I am white, male and my 11 year grandson ain’t playing no stinking football
American football is fine, and has risks, as does soccer but fewer, and I'm totally cool with people playing although I wouldn't let my kids play football unless they really fought me for it.
When looking long term at sports, it's wise to look at not just the character development and short term physical development, but the physical development long long long term, as in over the course of a lifetime.
This is really just a matter of choices. But if you want to live to be old, without significant permanent joint injury or chronic pain, soccer develops the body in terms of strength and flexibility in all directions, although soccer players tend to overdevelop their quads and should counter that with certain routines and exercises to avoid future knee issues and even shoulder issues that result from the front of he body being more closed and tighter than the back. All of this is 50 times worse for an American football player, although much of that too can be mitigated with balancing exercises. Still - I don't think I could get past the brain stuff if I had kids.
Mix soccer and yoga over a lifetime ... you can't do much better than that when it comes to 'where will I be physically, mentally, spiritually when I'm 80?'
Red likes to talk about how American football mixed him in with other races. With soccer, you mix with the entire world. I'm not an advocate of diversity for diversity's sake and certainly not forcing it, but the world is connected these days either way.
So soccer is a no brainer better choice unless there is, for some reason, a very specific love or reason to play American football ... in which case, that's fine if someone's done the cost benefit analysis. It's not a long term stock you'd catch me buying for me or my kids or grandkids.
I think American football is probably doomed in 25 years to be a niche sport - a relatively popular one for a niche ... but a niche all the same. Physical development is too unbalanced and there's no arguing with facts.
The fact is that you are born with one body, and it can be your friend or your enemy as you grow older, depending on how you treat it and develop it. No sport was designed specifically for that, so they are ALL unbalanced, even the ones that aren't contact sports, none are complete ways to take care of yourself. But soccer as a primary sport combined with some yoga is a hell of a lot more fun than just yoga, and a hell of a lot more likely to leave you comfortable at age 50, 60, 70 and beyond. Even if you throw aside comfort, soccer will make you live longer simply because it's a very natural cardio development with sprints combined with slower pace but endurance. Football -> unlikely to make you live longer.
You're doing your 11 year old grandson a huge favor. But make sure he later mixes in Yoga and learns how the body is engineered, then it's just like keeping a car running to 300K miles!