Should children be allowed to play tackle football?
From 2015, an online Polis conversation asked whether concussions and CTE, the brain disease linked to repeated head impacts, would end the National Football League. 1,487 people voted. Several of its statements were about whether children should play.
A public Polis conversation on concussions in the NFL
From a public Polis conversation in the United States, online, January 2015 to December 2018: “Concussions in the NFL”. People wrote statements and voted agree, disagree or pass on each other’s. These rows are the statements most voters agreed with, the ones that split voters most evenly, and the ones the fewest agreed with, out of 39 that at least 15 people voted on. Statements about the voters themselves, insults and unchecked factual claims are left out. Passes are not counted.
Most agreed
We should still be able to engage in things with downsides if we understand what those downsides are.
The NFL has shown that it is taking the issue seriously - they have Neurologists watching the field with binoculars at every stadium. Let's move on and let them take care of it.
Polis sorts voters into opinion groups by how they voted across the whole conversation. This one found 2: Group A (1,281 voters) and Group B (153 voters). These are the statements every group was most likely to agree with, ranked the way Polis ranks common ground: the chance of agreeing in each group, multiplied together. Under them is the statement the groups were furthest apart on.
We should still be able to engage in things with downsides if we understand what those downsides are.
Group A175 agreed, 22 disagreed (89%)
Group B46 agreed, 18 disagreed (72%)
Hopefully the NFL will work to prevent injuries while keeping the game entertaining.
Group A146 agreed, 22 disagreed (87%)
Group B36 agreed, 18 disagreed (67%)
Let's develop a code of safety for kids' football & be smart, not hysterical.
Group A134 agreed, 37 disagreed (78%)
Group B35 agreed, 15 disagreed (70%)
Where they split
Football isn't going anywhere. However, parents are going to increasingly not let their kids play the sport, because of the danger involved. In the years ahead, football is going to have a recruiting problem.
Written for the hearth so this question has a whole card on each side to argue with. No visitor wrote them, so the two parts only a person can fill are empty: what happened to you, and who on the other side called the case against fair.
Yes, from high school
Where this card stands
Yes, from high-school age, with limits on full-contact practice. Teenagers can take on a risk that adults explain to them, and the sport gives many of them a team and a coach.
How sure, before and after the case against
The strongest case against it
Children can’t weigh a risk to a brain that is still developing, and the damage comes from repeated hits long before anyone is diagnosed.
What would change this card’s mind
If long-term studies found players who started tackling young had clearly worse memory or mood later than those who started later.
No tackling before high school. Flag football keeps the game and the team without years of hits to a growing brain.
How sure, before and after the case against
The strongest case against it
Players who learn to tackle late learn it when they are bigger and faster and the hits are harder, and a ban pushes some families toward less supervised sports.
What would change this card’s mind
If players who started tackling late had more serious injuries in high school than those who learned young.
“Argue with this card” opens the card on the front page with this card’s position as the case against you. You write where you stand and what would change your mind.