Super Bowl XL star Antwaan Randle El says NFL could be dead 'in 20, 25 years'

theguardian.com ^ | 19 January 2016 | Guardian sport

[Berlin_Freeper]

Longtime NFL wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, whose trick-play touchdown pass famously helped the Pittsburgh Steelers to a victory in Super Bowl XL, said he regrets having ever played football.

Randle El, 36, told the Pittburgh Post-Gazette in story published Tuesday that he struggles to walk down the stairs and has contended with memory loss since announcing his retirement in 2012.

“If I could go back, I wouldn’t,” the former Indiana University quarterback said of the sport that brought him roughly $40m in career earnings. “I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn’t play baseball because of my parents. They made me go to school. Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now, I could still be playing baseball.”

An outspoken critic of the NFL and plaintiff in a 2013 lawsuit claiming the league “has done everything in its power to hide the issue and mislead players concerning the risks associated with concussions”, Randle El believes the sport is inherently dangerous and beyond fixing.

[MattinNJ]

I played D3 football and had a blast. Now I am 50 and regret it every day. Lower back is shot from all the heavy lifting and collisions at even that level. I cannot imagine the impacts the elite players undergo.

[Wolfie]

Please. You could have a player killed every week and people would still watch. Hell, they'd watch more.

[dfwgator]

I think they need to impose weight limits on players, no more than 250 pounds.

That would make the game emphasize skill over sheer athleticism, and reduce the impact of collisions.

[Night Hides Not]

Thanks for your service, hawk. I was lucky, did my time from 76-84, no wars going on. Did a ton of PT in jump boots, though.

I quit running the day I got out of the service, never liked it, was never a runner. I get my exercise from long walks, usually 7 miles.

I've got 3 months to get ready for my annual birthday walk along my favorite trail...16 miles. It parallels the Trinity River, with a couple of stops marked where wagon trains crossed on the way to California. The most dangerous animals on the trail aren't water moccasins, but Lance Armstrong wanna-bes.

[ßuddaßudd]

Ask 0bama fix it bro...

[Night Hides Not]

I never did go for high schools providing a free taxpayer funded farm team system for colleges which, in turn, provide the same role for the NFL.

Good points, but I disagree to a certain extent. In most communities in North Texas, football is the financial engine for other extracurriculars.

For example, at Coppell HS, the Band Booster club runs the concessions. It takes a lot of extra money to support a world class 350 man marching band. I know, my oldest son was in the band for four years, and they marched in Washington DC and Dublin, Ireland.

Our school's drill team has over 60 members. Their big fundraiser is a spaghetti dinner before the first home game, and they usually net over $40,000 from that.

Last year, there were two freshman teams and two JV teams. There may be three freshman teams next year, as 200+ boys played 8th grade football at our 3 middle schools.

A handful of these young men will go on to play in college. My son is not a star athlete, but he loves football. He's now (after a growth spurt) all of 5'8" and 110 pounds. I've told him he can play on the freshman team next year, but if he weighs less than 150 by the end of his freshman year, that's it.

I've been nudging him to basketball, but the competition is even more fierce.

And then there's my 5 YO grandson, a football fanatic. He played flag FB this year, as well as playing tackle with his uncle in our house.

It's a conundrum, no doubt. Better coaching, better equipment, better protocols are all part of the mix.

[Jim Noble]

The brain injury issue is going to have to be dealt with, however. Perhaps with better helmets, pads

Unless you put the pads inside the skull, that won't work.

The problem is collision velocity, which causes body deceleration while the brain is still moving. Better training (and better steroid and HGH formulations) have produced larger and faster players, and the resulting increase in collision velocity has BECOME both the television product and the ESPN clickbait.

There's no fix for this. Modern helmets do what they were designed to do - prevent skull fractures. They don't stop brain sloshing, they make it worse.

[oh8eleven]

Now I am 50 and regret it every day. Lower back is shot from all the heavy lifting and collisions
Somewhere back in the day I read that 50% of all who play football through college level, receive an injury that will bother them the rest of their lives.

[texas booster]

And few in the US realize that soccer creates much the same brain lesions that football does.

Wait until the war on soccer starts, for your overseas riots.

[ManHunter]

I’m with you. I’m almost 60 and I’ve been a Steelers fan since I was old enough to say Steelers (before they won their first Super Bowl). Last year, I watched parts of three games and this year watched only half of the wildcard playoff game and the game against Denver.

