Abstract This paper is about how Football has changed over time. Football has changed over the years in many ways. One of those ways that I will be discussing in this paper is How ACL Reconstruction and Meinscetomy surgery has effect NFL players careers? I also will be discussing how technology has advanced that has made Football the most popular sport in the United States. I also will be talking about how rules are being changed and added to promote player safety. I will be discussing how the change in the concussion policy in and how it will be handled. I will be using articles that I have found from the online Longwood Library.
Football Change Over Time The Career Shorten Injuries Having injuries are just part of football, it all depends on how serious the injury is determines if you will return to the season after you recover from the injury. You have different types of injuries in the game of football. You have some injuries that if you end up having during the season that you know you will be able to return from, then you have those injuries that you know are season ending injuries. Some of these season ending injuries could end up being career changing injuries that affect the way you play the game. A couple of those career changing injuries has to do with the knee, where you have to get Meinscetomy and ACL Reconstruction surgery to repair the damage done (Brophy, R. H., Gill, C. S., Lyman, S., Barnes, R. P., Rodeo, S. A., & Warren, R. F. 2009). Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is the major ligament in your knee that you wouldn t want anything to happen to if you had a knee injury of any sort. When an ACL Reconstruction surgery is needed for an ACL tear, the player already knows he is out for the year and if the happens mid-season or later then it will affect the player for the next upcoming season (Brophy, R. H., Gill, C. S., Lyman, S., Barnes, R. P., Rodeo, S. A., & Warren, R. F. 2009). The reason it will have an effect on the upcoming season is because it takes longer for the ligament to heal after it if repaired and then you have to strengthen it to get back to the strength you had for preinjury status. You have some people who are physically gifted that can recover from an injury that is to this magnitude and there are some people who it takes even longer for them to recover from there injury.
This injury takes at least two months of physical therapy before players can do any type of strength training or any quick laterally cutting movement. After a few months a player will be allowed to do some straight line jogging. Then after a month or two the player will be allowed to do some full speed straight line running, squatting, and jumping. You can do any of these exercises as long as you don t feel any pain while performing them, but if you feel any type of pain or discomfort you should immediately stop the exercise that you are performing at the moment. If Meinscal surgery is needed the player isn t ruled out for the season but it will take some time to recover from the injury to heal and rehab it properly before you can return to the season (Brophy, R. H., Gill, C. S., Lyman, S., Barnes, R. P., Rodeo, S. A., & Warren, R. F. 2009). So if you had meinscal surgery at the beginning of the season there is a possibility that you will return to you team before the end of the season. The recovery time after surgery for this injury is 3 to 6 months depends on for fast a players body heals will determine how fast they can get back to train which will determine how fast they will get back on the football field and be productive while out there. So if the player plays professional football or college then they will be back for their team if they make the playoff in professional or bowl game if the player is in college. Is the player is in high school it could be questionable if the player will be able to return to that season, because the regular season start is shorter that both the professional or college levels. Having Meinscetomy and ACL Reconstruction surgery on the same knee can really affect your chances of making it to the NFL and having a long career once you are in the NFL (Brophy, R. H., Gill, C. S., Lyman, S., Barnes, R. P., Rodeo, S. A., & Warren, R. F. 2009). When you go to a combine and perform all these skills test you will also be graded on if you have had any
surgeries in your lifetime prior to the combine. NFL scouts do this to see how much of a risk could you be to the team if they decide to draft you (Brophy, R. H., Gill, C. S., Lyman, S., Barnes, R. P., Rodeo, S. A., & Warren, R. F. 2009). With having both of these injures you would be less likely to get drafted compared to player that just had one of these injuries. Players that have the Meinscetomy may comeback before the players with the ACL Reconstruction but still have about the same length in career because of the wear and tear of the professional game of football has each season with 16 regular season games and then the playoffs (Brophy, R. H., Gill, C. S., Lyman, S., Barnes, R. P., Rodeo, S. A., & Warren, R. F. 2009). America Sport of Choice I have noticed as I was growing up that football across the countries is getting more popular ever year as technology advances. The number of people that are playing the game of football is increasing (Villalon, O. 2008). With all the advances in television it is making it possible to watch you team play no matter where you live in the country if you have the proper cable or satellite (Villalon, O. 2008). Then with the advancement in cameras, you can watch the game in many different angles that are set up all around the field. Then watching the games in HD (high definition) makes you feel like you are actually at the game with how good the picture quality is and you couldn t see some of these picture qualities on a regular television (Villalon, O. 2008). There are companies that sponsor the big games just so the networks will tell the viewers who is bringing the game to them in the HD quality and if the quality is good then some people may go to the store and look into getting a HD television for their home, business, or where they go to watch the game. This is a good marketing attempt because once you get one person to get the television then they will spread the word and more people will buy them.
