As a football fan, I never thought about the consequences that come with playing football… until recently. Seeing Texans’ QB, Tom Savage, shaking after a bad hit or Steelers Ryan Shazier with an injury that currently has him in a wheelchair, has left me wondering if I want my own children to play football. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing a clean tackle, but I also want these players to live a long and healthy life and after this NFL season, I’m not totally convinced most of them are.
Since his retirement in 2013, NFL great, Brett Favre, has been actively advocating to making football safer and securing long, and healthy, futures for players. When asked if he’d let his grandchildren play football, his answer might shock you,
“I’m not going to encourage them to play. I’m not going to discourage [them],” Favre said. “But I say this to everyone who will listen: if my grandsons were to say, and they call me Paw-Paw, if they were to say ‘Paw-Paw, will you be my caddy in golf, I think I’m going to do golf instead of football,’ I would be much more happy, satisfied and excited by that then by them playing football.
“Every tackle I would be cringing, hoping they get up and not shaking their head and saying they got a headache. But the likelihood of that happening by them playing football is very high. So I’d much rather them choose a safer route.”
Favre stretched a little bit with golf, because… boring, but I’d settle for baseball or football. It’s a toss-up between former players on whether they would let family members play, but the one thing they all can agree on is finding a safer and healthier way to play the game of football.
