And the piece i was working on is whether there can be greater precautionary measures taken from professional to amateur and youth levels. and those measures included twofold, is there chest protection that can be word and is there an aed valuable. well there s both of those things available when it comes to professional football which to me only highlights sometimes in a game like football or lacrosse or baseball or anything that is physical, you cannot protect yourself ultimately against all of the dangers involved, not just in life, but in that sport. that is not a diagnosis. that is not me speculating what happened to damar hamlin. but it is perfect spigot from me covering sports and what i have watched in sports. i hope for the best and that it wasn t one of these scenarios and damar, his friends and his family have my prayers. jason: well said, will. you know, i played college football, albeit being a place
30% drop of participants football age 6 to 12 since 2008. 38% drop. that is tremendous. concerns are justified. gets a lot of attention. fear factor. reality is head injury are the same amongst boys sports or girl sports. you don t hear legislation about banning bicycle riding. but i do think that s been put into the game. what s been implemented into the game of football in terms of safety has really had an impact. targeting rules at both the college and nfl level which has bled down into the youth levels where if you hit above the head you actually get eject from the game. that s changed the whole game of football new programs like u.s.a. football which has the development model youth football which is endorsed by the american medical association for sport is the model for youth sports. it teaches competitiveness the right way and safe way
For a couple years and i obviously love the game. it did a lot for me in my development as an adolescent. i have a young son who is 5 years old. i m very much reluctant to allow him to play, especially at a young age. one of the trends is letting guys play basketball and they grow up to be tight ends. if he wants to play football, i won t stop him. yeah, the more we know, the scarier it gets. we talked about this earlier jamelle, we did a poll, espn, 85% of players said they would play in the super bowl with a concussion. we have a lot of players ignoring the long-term damage possibilities in favor of the short-term gain. we should also mention statistically concussions are down 13% this season from last year. i think at this point with all the education, all the awareness, and for that matter, a lot of the training at the youth levels on how to tackle. heads up. heads-up programs, that s changed the way coaches on the lower levels look at concussions