American football has always been a blood sport.
It needs to change or die.
Tackle must end. Flags must come.
And they will.
Why? Because human lives are at stake…and with them, a trillion-dollar industry.
A century ago, football players were maimed and died in droves. The college game was a cross between rugby, mixed martial arts and all-out trench warfare.
Merciless scrums brought on bloody body piles in which players did their very best to gouge and permanently harm their opponents. Often they succeeded.
Where helmets were worn, they were virtually useless leather gloves, perhaps functional in keeping cracked skulls from falling apart during a game, but that was about it. The death toll for a given year of the college game was substantial and undeniable. Long-term post-season repercussions were undiscussed, unstudied…and permanent.
Early in the twentieth century, both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson intervened. By the time the pro game caught hold after World War 2, hard helmets, shoulder pads, body cushioning and tightened rules significantly lowered the kill ratio.