Have you ever wanted to play the sport of football? Well if you do, than you should really think of the risks football has if you play. Many people have had life threatening injuries because of the sport. Some of those injuries even caused death. People should really make football safer for the players by having better protective equipment, annual wellness checkups for the players, and even changing some rules.
Having better protective equipment will really cause less injuries in football. Not having the best equipment and other things causes players to have concussions (a brain injury caused by a blow to the head or the shacking of the head), ACL tears (a torn anterior crucial ligament in the knee), MCL tears (a torn medial collateral ligament), and even more types of injuries. Most happen at the professional level of football. From 2012-2017 in the NFL there were a total of 1,541 concussions, 351 ACL tears, and 886 MCL tears. Also during the 2017-2018 NFL season, there was a average of 6.6 injuries per game. In college football, concussions make up 7.4 percent of all injuries.“There are approximately 67,000 diagnosed concussions in high school football every year”(prevacus.com).This shows that something has to be done to protect the players. One thing that can be done is making the football players helmets more protective by adding more cushion in the helmet to reduce the impact hit to the players head. Doing this would stop lots of concussions from happening to players. Also wearing mouth guards will help reduce the amount of concussions that happen because they absorb shock and limit movement caused by a hit to the jaw. To prevent knee injuries like ACL and MCL tears, player need to wear better padding around their knees. This will soften blows made to the knees that will then cause less ACL and MCL tears.
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Another way to prevent less injuries in the sport of football is to have annual wellness checkups and evaluations. This will really help because throughout the years, in high school, college, and in NFL football, injuries happen because the players are not checked for the injury. Lots of these instances have been with head injuries like concussions, that if are not treated than they can continue to eat a lot worse over time. But one instance was the most tragic injury in NFL history. It happened to Detroit Lions wide receiver Chuck Hughes. Earlier in the season, Chuck had complained of some chest pain, but without even checking on him the trainers said that he was fine. This would be a huge mistake. On October 24, 1971, Chuck Hughes had. Heart attack on the field and died. This would not have happened if the train eras would have checked on him properly. “Sports exams 'are good for picking up high blood pressure, hernias, certain types of heart murmurs and different types of orthopedic injuries that may lead to unstable joints,' says Jeffrey L. Tanji, director of the sports medicine program at the University of California at Davis”(washingtonpost.com). Also “sports physicals can help prevent injury and detect other kinds of health problems, including exercise-induced asthma, which affects as many as 10 percent of all athletes”(washingtonpost.com). Between 2000 and 2016, 33 college football players have died from football, and between 2005 and 2014, 92 high school football players have died from football. Most of these deaths have occurred because the football players were not checked for problems or injuries before playing.
Changing some rules in the game of football would stop some injuries. One thing that can be changed is kickoffs. Football should not have kickoffs because “Thirty-three percent of injuries that occurred during kickoff were considered sever”(spoc-ortho.com). This means that most injuries on kickoffs can put you in the hospital, and people really do not want that. That is why kickoffs should not happen in the sport of football. Another rule that should be changed is that on a game winning touchdown with no time left, the team should not have to kick the PAT (point after touchdown) because players can get hurt on the play even though the game has basically already ended. Another rule that should be changed is that coaches should be able to challenge pass interference penalties. You are probably wondering right now what this has to do with safety. In some instances, a player may get hurt because of shoving or other things by the defense to make the pass incomplete. Well if the play is a no call, than the defender should be penalized for hurting the player. That is why coaches should then be able to challenge the no call and for the player to then get penalized for it by having the ball go to the spot of the foul.
In conclusion, football is very risky for the players on the field, but there is a solution. You can make the sport of football safer for the player by having better protective equipment, have annual wellness checkups for the players, and changed some rules in the sport. Now people may want to consider not playing football until some changes to the sport is made to make it safer for the players.