Cnronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
Very interesting article in today's WSJ by a professor of emergency medicine at Stanford. The guys creds are good....has served as sideline physician at the HS, college and pro level....an expert.
He explains in detail how the brain is damaged by routine play far short of concussions. Most important, the prof states that one simple rule change would result in a profound reduction in CTE without significant impact of the game itself.
The rule is elimination of the "down lineman" position/stance both on offense and defense. When lineman spring into action from the "hand(s) on the ground position we are all familiar with, the resulting collision is fearsome and most often borne by the head. The prof is convinced that eliminating the down lineman stance would have a huge impact.
He proposes a "ready"-type stance for all lineman...in the spirit of the way wide receivers line up (my description). They are "ready" in that they are sort of stooped with knees slightly bent...hands in front of them. At the snap of the ball they would spring into action but their primary contact would be with hands and arms...not their heads like butting rams.
If you think about it, such a change in the game would be far less than changes that have been made in both FB and BB over the years. The key point is the professor's (an MD, of course) explanation that the down-lineman collision is the major cause of CTE at all levels of FB.
If he can sell that argument it would be very simple to implement.
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