Plenty of other contact team sports exist (Rugby, AFL etc) - how is American Football different? How does an American Football player get tackled differently to say a Rugby Union player?
- American Football allows blocking, whereas rugby does not. This means it's perfectly legal to blindside someone as hard as you can, often helmet to helmet.
- Football allows tackling above the waist without wrapping your arms around the other player, whereas rugby does not. This means people can launch themselves at the other player as hard as they want without wrapping up, basically turning themselves into large projectiles. The goal, up until recently (since the league started cracking down), was to have a helmet-to-helmet collision in order to knock the other player out (most often happening to wide-receivers). Knocking out another player is a point of pride and a strategic advantage as well.
- Football has armor, Rugby does not. This actually works against Football. It encourages harder hits and head-to-head collisions. Football helmets protect against skull fractures but not concussions. The brain moves independent of the skull in a high impact collision despite how shock absorbant the helmet may be. In rugby, players are a LOT less likely to crack each other's heads together because of the risk of fracture.
I played rugby for 7 years through high school and college, and Football 2 years in high school. I never received any concussions in Rugby (let alone any serious injury at all), but did receive them in my short experience playing football, and at the Junior Varsity level no less.
If I ever have a son, as much as I love the sport, he is banned from playing American football.
In football it's the opposite, every yard is fought for because the team maintains possession after being tackled, and the way you keep possession long term is by moving 10 yards in 4 downs.
In rugby this means 2 players slamming directly into each other at full speed happens very rarely, while in football it happens all the time, and is in fact practiced.
For people that never played, it might be interesting to hear that at all levels, many programs institute reward systems for hard hits, amongst other accomplishments. It's mostly pride based, coming in the form of a sticker on the helmet, but it's part of the ethos of the game. When watching game film, coaches will replay hard sticks over and over to the great amusement of the whole team. Most embarrassing is being on the other end of one of those hits.
In pre-college football a certain class of players form their part of their identity around the ability to inflict and take hard hits, amongst their other duties. These also tend to be some of the most athletic kids. I'd assume just about any non-kicking NFL player has at some point in their life been one of those guys.
The article says:
> the NFL keeps changing its rules, but it turns out that less than concussion levels of constant head contact still produce CTE
Sure, but that's not true, because eventually, they'll reinvent rugby.
Intentional helmet to helmet hits are forbidden. Indeed, blindside hits are a pretty dangerous ground, with any hits touching the victims head or neck yielding significant penalties. Further there's the concept of a "defenseless" receiver, again bringing major penalties.
They constantly amend the rules to try to make the game safer, while still physical and exhilerating.
Likewise, while above-the-waist tackles are legal in football, they're certainly not the preferred technique because they aren't as reliable.
here's a great example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tggk0tvRhYI&feature=relat...
here's another even scarier example, especially given the fact that it's youth football. My kids will never play this sport: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlsTpx_-tlw&feature=relat...
Also, I would think that the velocities and masses involved in American Football are higher - it is more of an anaerobic sport due to the short play duration, frequent breaks between plays, and frequent player substitutions.
football is the opposite, especially with runs up the middle , receivers cutting across the middle of the field, and the smaller, but constant, impacts experienced by the linemen on both sides of the ball.