The players that play football at a high level are usually on a workout plan that can either make them stronger, faster, and/or more athletic. Every college and professional team has some type of strength and conditioning program that they put their players on in the off-season to improve their bodies from the past season. They also have an in-season program that helps players maintain their strength and conditioning of their body. Football is also becoming popular because it is turning to putting your best athlete against the other team s best athlete in space and let the better athlete win. This is becoming more interesting to watch to see what players will do next in certain situations. This entertainment is what is making schools and sports team s money. If you recruit the better athletes in college or draft or pick up in free agency to make your team more talented then you will get more people to come out to the games and sell more tickets. Concussions As I follow football today, there is a serious caution taking when a player is thought to have a concussion (Lazarus, A. 2011). If a player has any type of head injury they will automatically be given a concussion test from either the trainer or team doctor. When a player is diagnosed with a concussion the player is ruled out the game and has to be cleared by doctor before they can practice or play in the team s next game. Most of the time in any level of play, if a guy gets hit in the head by the defender when he has the ball then more times than not it will be a penalty on the defender The old concussion policy seems to have been a joke around the league and has not been followed as well as it should ve been followed because player don t want to leave the game because they are so competitive and don t know what bad could come out of getting checked out
by the medical staff (Lazarus, A. 2011). The referees who were suppose to be looking for players with signs on the field try to do their best to realize what could be signs of a concussion. It has caused people serious amount of money because they were forced to retire earlier than they would ve like to because the concussion wasn t handled properly and medically it put their life at risk if they kept playing (Lazarus, A. 2011). The old policy has also caused some people there life after they were finished playing football some of the players have ended up committing suicide because of brain trauma. The old policy is drawing lawsuits from former players who are have had head/brain trauma from all the repeated hits that they have given or taking over the years they have played in the NFL. It had to take a couple of players, Kevin Kolb and Stewart Bradley, that injured with concussions in the same game and on the same team but at different times and the medical staff didn t see one of the injuries so they didn t have any idea how serious it was at the time(lazarus, A. 2011). They both were medically cleared, a meaningless term that pretty much means that if the player s heart is beating and lungs are expiring for now, they returned to the game in the first half but didn t return to the game after halftime. Both players didn t play the following week because of their head injury (Lazarus, A. 2011). This game was on National Television and one of the commentators, Troy Aikman, said It is hard to imagine him, Stewart Bradley, coming back into this game in light of what we just saw. (Lazarus, A. 2011) The new concussion policy is cracking down on the protocol taking when a player has a potential head injury with a series of concussion tests giving on the sideline. Before the season start the players are given a concussion screening so that the doctors have something to go off when they have to give the concussion test to the player. If a player fails the test they will not be
allow to return to the game they are playing in. They will also have to pass a serious of test during the week before they will be allowed to play. In some cases the players will have to be medically cleared before they can return to participating with the team. The NFL is putting a lot into making sure that players are ready to return to the game because if you return when you are not ready then it won t be a good for the player in the long run (Lazarus, A. 2011). There is no game that is worth putting your life at risk, no matter how much you love the game. In-season vs Off-season Training Every athlete does some type of training for their sport, no matter whether it is in-season or off-season. When you re in-season you are not going to work out like you would if you were in the off-season. The In-season workout is a work out that helps you maintain your strength and helps prevent the risk of injury as the season goes on (Hoffman, J. R., & Kang, J. J. 2003). By doing this it also helps you stay health and gives you energy as you go through the season. When you re in the off-season you are not going to work out like you would if you were in-season. You train harder and have a more intense work out daily to help strengthen your body (Hoffman, J. R., & Kang, J. J. 2003). With the technology advancing in today s game, you have supplements that you can take to get your body to recover from an intense workout so that you can have another intense workout for consecutive days in a row (Hoffman, J. R., & Kang, J. J. 2003). You also have supplements that you take before you work out that gives you more energy to have a longer work out. Players have to be careful that they stay in the guidelines of using supplements and not take a banned substance because they can get suspended if they test positive for a banned substance (Hoffman, J. R., & Kang, J. J. 2003). They have a list of banned supplements that players can use so they know whether or not the substance they used in prohibited (Hoffman, J. R., & Kang, J. J.
