Are you ready for some FOOTBALL? American that is

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Originally posted by Sparten

Originally posted by red clay

Originally posted by Sparten

American Football, girls game! 

You must date some unusual girls.  
Well, yeah now that I think about it......

They players wear enough protection to require a SMG to do some damage. We play Rugby, now thats a mans game. Actually when women play rugby here they do wear protection, a breastplate, shin arm pads, and sometimes a helmet. Still less than what the Yanks play. 

Here goes the same charge again.  It's unfortunately that so few critics of American football make even a small effort to study the mechanics of the game and the protective gears.  The reality is that, despite the gears, injuries are serious and frequent in American football.  Here are several major reasons:

1) The helmets themselves are weapons -- A tackle or hit made while wearing a helmet creates a significantly much greater impact than if no helmet is worn.   As a result, concussion is a serious problem in Am football.  Even the facemask can be very damaging (see anecdoate below.)
2) Blocking -- Blocking is one of the most dangerous aspect of American football.  Blocking is basically using a people as shields to use brute force to bulldoze away the pile of defenders and create holes in the defense so the ball carrier can run through.  Rugby, on the other hand, does not allow blocking.  Rugby scrummage is not the same as the blocking schemes in American football.  Offensive blocking, which is an important feature in American football, is not found in rugby.  (Note: even though the act of blocking involves brute force, how to coordinate a group of blockers to achieve effective blocking schemes is a very strategic matter.  The technique of individual acts of blocking also involves a lot of skills -- such as knowing from which angle a blocker should make a block in order to accomodate with the direction a ball-carrier behind the blocker would run.)

3) Forward pass -- tackled made in mid-air likely cause injuries (such as neck injuries) as players come down.  It's true that in rugby, when balls are out of bounds, players have to catch balls in mid-air when balls are thrown back in, this is not the same forward passing in American football.  In catching a forward pass in American football, a player often has to run forward and jump with great momentum, while a defensive player tackles him also with great momentum in mid-air, sometimes causing the tackled player to flip and rotate, occassionally causing him to fall head down first.
4) Special team plays -- the race down the field to block and make tackles is particularly dangerous.  This used to be even more dangerous in the early days of American football, when the blockers were allowed to link arms.  It led to so many deaths that President Roosevelt threatened to ban the game if changes were not made.
5) Psychological factor -- because players wear gears, they are more reckless when making tackles.  It has been said that Am football players hit harder than rugby players.
6) Manner of tackling -- Rugby tackles are more restricted (no hitting above the chest).

For these reasons, American football seems just as dangerous as rugby, and just as likely to result in injuries.  Don't get me wrong, both American football and rugby are rough sports.  Many people have the mistaken notion that American football is not rough simply because there are more gears -- for the reasons enumerated above, this notion is entirely false.  Comparing the roughness of American football with rugby is comparing apples and oranges, but the two are played in such difference ways that they have different ways to deal with risks of injury.  Simply put: to prevent injuries, the two games adopted different methods.  Rugby sets up a set of rules such that a lot of the high-risk activities found in American football are illegal in Rugby, while American football opts for having these high-risk elements and compensate the risks with gears.

Two anecdotes I'd like to share: One is on how destructive even just the facemask can be.  I have a friend whose ex-boyfriend was a quarterback, and he was sacked (tackled behind line of scrimmage) by someone who drive into his back, literally: the guy's facemask carved into the back of the quarterback, causing a scar that looks like bbq grill.

Another story is a sad one: Al Lucas died from a spinal cord injury in an Arena football (a smaller version of American football) match.

For a medical/scientific study (stating that American football is the most likely sport to cause neck injuries): http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/22905.php

So, despite the gears worn in American football, it appears, from all of the above reasons, that both games are about equally rough and appear to be equally likely to result in serious injuries.  I have read from a person who had played both games noted that both games cause injuries, just different kinds.  Don't get me wrong, again: both games carry high risks for injuries.  Deaths have resulted in both games.  Both games have serious injuries, just that they tend to be different types.

For more info:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi/CataFootballInjuries.htm

Edited by MengTzu - 20-Sep-2007 at 18:38