In just this past month alone, many of the National Football League’s (NFL) key players have already suffered severe and season-ending injuries. This unfortunate trend has caused much dismay and if continued could lead to league-wide changes.
So far, star players like Tyreek Hill, Malik Nabers, George Kittle and Joe Burrow, have gotten injuries to their leg and foot region. This has led many to point at the turf, that half the league plays on, to be the culprit for these injuries.
“Most stadiums either use turf, hybrid turf, or grass; but the problem with that is the turf it sometimes it sticks, and sometimes can get that foot down clean, and it’ll mess up your knee. Example, like Robert Griffin III you know had a tragic tear in his ACL. More recently, Malik neighbors because of the ACL tear at Met Life,” Eighth Grader Jacob Corwin said.
Others like Senior Rueben Young have picked up on how isolated to American Football this problem seems.
“In American football, obviously the leading cause for injury will always be, tackle on tackle, of course. But you will notice throughout the many other tackles on tackling sports, such as rugby within Europe and other countries; they do not suffer the same number of injuries. Now through multiple tests, you can conclude that this is mostly because of the turf. In European countries they play on actual grass while here they play on turf. You get a lot of injuries this way mostly because the turf is a lot harder and it’s not natural and soft like grass,” Young said.
Young’s remarks on the turf’s disadvantages don’t just stop at the players’ health, but as time goes on, he believes they have and will affect the overall viewership experience of the game.
“This is what causes a lot more strain and honestly it just downgrades the league performance by so much because you’ll see these big-name players, such as Tyreek hill and Malik Nabers, who are out for the whole season, and it’s like, why am I even watching this game? My favorite players are out, the most exciting players, the players who make this league fun to watch are out. So, I think it would save the NFL a lot of money if they just switched over to grass,” Young said.
When it comes to overall injuries, senior Matthew Lex believes the league is not doing enough for the safety of its players.
“Let’s say for example Tua they gave him the go ahead to play like two weeks after his concussion, he got another concussion, now that man can’t throw. They have to be, especially with the head, extra careful because I know it’s football and you have a helmet for a reason, but you see half the players have a bad CTE. I know they love playing, but what’s the point of being an NFL player if they’re going to allow stuff like that,” Lex said.
Although the turf seems like the main topic everyone is homing in on, for senior Tobey Earles the problem spans wider than just the grass that they play on.
“I think besides the turf the main cause of injuries are just freak accidents for the most part. At the core Injuries are a part of the game and when a bad one happens, it comes down to a few things. A freak accident, something like Tyreek Hill’s recent injury is just a normal injury that comes from play like a turf toe or a concussion or a sprain. The most we can do is to have better coaching to help prevent putting someone in harm’s way. Just having a better O-Line would help a lot of people,” Earles said.
With all the talk surrounding injuries it is obvious some sort of change needs to be made to improve safety. For Corwin, this problem can be solved using a couple of simple tweaks to the game and equipment.
“If you get rid of the turf, put more grass, or make it where the studs on the cleats can move where you can kind of grip on the floor more that could pretty much cause less injuries and maybe help the NFL to get rid of more injuries on the body. I probably also make the players aim for more of the chest area, because the legs, although that’s how you can get them down faster, the legs with one wrong move you’re popping the ACL, and then head-to-head can lead to CTE, I mean look at Antonio Brown. So if the players would just aim for more of the chest it would definitely lead to a lot less injuries,” Corwin said.
For Earles these changes are something that would be best handled by using a more modern approach to the sports world.
“The best thing we can do to prevent injuries is the advancement of technology, like the caps they put on helmets for concussions and better coaching. These are the best things that can happen without oversimplifying them. There’s nothing we can do to stop the body from reacting in the ways it does, but we can delay or make the injury not as bad or help the recovery time. Coaching is kind of tricky cause no matter how good the coaching is, people will take stuff into their own hands to try to hurt someone which is very rare thankfully,” Earles said.
Sometimes the answers one is looking for are right in front of them, in this case the answer might come from looking into solutions in other countries or sports.
“You’ll see, in other countries that they are constantly striving, especially to use my previous example of rugby, to promote safety in the league. For example, this past rugby world cup they were using mouth guards to tell how hard it was to play I was hit within the head that helped stop and prevent concussions from causing long lasting injuries. Because players in the NFL, you can see they know how to hide a concussion. They know how to hide it; they know how to fake it, but there’s no faking the test with the mouth guards. So, I do not believe that it would really cost the NFL that much money, considering how much money they rake in every season to improve the league, and I believe that this will return the League’s profits tenfold because they’ll have to star players back playing again,” Young said.