2003). Once a player test positive for a substance on the banned list there will be a high possibility that you will get tested throughout the rest of their career even if the player doesn t test positive after the first time they test positive. In the off-season your also have time to work on your game and become better at your position. You can work on your game by going to camps, working out with teammates, and/or work with a position coach that can improve your mechanics or teach you something that you have not used before that could help you in the upcoming season (Hoffman, J. R., & Kang, J. J. 2003). Players use this time of the year to try and get ahead of their competition because ever player that wants to be the best is constantly working on their game to become the greatest to ever play the game at their position. High School Football Bodies High School football is changing with the players becoming bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before by having more than a few handful of players in each state around the country (Wang, M. Q., Downey, G. S., Perko, M. A., & Yesalis, C. E. 1993). There are some players that are just fast, some that are just big, some that are just strong, some that are a combination of both and some that have all of the above characteristics. There are those players that are just unstoppable and the high school level is just too easy for them and is the top recruits coming out of high school (Wang, M. Q., Downey, G. S., Perko, M. A., & Yesalis, C. E. 1993). Then most of the time goes to the big name college programs where they will get the best chance to play and play for a national championship. This will help them to make it to the next level the more they are seen on television.
The elite high school football players get invited to the top camps to compete with the best players in the country and college scouts are there to scout the players they want to recruit to their college (Wang, M. Q., Downey, G. S., Perko, M. A., & Yesalis, C. E. 1993). Most of the players at these camps are ready to play in college their freshman year. Players that are ready to play their freshman year are you usually bigger physically and ready mentally than other freshman that have to redshirt their first year (Wang, M. Q., Downey, G. S., Perko, M. A., & Yesalis, C. E. 1993). The major high school programs that have a winning tradition of football at their school have a solid weight lifting program that most college programs use. The weight lifting equipment that is available at some high school makes weight lifting program, because the more equipment you have the more lifts that the players can perform. The more equipment a weight room has makes the lifting more interesting than if you had only a few items of equipment to use (Wang, M. Q., Downey, G. S., Perko, M. A., & Yesalis, C. E. 1993). Players find that if they hear about using a certain equipment to do certain lifts will make them a better player then they will use that equipment. If you have different equipment then that means you can work out more times a week and you can work out for longer periods of time because you have more lifts you can do, then you won t become bored when working out. Drafting Football Players When teams decide what player they are going to draft a player they mainly look at a serious of eight tests that decide whether team decide to draft a player or not (Robbins, D. 2010). This test can really determine whether a player makes millions of dollars or thousands of dollars as a yearly salary by having the best numbers in the test at their position. These tests can
sometimes be very misleading when the player they draft does good on the test but it doesn t transfer over to the field because they aren t ready for the game speed at the NFL level(robbins, D. 2010). There have been a lot of players that have done above average at their position and have been drafted high in the draft. Some of these players have been bust in the league and have cost teams millions of dollars and a lot of wins because other players in that draft class have turned their team around and have became elite at their position (Robbins, D. 2010).. There are some players that were good and college and have shown up and didn t do as good on their testing and were not drafted as high as expected and some players weren t drafted at all. There have been a lot of players that were drafted early in the draft that many people haven t heard of because they didn t play at a big time college program and went to a small school where they did well. They came to the combine and performed as well as the top players in their draft class (Robbins, D. 2010). Then they get drafted and start doing well after a couple years and this gives hopes to everyone who plays college ball that no matter where they go to college that if they are good enough for the NFL then the NFL scouts will find them (Robbins, D. 2010).. Playing surfaces Artificial Field vs Natural Grass Field In today s football there is a lot of teams fields that is artificial and not natural grass because this saves school money by not have to have a field maintenance crew to come fix the field each week before and after the game (Williams, S., Hume, P. A., & Kara, S. 2011). Therefore if weather conditions are bad then it will have little effect on the field and it will not tear the field up as if you were playing on a natural field where the players cleats would wear
