Posted on 03/17/2015 6:14:05 AM PDT by C19fan
Another star member of San Francisco’s vaunted defense is calling it a career. The 49ers announced late Monday that linebacker Chris Borland is retiring after one season, without offering specifics. Borland told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” earlier Monday that he is retiring following his standout rookie season because of concerns about head trauma.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacramento.cbslocal.com ...
Maybe OSHA-mandated retirement at 25 will make NFL games a lot more like college games. I’d love to see comparative stats on long-term concussion-related ailments for professional football, rugby and Aussie rules football.
I’m curious why the amended title of “(Only one Year)’.
Career ending issues can occur on the first day of camp.....
Why are concussion related injuries viewed differently that a blown knee?
Simply not a game to play if you wish to live well after age forty.
Someone once asked Gordie Howe why he played hockey wearing a cup but not a helmet. He answered, "because I can always get someone else to do my thinking for me."
Knee injuries are quite different from head trauma.
The retirement was not directly due to concussions. He is fine medically. Mr. Borland was worried about the long term impact of continuing to play and future concussions.
A little off subject but ... I remember a commercial (insurance, I think) using Dan Dierdorf as the spokesman and they actually showed a brief shot of him walking towards the camers .... and If I remember correctly, he had those orthopedic, padded shoes on and could barely walk and I thought ... man ... you crippled yourself playing a game.
Maybe he will get a gig on Dancing with the Stars.
He played college and High School ball...he had prvious concussions....
Don’t know the specifics of the his case but its a personal choice....
I’ll never second guess a player on their own medical (or potential future medical) issues or decisions.....
Good luck to him....
The brain is a very delicate instrument. A three pound supercomputer with only some thin bone and a bit of gel for padding; it isn’t designed (however you want to define ‘designed’) to take a whole lot of knocks.
Boxers are another example.
Yeah, there are the statistical outliers just like you can find 114 year old smokers, but the overall statistics are just now coming into focus as to how bad the actual damage is over time. My bet is that twenty five years from now we will be shocked at the fact we let kids and teens slam their brains around; human cognition is the most precious Gift from our creator and the only thing that separates us from the other animals, it’s amazing that something as powerful and delicate as our brain (particularly the neocortex) can even take one or two moderate hits and still function at all.
The drawback, of course, is that we really need a way to instill the manly virtues in our young men, and part of that is dealing with pain and defeat without giving up; I don’t care a whole lot for sports as a spectator, but the lessons learned on playing fields are as important as those in the classroom, how to work through losing the battle to still win the war, how to keep going even when you want to just quit, etc, to say nothing of teamwork.....
Sometimes wonder whether the hard outer shell of football helmets, in spite of the very elaborate internal cushioning, contributes to the brain trauma? Rugby is also a rough collision sport but the helmets players (optionally) wear are light weight cushioned, not unlike the head gear you used to see in photos of old time Soviet tank crews. When I played football in high school I remember wearing the helmet made me feel almost invulnerable. But at the college or grown man professional level of size and speed the collisions are akin to being hit by a bus. There are probably legitimate tests that show the hard shell with internal cushioning (like a motorcycle helmet) is safer, but I’m just speculating.
Maybe he figured out they hit hard in the NFL, unlike the ladylike pushing and shoving he experienced playing in the “Big 10”.
I think this story may be one of the tipping points that will result in the NFL rapidly declining in popularity. With youth football participation rapidly falling due to mothers concerned about serious injuries from playing tackle football, the prospect of American football being replaced by a combination of baseball, basketball and soccer as the major American professional sports within 20-25 years is no longer a far-fetched idea.
Jim Brown made a very smart decision when he retired I think at 30. I remember Robert Smith a stud RB for the Vikings retired at age 28 at the top of his game. He talked about he wanted to be healthy for the rest of his life after football.
“Jim Brown made a very smart decision when he retired I think at 30.”
He died in battle soon after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceGqXkrIMrs
In fairness, to us, it's a game. To them, it's a job. For the average NFL player, could he make that kind of money in any other line of work? A year's salary in the pros is a lifetime income in some occupations. This kid may seem like he's just started his work life, but he made $600K his first year. That's 10 years' pay for any garden variety college grad job. Many of the black players don't have the IQ to either get a college degree without an athletic assist or hold down a college grad job, so one year in the NFL is literally a lifetime's worth of paychecks. Army paratroopers blow out their knees and get concussions doing routine training, but they don't get NFL paychecks. Construction workers get all kinds of repetitive stress injuries - well, you get the idea.
Yep ... thanx for the reminder
Wow. He only banked around 600k.
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