Super Bowl star Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football

[ErikJ]

Source: NBC

Antwaan Randle El had a storied NFL career, which included a Super Bowl win 10 years ago with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but, in a recent interview, he says he wished none of it ever happened.

In a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interview commemorating past Steeler championship teams, Randle El raises what have now become familiar concerns about the physical toll the game of football can take. He retired early at the age of 32 in 2012, in part because “The kids are getting bigger and faster, so the concussions, the severe spinal cord injuries, are only going to get worse.”

He added: “There’s no correcting it. There’s no helmet that’s going to correct it. There’s no teaching that’s going to correct it. It just comes down to it’s a physically violent game. Football players are in a car wreck every week.”

Randle El’s remarks come amid increased attention to the risks of severe, lasting injury in football. The big screen Will Smith film “Concussion,” which dramatizes the discovery of the neurological disorder CTE in deceased NFL players, has helped reignite interest in the issue, and even 2016 presidential candidates have weighed in. Republican front-runner Donald Trump complained recently at a campaign rally that “football has become soft like our country has become soft.” But Randle El would likely beg to differ.

RELATED: President Obama tackles youth sports concussions

The 36-year-old describes struggling to climb stairs and significant memory loss. “I ask my wife things over and over again, and she’s like, ‘I just told you that,’” Randle El told the Post-Gazette. “I’ll ask her three times the night before and get up in the morning and forget. Stuff like that.”

What is especially regrettable for Randle El is that fact the he had the potential to play a different sport professionally. He was drafted out of high school to play professional baseball with the Chicago Cubs, but opted to pursue college football instead, because the sport offered him scholarship opportunities at institutions of higher education.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now, I could still be playing baseball,” he said.

Since leaving the league, Randle El joined in a 2013 lawsuit against the NFL that alleged that the league “has done everything in its power to hide the issues and mislead players concerning the risks associated with concussions.” That same year, thousands of other players had rallied to the cause of receiving retribution and the NFL reached a landmark $700 million-plus settlement with former players. A judge upheld the settlement last year, but suggested that the figure agreed upon may be insufficient.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/super-bowl-star-antwaan-randle-el-regrets-ever-playing-football?cid=sm_tw_msnbc

[iandhr]

2. Many former NFL players including some hall of famers have said...

... they wouldn't want their kids or grandkids to play.

[valerief]

3. Football and boxing are vicious and dangerous and should be deprecated. nt

[Mosby]

9. MMA is worse

At least in boxing they wear gloves and could wear headgear like the amateurs do. With football they have started promoting a different style of tackling that is safer and frankly better, provided the tackler has plenty of upper body strength. Even with changes though, football will continue to be a dangerous sport to play.

[BeyondGeography]

4. More kids will start choosing other sports

Not going to happen overnight, but more athletes at that level are going to take the non-football option over time.

[BeyondGeography]

7. You missed "at that level"

Come back to me when people who can make money at other sports choose MMA instead.

[saturnsring]

8. count me out on that. anyone who finds this crap entertaining should be seeking help

[AngryAmish]

38. A guy I know is around the 30 to 50 th ranked heavyweight mma fighter

He made 12k last year fighting, 5 k on sponsors. His girlfriend supports him.

[yeoman6987]

26. They will always have enough to play

Lots play as kid, only a percentage play high school, even less get on a team in college and heck it's impossible to get into the NFL. I just think they need to remember that when the contract was given nobody forced them to sign.

[cascadiance]

6. Bernie & Dems can help Iowa sports fans empathize here too with the fate of Tyler Sash this year.

... when the former Iowa football player was found dead after having dealt with these ailments after an NFL career winning a Super Bowl, to identify with his fellow Big Ten conference grad Randle El here.



http://www.thegazette.com/subject/location/schools/college/university-of-iowa/photo-iowa-will-honor-tyler-sash-with-helmets-saturday-20150910

And only a few days later cancer took the life of one of Iowa's all time best basketball players Roy Marble too the day before their football game that weekend where they wore those helmets. Though they won the football game as they did all of the rest of their regular season football games in unprecedented fashion, many fans still wish they could have those former players still alive today.

[rurallib]

11. thanks for the reminder about Tyler Sash

sad

[maxsolomon]

10. the only answer is to change the game

or end it.

the only things that can force that are parental boycotts at the pop warner level, or lawsuits that rob the league and colleges of their profits.

[countryjake]

12. Steve Gleason might have still been playing baseball, too.

http://www.teamgleason.org/

[DinahMoeHum]

13. Now do you want to know why Jeff Samardjzia. . .

. . .former All-American WR at Notre Dame (finalist for the Fred Belitnikoff Award)
went for MLB instead of the NFL?

Today he's a pitcher with the San Francisco Giants.

Wise move on his part.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-samardzijas-played-baseball-is-smart-2016-1

[awoke_in_2003]

36. The pay is better in MLB, too. nt

[cui bono]

14. Luckily, where my niece and nephews are growing up, soccer is very popular.

Although there is controversy regarding the head shots in that sport.

To be 36 and already retired and debilitated is sad. If I had kids there's no way I would allow them to play football.

