Football- The High Price Of Injuries

What are the long term effects of playing football?

The long term effects, depending on if you've suffered a lot of different injuries can be debilitating. You see guys that are right now on the NFL pension plan that are fighting for their benefits. There's guys that were Hall of Fame NFL football players that were denied benefits because the NFL felt that their injuries weren't significant enough. The long term injuries can be debilitating and I think it's the NFL's job to take care of those players and they've been making some changes to the pension plan but those changes came too late for certain players. They should take care of their own because we've helped build this game - those guys definitely helped build this game but we helped to take it over so I think the NFL owes it to those guys to take care of them, they're making billions of dollars off the NFL, off TV rights, so they should take care of the players that helped build it.

How do concussions affect football players?

Concussions affects them in a variety of ways, I mean I've had 5 or 6 concussions and I still get headaches from playing and it's something that goes undiagnosed a lot of the times as far as post-concussion syndrome where players get a concussion, they shake it off, and then they play the next week and they start noticing that bright lights bother them, they're seeing--they have headaches, they have a hard time sleeping, their moods change, and there's players that have died in the last couple years and some have committed suicide because they couldn't diagnose post-concussion syndrome correctly and they suffer from debilitating depression, couldn't work on a daily basis, couldn't concetrate, and it's something I think that the NFL has done the right thing as far as going that direction of studying it more, but it's a major problem in pro football and that's not diagnosing concussions correctly.

How do pro football players age?

I mean football players age, I guess, if you're an offensive or defensive linemen, there's been some studies done that offensive/defensive linemen, that their life expectancy is less than the national average. I mean, the national average is 73 or 74 and I think NFL linemen are 67. So, the problem with offensive linemen is they're heavier people in general, and they're playing a position where their advantage is to be big and once they stop playing, they stop exercising on a daily basis and their food intake, they take in the same amount of calories, the same amount of lifestyle that they're accustomed to. They start to gain a lot of weight, put a lot of pressure on their heart, and what I've noticed is that they're having a hard time later on in life because they're having more health problems. As far as skill positions, receivers, quarterbacks and defensive backs, it's a little different because they might suffer from some debilitating injuries; knee injuries, shoulder injuries, or maybe some concussion syndrome stuff after their playing days are over, but I think, in general, we age the same as everybody else in society. Sometimes we might be better because we're more health-conscious about our bodies. So it just depends on, from player to player, everybody is going to be different.