,” which illuminated the struggles of Dr. Bennet Omalu, chief medical examiner in San Joaquin County, in exposing the damage done by repeated blows to the head.

And yet, we still love this game – its speed, precision and violence. But if we truly love the game, we must fix it.

The game faced a similar crisis in 1905. That’s when President Teddy Roosevelt, a huge fan, convened a meeting of the nation’s leading universities (there was no NFL) to address the fact that 19 men had died on the gridiron the previous year. In the four years prior, 45 had died from broken necks, punctured lungs and brain injuries.

To save the game, Roosevelt knew he had to fix the game. They lengthened the distance for first downs, outlawed formations of blockers, invented the forward pass and changed the very shape of the ball.

We need something just as radical now. We need something that removes some of the deadly violence. We should try new rules, new ways of playing. Or we can wait for more lawsuits.

We must develop new equipment, including helmets with tiny sensors to gauge speed and intensity of collisions and that actually monitor concussions. Or accept ever more grievous injuries.

We can wait for kids to quit playing football, as 25 percent of children have already done. Research shows that when 8-year-olds tackle each other, the jolt is the equivalent to being in a car wreck. Parents will not tolerate such damage. If won’t be long after they switch to soccer or rugby that they lose interest in watching American football.

We hope no one is injured in the game. But we know almost all the players will be, whether they walk off the field or not.

This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Our View: Football’s toll is deadly; it’s time to fix the game."