.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

24. The below numbers indicate the amount of sports concussions...

...taking place per 100,000 athletic exposures. An athletic exposure is defined as one athlete participating in one organized high school athletic practice or competition, regardless of the amount of time played.

Football: 64 -76.8
Boys' ice hockey: 54
Girl's soccer: 33
Boys' lacrosse: 40 - 46.6
Girls' lacrosse: 31 - 35
Boys' soccer: 19 - 19.2
Boys' wrestling: 22 - 23.9
Girls' basketball: 18.6 - 21
Girls' softball: 16 - 16.3
Boys' basketball: 16 - 21.2
Girls' field hockey: 22 - 24.9
Cheerleading: 11.5 to 14
Girls' volleyball: 6 - 8.6
Boys' baseball: Between 4.6 - 5
Girls' gymnastics: 7

[cui bono]

25. Interesting, thanks. n/t

[WhoWoodaKnew]

32. You're welcome.

[musiclawyer]

15. I have long predicted the game will change

Eventually fewer to little timeouts to appease millenialls

Wider field, near soccer width, to put more speed on field and less bulk

Reduce inside linemen on each side of ball to four.

Running with head down and tackling above the shoulders heavily penalized

Yeah it's radical. But if you are still here in 20 years. That's what the game will look like

[Baclava]

16. They get millions to play a game - they know the risks

Crave the winning


amen

[CreekDog]

18. No, they don't

When his career started, even we didn't know the full extent of the risks.

But you go ahead and believe what you have chosen not to believe.

What you should believe is what is true based on evidence, not what your head tells you.

[Baclava]

19. It's a rough game

Loved me some El and I feel bad he's having difficulties with his health.


I highly doubt he regrets making millions, being a Super Bowl champion, and enjoying the life while he was on top

[CreekDog]

20. your first post about him "knowing the risks" was simple minded and wrong

that's all there is to say about that.

[Baclava]

21. Bullshit

Pro athletes get paid as much as they do because they have very short earning windows as compared to the rest of the general public. Athletes know there's going to be daily pain associated with being a gladiator for years on end if you are active long enough.

Anybody that says they don't know the risks is just plain stupid.

[LanternWaste]

31. You make lots of allegations, but provide absolutely no supporting evidence for any of them.

You make lots of allegations, but provide absolutely no supporting evidence for any of them.

I suppose that's often the best many people can do...

[BeyondGeography]

22. The NFL's position on CTE in football players is that the causes still need to be researched

You couldn't be more wrong.

[yeoman6987]

27. You don't think the players know the risks?

[BeyondGeography]

28. Are you saying the league claims it doesn't know the risks but the players are supposed to?

[ProfessorGAC]

29. I'll Say It (Sort Of)

And the league did know the risks. So did the players. The league pretended not to because it was a plausible deniability strategy in the event of lawsuit.

TR almost banned football over a 100 years ago because guys were dying ON THE FIELD!

We have been hearing about paralysis, and head trauma, and crippling arthritis in football since i was in grade school, and i'm 59.

The players knew the risks. The league knew the risks. The fans knew the risks. The game went on anyway.

[BeyondGeography]

30. Anecdotes more than cancel each other out

Because people believe what they want to believe, especially when something is popular and lucrative. Science is what matters (see "warming, global&quot and CTE was only identified after the death of Mike Webster 15 years ago. Then the NFL fought tooth-and-nail to discredit the findings of Dr. Omalu, which were subsequently validated in the study of 46 brains of ex-football players, 45 of whom showed signs of CTE. The league still claims that no one knows exactly where and when these cases of CTE started.

"The players should have known," is nothing more than uninformed, unsympathetic snobbery when applied to anyone who started playing the game more than a few years ago.

[ProfessorGAC]

34. Nonsense

They knew. I didn't say "they should have known". They knew.

You're the one being snobbish. You're assuming that because they play football, they're all stupid. Can't get much more snobbish than that.

[BeyondGeography]

35. You're just wrong...I guess this guy's a dope for believing in his team doctor

http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/12/jets_dbrickashaw_ferguson_feels_betrayed_by_nfl_af.html

[Not Sure]

17. I love football - love it - but this issue drove me away

I decided 3 years ago to stop watching and in every other way stop supporting the machine that is professional football. I also refuse to support or watch college football. As much as I would like a solution, I don't believe there is a path to correct this sport that makes it safe, whether such corrections come in the form of safety equipment or techniques. Quitting football sucks, but I see no other way to have an effect on the money machine that continues to chew up and spit out the players while enriching the fat cat owners. The destruction of the players' lives shouldn't be entertainment.

[Dawson Leery]

23. Barbaric game. I was never a fan.

[Monk06]

33. Here's the rugby world cup version of the super bowl Very physical, extremely fast and the ball

skill level is off the chart

Not a spectacle of colliding meat and all these guys are 225 -260 lbs

[madville]

37. I would take

a healthy body and being broke financially any day over being rich with a broken down body.

What's really sad are the guys that are broke financially and have the ill-health to go along with it, most don't get the multi-million dollar contracts.