Posted on 03/21/2015 11:26:46 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Former National Football League quarterback Fran Tarkenton says the prevalence of performance enhancing drugs likely played a role in the decision by San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland to quit football after playing professionally for just one year.
"What this guy's really saying at 24, retiring after one year . . . and walking away because if he knows if he's going to continue for another 10 years, he's got to shoot himself up with PEDs that's going to do all kinds of bad things to him," Tarkenton told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV on Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
When all players are proportionally large and fast, the gains and risks offset.
Such rationale makes little sense after researching soccer related injuries.
The kid whose DNA destined him to be 5'-9" and 130 lbs does not take PEDs and become a 6'-8" 340 lb offensive lineman.
The trend of increasingly larger people has been going on for a century of more. Soldiers in WW-II were on average taller and heavier than their fathers who fought in WW-I. The trend has continued.
If you want to know why players are so big now, ask why kids in general are so big now. The answer IMO is primarily that adults in the 1970s while taller and heavier than their WW-II era fathers, did not grow up in an era of mandated RDAs for vitamins and nutrients in everything they ate.
The 1980s saw the first generations of 18 year olds entirely raised on mandated RDAs and what do you know but that generation was larger than the one before it. 6'-5" 300 lb high school tuba players used to be rare but are now relatively common. Does that mean high school marching band members are using PEDs? No.
Soccer has its risks, but they pale in comparison to football; I don’t want them to stay in rubber rooms until they are eighteen, but there is no reason to subject them to football injuries. Baseball players get injured as well, but those are also much less critical injuries.
How do soccer risks pale in comparison to football?
The head and knee injuries are much worse because of the weights and impacts involved.
The concussion rate for football is only a little higher than that of soccer. As a percentage of contact, the football concussion and injury rate is much lower than that of soccer.
The worst injury on my sons football team was a dislocated shoulder. meanwhile, a kid on the soccer team rode a wheelchair because of a compound leg fracture and torn knee cartilages due to an opponents tiny miscalculation resulting in the player's leg being kicked rather than the ball.
We can go back & forth on this endlessly; there is no popular push to change soccer because of the injuries, and many parents (who I trust to know what is best for their children) seem to have little concern about it with soccer. I’ve had multiple children play for years without any serious injuries.
I think the NFL should split into two leagues: one for players 270-lbs. and lighter and one for 271-lbs. and heavier.
Please provide a link to the story of Peyton and Tiger going to Germany to partake in HGH? (I feel like that statement is total BS)
Any man who will not let his teenage sons play football (or any sport) is selfish.
Physics is taking its toll.
Since energy is the square of the velocity, it’s the increased speed of the players that is a big factor.
Or the statistics on injury and death while in a motor vehicle. All these “protective” parents ignore this every time they strap Little Johnny into the car and take off. Naive.
Believe what you like but a simple Google search will show you numerous writings about Manning and HGH. Was it ever proven in a court of law, no, but then again, Mark McQuire and Sammy Sosa said they didn’t use PEDs either.
the players are big enough and fast enough already, and making them bigger and faster still is only making the hits more damaging...
On TV you really can’t tell the difference, and I think the NFL was better 40 years ago before the physical freaks.
Great; I’m selfish. I still sleep the sleep of the just...probably because I have no soul.
Any man who has a son suffer a grievous football injury should be required to the son’s caretaker 24/7/365 as well (and contribute to a trust for the rest of us to care for his son when the father meets his maker). Or is that the responsibility of “the village”?
Why not let your kid make up their mind. I don’t tell my kids what sport to play, I just want them to compete at something. Everything has its risk.
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