The End Of An ERA For ESPN College Football | Hour 2
The Dan Le Batard Show
The Dan Le Batard Show discusses the NFL's latest rule changes aimed at reducing player injuries, particularly focusing on CTE (chronic traumatic
Key takeaways
- CTE is primarily caused by repeated head impacts, not just single violent hits.
- NFL rule changes targeting dirty tackles may reduce some injuries but don't address the core issue of repetitive trauma.
Main topics
- NFL injury prevention rules and CTE research
- The limitations of protective equipment in football
Notable quotes
"You're never going to get your power bill to zero, no matter how many bathroom lights you turn off."
"It's like taking off your shoes to go to TSA. It gives an illusion of safety when in reality, this isn't the thing."
Conclusion
While the NFL attempts to improve player safety through rule changes, the hosts argue
Transcript preview
Speaker 7 (0:04) The Speaker 4 (0:05) city moves fast, but your vibe, that's different. Sharper, smoother, more alive. Speaker 7 (0:15) The new Speaker 4 (0:20) Honda City isn't just made to drive, it's made to feel. The new Honda City, all new vibe. Speaker 3 (0:28) You are listening to the Dan Levitar Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports App. Now live in Speaker 1 (0:35) all 50 states. Speaker 1 (0:40) So the NFL, it's been NFL news off the field the last couple of days where earlier in the week, I mean, you know, there was this study where, you know, as far as how often NFL players, football players are getting CTE. And, you know, we're talking like 25 percent, the study showed, which feels like an extraordinarily high number. Believable, but extraordinarily high, right? Yeah. And now. to also try and curb injuries, the NFL and the NFLPA have agreed to suspensions for illegal hits, like the horse collar and what's the... That Speaker 3 (1:23) drop hip tackle. Right, is there a name for that? Yeah, I'll get the exact name, but that's what ended up doing Nick Chubb in. Speaker 1 (1:29) Yeah, and the torpedo hits, the leading with the helmet. If a player accumulates three of those penalties throughout the season, they start doling out suspensions. One game suspension. That seems like dudes are going to get suspended. That seems like a pretty punitive measure that they're taking. It Speaker 6 (1:53) is weird because, in essence, it's like, hey, you know that football thing you do? Stop doing football while you play football. Right? Like, these are... Maybe the torpedo one is a little much, but the hip drop and the horse collar and all, these are tackles. Speaker 3 (2:11) Hip drop is, at a certain point, you're going to have to reshape the game a little bit. And I do want to give the NFL and NFLPA some credit here because it seems clear to me that they knew that. the news of this study, the CTE-related study that said one in four NFL players will have CTE pretty definitively. They knew that this was coming. They know how damaging that is to the sport and where this show in particular has been hypercritical of their television partners and the NFL themselves and how they responded from a public relations standpoint and from an actual league rule standpoint. They're meeting the moment to the best of their ability, but it's also like... tobacco companies trying to make cigarettes safer. The Speaker 6 (2:54) difference between tobacco companies and this is that people are like, oh yeah, everyone knows cigarettes give you cancer and all that stuff, but people still smoke it. The difference is, you don't get paid millions of dollars to smoke. Right? Like, this... You're actually paying to do it. Yeah, you're paying to do that. It can't Speaker 3 (3:14) be my occupation to smoke cigarettes. Speaker 6 (3:15) Right. Whereas this is... Like, it cannot go away. You can't bubble wrap it, and it can't go away because ultimately, whatever the risks are, people say, would you do it for a million dollars? And the answer is going to be, there are going to be some dudes that are going to be like, yes, because it's better than the alternative or because they're playing the odds or whatever it is. But, by the way, I'm not arguing against these rules or these suspensions. And, Speaker 1 (3:41) by the way, let me add real quick, too. It's five types of hits. Like we mentioned, the hip drop tackle. The horse collar tackle. Excuse me. The launching. Two more. Hit on a defenseless player. And blindside block. Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:55) blindside block. I think the one that everyone has trouble with in understanding is when the player, and I think it's actually excluded from this because they know how difficult that one is to rule on, the driving your body into the player, and you have to kind of roll off the quarterback. The swan dive. And I do know that some of these things are incidental, but even to the untrained eye, some of these things are pretty obvious. Like, dirty hits are pretty obvious. There are moments where there is general consensus from everyone in a stadium and watching at home, like, that person just did something dirty. The defenseless receiver usually won. And Speaker 6 (4:32) that stuff needs Speaker 3 (4:32) to be Speaker 6 (4:32) eradicated. Sure, sure. But I guess my thing is, you guys realize that the CTE doesn't come from, like, if we got rid of all the dirty hits. everyone would be fine. It Speaker 3 (4:44) comes from hitting Speaker 2 (4:45) people. It comes from hitting people repeatedly. Speaker 3 (4:48) Repeatedly, especially along the offensive line. But there are big-time traumatic events that can absolutely make these things worse. Or in some cases, you have a brain that might not have been prone to CTE, but because of one dirty hit might be there. I know what makes this all super difficult is we don't know what... One hit did it when they donate their brains to science. Right. Speaker 6 (5:14) Now, this is from the study from years ago, but what they found was those massive hits are not the