The linemen have just created a large crease as the tailback slips into the open field that is until he is grabbed and slammed into the ground. He would then stumble up the field with blood rushing down his noise and a soon to be known concussion. This was my experience during my ninth grade year on the high school football team, it would turn out to be a long night on the bench as I sat shivering in the cold on a rainy night and yes my team lost.

The entertainment of today is leaned heavily towards sports. Different sports appeal to a variety of people; however one thing many viewers love to watch is competitors using aggression. The competitiveness of sports has created a spark to outperform the person across whether in single or team competitions. The question is when is too much aggression in contact sports like football, hockey, boxing, mma, and soccer enough.

Over the past decade sports concussion has been on the rise and is one of the main focuses in the media. A concussion is defined as trauma to the head due to a sudden blow leaving a person confused and even unconscious. In football particularly, there has been numerous reports of deaths due to sports traumatic injuries, while athlete’s face lifetime diseases like Dementia, Parkinson’s (Dementia), Alzheimer, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig Disease. These diseases bring symptoms of headaches, depression, suicide, memory loss, anger, and trembling of the extremities. Since the late Junior Seau death, the National Football League has implicated brutal safety precautions that include no leading with the crown of the helmet, no targeting, and no head- to- head contact. Failing to comply with these precautionary rules could lead to expensive fines that could buy the average American new cars or possibly a house. The new rules have led changes in the game that affect the physicality of the game leaving the defensive players at a disadvantage. In order for defensive players to prevent concussions, players have begun tackling offensive players in the legs, which has led to more knee injuries in the history of sports, including ACL and MCL tears. Imagine the pain of twisting your femur behind your tibia. Anterior Cruciate Ligament is a painful tear usually requiring surgery and physical therapy for a full recovery. Brandon Meriweather stated the following quotes, “You’ve just got to go lower now. You’ve got to end people’s career. You’ve got to tear peoples ACL and mess up peoples knees now. You can’t hit them high anymore.”

Researcher have taken the steps to make the sports we love more safe by creating helmets with more cushioned padding and reducing the amount of contact time during practice. In addition, the concerned parents and opposing viewers of football should not worry about the dark time and football as history has shown you can only keep improving to make the game safe and enjoyable while still keeping the interest of the newer generation. Lastly, with these implications the game has become more “soft” and “boring” losing the interest of the newer generation. The once exciting big hits are now history.