Football has become the new Americas game, and it is growing in popularity throughout the entire world. More and more countries are forming national teams, and football is trying to get into the Olympics, so it is no question that football is fast growing in popularity, and is coming and great known world sport. But by the time football gets that popular, it could be too late.

What I mean by that is football is one of the most dangerous organized team sport in the world, the biggest, faster, strongest, and most athletic guys in the country and world are crashing their heads together for 3 hours at a time. So the question is, does football have a future, it’s a tough subject to touch upon, but it is true. The reason why football may not have a future is the amount of injuries that are taking place every single week on game day. There are players out there every weekend risking their health to step out onto that field; just to clarify this is at any level, it is important to know the risk you are putting yourself in by going out to play football.

 

Football is one of the most aggressively played sports in the world, and to try and help keep the athletes from getting injured more frequently there has been many rule changes over time. From the first 40 years football was played it was all out war, you could hit, throw, toss, clothes line, basically do anything to stop the ball carrier from moving. Which is why so many players would get hit and have shorter careers back then.

Looks to be a nasty hit from back in the day

So over the years more and more rules began to enter the league, such as late hits, and ruffing the quarter back, 5 yards down the field rule for cornerbacks and receivers, clothe lines, horse collar. And the most frequent one, the targeting rule, this rule is to help with the concussion concern spreading through the world of football. The targeting rule does not allow a player to lead with the head to make head to head contact with the another player, if the said player is caught doing that, he will be ejected from the game and at the professional level, ejected and fined for this action. So with all these rules coming into the game, the game has definitely changed over time, some people may say that it’s not the same game anymore, most of those who think thing are players that had played in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Here you can see a clear targeting foul committed by an Texas A&M
Player

But does all these rules really work, because till toning into Sunday football every week, we still see players getting injured quite frequently. The concussion problem seems to still be the same, players are still getting them frequently and are still in danger every time they step on the field. Even the rule for the concussion protocol. That is where after a big hit if that player is showing any kind of symptoms they must be removed from the field and undergo a thorough examination for a possible concussion. But even with all these new rules, and new helmets, and protocol it still doesn’t seem to be enough. Players each and every week are still in danger and are getting injured, and nothing is really truly helping.

 

So looking at all the players that are in danger every week, will the true game of football be in danger. Football is still football today, just modernized, it’s still the smash mouth hard hitting, head banging sport we all love, but if things don’t change and players continue to grow and get bigger, faster, strong and better, it will be harder to keep them safe. People today are naturally bigger, and over the years we see that in football, in the 70s average size offense linemen were 270lbs, now today the average size is roughly 330lbs of muscle. So the game could continue to get more intense, and more dangerous to play. So there have been ideas floating around the NFL committee, some ideas that would complete change the game of football forever. One there are always new rules going in to help prevent injuries, but the big one was taking away contact from football. Which means turning it into a 7 on 7 type deal or just touch football or even flag football, it’s at that point where it’s not even football anymore, and it’s a complete new game. Which is why we ask ourselves if football does have a future. Because if the game does change from none contact, it is no longer football, it will only be time to time what football will become, and if football will be different.