cause. Those massive hits, for sure, like what happened to Nick Chubb, yes, it can end your career in different ways. But when we talk about brain injuries, it is repeated hitting because what's happening is when you collide, your brain, like when you're in a car and if you're not wearing a seatbelt, Your car stopped you move forward and you smash against the windshield That's what's happening your brain inside your skull when you hit your forward momentum stops abruptly Your brain is still moving and it smashes against the inside of your skull And so like Mike said at the line where it's just like poop like you're saying Speaker 1 (5:57) even if you don't get in the head Yeah, that's Speaker 6 (5:59) my point like this like yeah, Speaker 1 (6:01) all Speaker 6 (6:01) this stuff that we're doing is you know what? You know what it's like. It's like taking off your shoes to go to TSA. It gives an illusion of safety when in reality, this isn't the thing Speaker 3 (6:12) that's the... Well, the Guardian caps in practice, when it comes to some of the repeated stuff, we don't see the vast majority of the hits that these heads take because in practice, they've been colliding. So they've been doing stuff with the Guardian caps to address it. The Speaker 6 (6:27) Guardian cap does not insulate the inside of your head, where your brain is smashing into your skull because of a... sudden stop in momentum. The league would Speaker 3 (6:38) point to data that says across the league concussions and head injuries are down, but I am with you there. The repeated stuff. Real Sports did an interesting study on this because it's Lou Gehrig's disease. That's not a football player. It's a baseball player, and he's not repeatedly hitting his head against one thing, and they actually found in his career, famous Ironman. Right? Yeah. That he cracked his head and kept playing in one famous instance. So maybe that was the one incident. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of mystery and a lot to be learned about this. But I do think we're trying to make something that is inherently unsafe safer. That's my point. Speaker 6 (7:16) At the end of the day, it's an unsafe activity, man. Speaker 6 (7:23) You're never going to get your power bill to zero, no matter how many bathroom lights you turn Speaker 1 (7:27) off. That's why I don't like, I wish we would just do regular kickoffs. Because I know the dangers to it, but we're trying to make something that is very unsafe, the whole thing which is very unsafe. And it's like, eventually it's not football anymore. Speaker 3 (7:44) No, but it will be. I think a lot of that stuff is overstated. Some of these things are jarring. They're doing this stuff by degrees. Within five years, the NFL helmet is going to look totally different. How Speaker 1 (7:56) much different could it look? Everyone's going to look like Rick Moranis in space balls? I think Speaker 3 (8:00) right now the Guardian caps look goofy and a huge problem. Aesthetically, it doesn't look cool. It doesn't look right. It looks ridiculous. But the league may one day just say uniform policy. We're going to have this more aesthetically pleasing Guardian cap, and that's going to be league-wide. And this is what the football helmet looks like right now. And get out of here. You're changing football. They used to have leather helmets. The game evolves. Speaker 6 (8:21) Here's the wild part, Mike. Leather helmets might be the best thing. So when they did that study about CTE and they said, looked at other high-impact sports, they go, surely this must happen because all sports. So they looked at rugby. These Speaker 1 (8:35) guys Speaker 6 (8:37) in rugby, they don't have any protection. It must be 100 times worse. And what they found was it was so much less because when you have no protection. you are behaving in a way where it's like, I'm not going to just recklessly throw my body in. Well, Speaker 1 (8:51) haven't we said NFL players, you want to stop the helmet-to-helmet hits? Take off the face mask. Speaker 3 (8:56) Take off the helmet. The equipment has allowed them over the last 20-some-odd years to use their bodies as weapons. No one's going headfirst without a face mask. As human missiles. Speaker 6 (9:08) I'm telling you, if you get rid of helmets, no one's going headfirst. If you just get rid of the helmet, no one's going to have fun. Because everyone's like, wait a second. The reason they do that is because they feel protected. I'm delivering the blow, but for me, I'm fine. I'm being absorbed by all this other stuff. If you get rid of a lot of that stuff or tame it down, then it's like, wait a second. I'm not going to put my skull on the line. I really Speaker 3 (9:32) do think that often the criticism that you hear from fan bases is, whoa, what are we playing, flag football? This is a different sport. Why don't you put tutus on? The sport has always evolved. Always. There have always been big, drastic changes that come to this sport. From aesthetics to rules that used to not pass forward. You know? And that's football, right? So I think the fans will stay on the branch. It's one of the biggest things in this country. It's one of our biggest businesses going. And you're not going to – you love the branding. You're not going to stop watching football if they do their best to mitigate this. Speaker 6 (10:08) That's the end game, right? You're not actually going to stop watching, so shut up. Who's Speaker 3 (10:13) the psycho that's like, man, I love those helmet-to-helmet hits. I'm out. Bring them Speaker 1 (10:20) back and I'll come back. We did all love, what was it? You got jacked up. Jacked up. That segment was awesome. Speaker 3 (10:27) I loved it. And looking back on it, I'm like, wow, that's really messed up to love that. But I didn't know any better. Speaker 5 (10:36) Some sad breaking news. Peter Cullen, who was known as the voice of Optimus Prime. Don't you say it. Eeyore and the Predator. He was Eeyore? The Speaker 2 (10:46) Predator? Yeah, I