Chris Borland article

Good read.. Scary stuff in there.. Borland played it safe and I can't blame him...
 
Yes, there is scary stuff there but not particularly surprising.

I do think that this issue will have some effect on participation levels, but I'm not sure it will significantly impact the sport.

Heck, look at auto racing. In all it's various levels we see "fatalities" on a somewhat regular basis (15-20 per year, maybe more) and yet it does not seem to affect participation levels. On some levels, the sport is as popular as ever.

People like me ride motorcycles even though we know it is inherently more dangerous than making the same trip in a car. People accept the risks as part of the reward.

Kids looking for glory and maybe a future payday will continue to believe that it won't affect them, and the percentages say that they will be right. They'll just accept the fact they could be one of the minority who will have some issues.
 
"Borland reached out to us back in February because, as he contemplated retirement, he hoped to speak with researchers who appeared in League of Denial. One was Robert Stern, a neurology professor at Boston University, the leading institution for the study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Over the past decade, the disease has been found in the brains of 87 out of the 
91 dead NFL players who were examined."
Click to expand...

that's pretty scary.

Taylor, his close friend, was also one of the best linebackers in the nation, twice all-conference, a future pro. But it became harder and harder for Taylor to stay on the field. In 2011, he tore his meniscus on a blitz against Minnesota. The Monday after the game, he had knee surgery to remove half of it.

The next Saturday, with Wisconsin fighting for the Big Ten title, Taylor played against Illinois. "I remember that morning I was thinking, 'This is f---ing stupid. What am I doing?' " he recalls. "They shot Toradol in my ass. And I remember covering up my knee with bandages, just so I couldn't see blood. The first half was shaky for me. If you watch the game film, it's like, 'This dude should not be playing football.' "

Taylor says no one tried to stop him. "I think it was mostly my fault," he says. "I was waiting for them to say, 'Hey, you're out of here. This is kind of sad. And not smart.' But I was kind of in a position to dictate. I guess the coaches had trust in me." He thinks he took another shot of Toradol at halftime.

"After the game, I finally took everything off, and there was just blood dripping down," he says. "The hair was matted down because of all the compression on it, the tape, the glue, and there was still blood coming down. I remember the coaches coming by, going, 'Great game! Can't believe what you just did!' "

The next season, Taylor developed a hernia but continued to play. Wisconsin faced Stanford in the Rose Bowl that year. "I'm just laying on the table before the game, buck naked, just taking shots of s--- I don't even know," he says. "Taking pills, putting straps on, putting Icy Hot on. People were coming in and looking at me like I'm a f---ing robot, like I'm dead."

Taylor had surgery after that season. After recovering, he signed with the Seattle Seahawks, but he is currently unable to play because of a bone condition in his hip and has been waived. He is 25 and has had 10 surgeries. (Wisconsin declined to comment specifically on Borland or Taylor but said in a statement that injured athletes are allowed back on the field only after medical staff deem them "fit to return." The school added, "The limited usage of Toradol is administered by our team physicians and closely monitored.")
Click to expand...

that's not scary. that's insane. i just lost a lot of respect for the wisconsin football program.
 
Except that we have seen similar stuff on many other teams. If you lose respect for UW, you might as well do the same for football as a whole. The Packers are shooting guys up and having them play hurt. Michigan coach let an obviously concussed player continue to play in a game last season. It's part of the whole mentality. Not saying it's right, just that it is part of the game. The players try to prove how tough they are and a good chunk of time if the player feels he can go, and the doctors don't have a specific reason to stop them, they let the player play.

Just look at the things they did with Favre. Played on a badly sprained ankle, broken thumb, separated shoulder, etc. We all cheered, when maybe we should have asked why.
 
except that it didn't sound like the player was the one making the call in this example.

"I remember that morning I was thinking, 'This is f---ing stupid. What am I doing?' " he recalls. "They shot Toradol in my ass. And I remember covering up my knee with bandages, just so I couldn't see blood. The first half was shaky for me. If you watch the game film, it's like, 'This dude should not be playing football.' "

Taylor says no one tried to stop him.
Click to expand...
 
Actually, the problem is, it seems like they did let the player make the call. That's the stupid part. Like Taylor says, "no one tried to stop him". They let him make the call. Someone should have told him to forget it and pulled him from the field. Instead they let him play, thinking he would tell them something wasn't right. Taylor sees the film later and thinks he shouldn't be out there, but at the time he was probably playing well enough that nobody said anything. If he'd have been that bad, they would have pulled him for being ineffective.

That's the part that is somewhat disturbing and you see it in football regularly. The players are sometimes reluctant to say anything and the coaches are too fixated on winning to stop the players from doing stupid stuff. That's the part that has to change. Maybe the doctors need to have more control over these situations.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top