and tear on the field. This also helps the coaching stay in preparations for the game when they don t have to worry about field condition and this allows them to go through the week not have a surprise storm change the play calling. The playing surface that football players play on today can be a very risky to injury if players aren t careful (Williams, S., Hume, P. A., & Kara, S. 2011). You are more likely to get an ankle or knee injury on today s artificial fields than on the natural fields. Some say the more you practice and play on a certain field the less like you will get injured than when you play on a field that you normally don t play or practice on (Williams, S., Hume, P. A., & Kara, S. 2011). This happens because you get used to playing on one field and you body is not used to playing on a different surface so you don t know how you body will react when performing a normal move (Williams, S., Hume, P. A., & Kara, S. 2011). I learned from players that they prefer playing on artificial field more than natural field because they don t have to worry about field conditions effect they way they play (Williams, S., Hume, P. A., & Kara, S. 2011). This is important for the team that are made on speed and making people miss. The teams that like to be physical and run the ball a lot, teams do this to wear down opposing teams. Whatever surface home field is made of, as a coach will determine how you base your team around either speed or power. Coach or general managers will recruit or draft the type of players that will fit your system the best. Player Development Coaches at the High School level are developing their players mental as well as physical (Collins, K., Gould, D., Lauer, L., & Yongchul, C. 2009). While developing a player it is important that they understand how they need to progress and handle certain situation in
moments where they will have to make the choice them and not ask someone for help (Collins, K., Gould, D., Lauer, L., & Yongchul, C. 2009). If the coach does his job then the player will make the right decision. Some of the most successful coaches know how to connect with their players and let the players know what the coach expects from them each day. There are a lot of difficult situations that high school athlete has to deal with. When athletes get popular they all of a sudden get a lot of friends that they never knew they had and will get put in a situation when they have to choose a path that they want to take not know what is at the end of that path (Collins, K., Gould, D., Lauer, L., & Yongchul, C. 2009). This is a lot of reasons why some of the best players in their sport in high school or college never make it to the next level because they get caught up with the wrong crowd and then in up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In High School the players that are in a program where they are held accountable to follow team rules and if they break the rules then they will have to face the consequences of their actions (Collins, K., Gould, D., Lauer, L., & Yongchul, C. 2009). This is an important to the development of players showing that they are responsible for their own actions and should not blame anyone else for them breaking the rules (Collins, K., Gould, D., Lauer, L., & Yongchul, C. 2009). Hopefully this will make players think before they do things so that they don t break the team rules and have to face the consequences. If players can develop this then this show a maturity that every college coach wants to see in their players (Collins, K., Gould, D., Lauer, L., & Yongchul, C. 2009). Rules that are Affecting the Way Players Play
Over the years there have been a lot of rule implemented as a focus on what to watch for as referee. Then as a player you have to adjust to what is being calling year in and year out. One of the biggest rules that are affecting the game today is the Personal Foul helmet to helmet contact on the quarterback also Personal Foul unnecessary roughness on a defenseless receiver which is both 15- yard penalties and automatic 1 st Downs. These have affected the game so much because Defensive players don t know how to tackle the Offensive players anymore. When they try to break up a pass intended for the receiver and try to do that with a big hit it 9 times out of 10 it usually end up with a penalty flag being thrown if the receiver lays there for a few seconds. This is changing the game to the point that people on the defensive side of the ball are going to start retiring because they can t play the game by using their instincts and have to start thinking as the play happens which slows down their reaction times which could put them in situations where they could get hurt when they play in the NFL which the speed of the game is a big factor where all types of scenarios can happen in a split second. They will also retire because they are getting fined a lot of money for a hit that could be questionable or could be targeted by the league for every hit they make will be put under the microscope. Most of the people that is on the defensive side of the ball feel like the new rules gives the offense side of the ball an advantage because all the new rules provide safe more for them and the defense don t have no new rule that have been implemented to provide them safety. This give the offense the advantage because they can go full speed while the defensive is a couple steps behind because they aren t play the game with instincts but is playing the game to rules so they don t get penalized.
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