Head injuries are becoming a very dangerous aspect to professional football. The constant helmet to helmet collisions on the line may not do much, but it only takes one hard hit to potentially ruin not only a player's career, but his life. "The No. 1 issue is to take the head out of the game "(Bloomberg.com). In the past several decades players have been using their heads to make tackles and ram through defenders more than they ever have, and it is leading them to painful consequences. The NFL needs to reconstruct the way the game is played by enforcing rules that stop the hits, giving the players better post-retirement insurance, and preventing future concussions. .
The problem needing to be addressed is obviously that too many head injuries are occurring and not enough is being done about it. The case that really put this head injury crisis into a full scale problem was the case of Junior Seau, the NFL linebacker that killed himself in Spring of 2012. Seau suffered from degenerative brain disease, most likely due to multiple hits to the head accumulated throughout his football career. In response to this incident, the NFL player's union donated $100 million to Harvard University for brain injury research. There isn't a way to clarify for sure that his NFL career is the reason for his depression and brain problems, but all signs point to it and scientists claim that the odds are extremely slim that it could be caused from something else. This case was extremely popular to the media as people are unfortunately fascinated by suicides, but this was a step towards tightening up the leeway for head injuries. Something had to happen eventually to show how serious the head injury problem has become. Junior Seau was 43 years old when he died, which shows that the players often won't see the effects of the hits they take until well after they have retired. Since the players aren't getting medical help from the NFL this late in their lives, they are usually forced to fend for themselves with their sustained brain injuries.
