There seems to be a very obvious link between football collisions and brain injuries that has now caused the House Judiciary Committee on Brain Disease and Injuries to review the National Football Leagues medical records of players.

Twenty years ago, if a high school football player received a concussion, they got a pat on the butt and were told to stop whining and go back out and play.
Now, there are tests administered to athletes that help to gauge their awareness as well as judge whether or not they have sustained a concussion or brain injury while playing. These tests have become useful in the protection of our young athletes, and will hopefully stifle the growing number of people who suffer sever concussions each year.

The debate has risen that perhaps we should change the way we play sports, however this is a ridiculous notion. Football is a violent sport, and although concussions and their link to brain disease later in life should be closely studied and monitored, there should be no change to the sport.

It is a game where your body endures brutal punishment, and people play it willingly all the time. Any attempt to change the sport in efforts to make it safer would have a similar effect on the sport as if you told boxers not to hit one another too hard.

Any change would only help to numb the experience of the game; it would make it something less than it is. There is not much more powerful than a huge game winning hit or the raw emotion of the crowd when a player gets decked and drops the ball.

In our societies attempts to safety-proof everything possible, we are only numbing down the entertainment delivered by the game. We are in fact helping to ruin it by implementing so many rules regarding the way players are hit and when they should or should not be hit.

Safety is of the utmost importance, but let us be honest, sports are meant to be entertaining and that is the driving force behind sports and competition, which is the exact reason why they are televised.

Nobody forces these athletes to play the game of football, and those who reach the National Football Association know better than the rest that it is a game for tough people. Athletes will receive injuries, athletes will recover from them and continue to play and other may not ever recover.

I personally think it is not the governments’ job to exercise power over a sports league unless it is of the utmost importance, but this is something that we were already aware of. Anybody with an ounce of common sense can witness a football hit and say, “hey that can’t be good for your head”.

If any changes should be made at all, it should be in the equipment used. If there is still a large connection between head trauma and football as this progresses, then perhaps changing the pads should be considered.

The NFL has a responsibility only to pay their employees and to compensate them when they are injured and retired. Other than that, the NFL needs to baby every player that has injuries later in life, let the money that they earned while playing do that for them.

Head injuries are just simply going to happen in a sport that involved violence, and there is not that much that can be done to curb that other than completely changing the style of play, which would ruin the game.

Quite frankly, the whole thing is ridiculous and as the disgruntled fan would yell to the referee after a bad call, “let em’ play!”