Although the league has budgeted millions to deal with the concussion/brain injury issue, it hasn’t begun to feel the full impact. I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with “professional” sports, particularly the NFL, due to its obsession with keeping negative information about owners (including Art Rooney’s sons), coaches and players from public view and its embracement of social causes and political correctness. For reasons that should be obvious, of late I’ve come to refer to the NFL as the “National Felon League”; it seems that nothing and no behavior - on or off the field - is so severe as to get a player banned from the league (which isn’t doing anything to reduce the league’s liability for head injuries).

[Vigilanteman]

Football, at least, is way, way more interesting than soccer. Your typical soccer match reminds me of turning a bunch of ants loose to run around.

Other than the fact that soccer costs very little for equipment and uniforms, I fail to see the appeal.

[Vigilanteman]

Good point. Although here in SW Pennsylvania, the best marching bands seem to go with the worst football teams and vice versa.

Our own district jokes that the football game is a backdrop to our fabulous marching band and 80% of ticket and concession sales are people coming to see the band. Seriously, there is more truth to that than joke.

The best high school football teams in the region seem to have 30 piece or so marching bands compared with 200 or more for the rest of us.

[xp38]

Just a guess but Antwaan might be pining for the fjords before the NFL.

[Gil4]

Baseball, for the most part, provides their own farm team system with just a relative handful of players drafted out of college baseball.

It fluctuates, but about 60% of players drafted come from college. MLB still has its own farm system because even the best college players aren't ready for the majors.

From the MLB draft Wikipedia page: Early on, the majority of players drafted came directly from high school. Between 1967 and 1971, only seven college players were chosen in the first round of the June draft.[16] However, the college players who were drafted outperformed their high school counterparts by what statistician Bill James called "a laughably huge margin."[17] By 1978, a majority of draftees had played college baseball, and by 2002, the number rose above sixty percent.[

[Night Hides Not]

I'll bet the crowd thins out after halftime, too. It happens at our games when we go on the road. North Texas is hypercompetitive in football.

Allen HS, the one with the $60 million stadium, has a 650+ strong marching band.

High schools are so large around here, we're small at 3300. There are at least a dozen schools in the area with nearly 6000.

[Vigilanteman]

Interesting. But I wonder if that is more of a function of the growth of college baseball programs and the talent pool which MLB can exploit. When I was a pup, few colleges had varsity baseball programs and even fewer high schools.

I think this was largely a function of the fact that most of them went into hibernation by the end of May, just when MLB and Minor League baseball was getting heated up.

I've also noticed that your average baseball fan base is far more polite-- more families, less swearing, less drunkedness. I've heard more than a few out of towners who come to Pittsburgh for sporting events remark on how polite the Pirate fans are compared to how loud and rude the Steelers fans and even, to a lesser extent, the Penguins fans are. Pretty funny when you realize all three teams share much of the same fan base. I do not know how to explain that other than to say that the relative roughness of the sport is reflected in fan behavior.

But then there are places like Philadelphia where the fans are crude louts regardless of the sport.

[Vigilanteman]

I'll bet the crowd thins out after halftime, too.

Spot on! The football fans claim it is because the score is so lopsided that there is no way the home team can come back.

The reality is because the marching band is done performing. I've seen crowds thin out even when the home team was down by only a field goal or a touchdown.

[i_robot73]

Profitable for WHOM? Doesn’t seem to be the taxpayers.

There’s talk of MORE crony capitalism here, in Jax, FL, for ‘improvements’ (more so that the ~$150M we just got hit for the BIG BIG screen and...pools!???)...practice field, etc. etc. ...For the ~10 game days/year??

IF the team sucks? Lack of attendees = no TV broadcast. Tixs prices go UP UP UP regardless and parking/concessions are out the nose...

Here’s a thought: break up the monopoly.

For all the bitching the city does about pulling water out of the St. Johns, they could have built a de-sal plant with the funds instead of padding the pockets of a select few.

[JimRed]

Sounds like he has the build of a distance runner. But not every kid likes the solitary life of the long distance runner.

[Night Hides Not]

Funny you mention that JR. I need to talk to him about that possibility.

Few weeks back, he ran in his first cross country meet, as they were short on the B team. He came in 6th, out of 20 or so. High school coach was there, tried to recruit him.

Or so I'm told...I wasn't there.

We have several excellent walking trails in our area, except when they're under water, which has been the story for nearly 8 months. First it was the rain, a 100 year flood, then it's been the release of water from Lewisville Dam.

Thanks for the reminder, though, worth further discussion. I doubt that would conflict as much with his band activities.