Is This Truly Valued? 

By: Charlie

An image that displays a helmet to helmet collision that the NFL is trying t o remove from happening in the game.

There were a reported 281 concussions in the 2018 NFL season. NFL concussion stats. 

Hearing these statistics as a parent would you want to let your child play the seriously dangerous sport of football? The most common answer is no. In fact, the amount of kids playing football each year has significantly decreased. Even other sports with lots of contact like hockey, the number of kids has decreased. I myself am a hockey player and throughout the years I have seen many terrible horrifying injuries to some of my best friends and the same thing goes for football, all the players know the risk when they step on to that field. Being a huge fan of the NFL knowing that the NFL claims that one of their main values is the safety of the players. This is why they have significantly changed some of the rules of the game. In a way these rule changes have impacted the game in many ways angering some of the fans because it is believed that the game is being changed for the worse. For example, there have been many rules added which protect the players from getting injured and if these rules are broken by opposing players there are penalties and occasionally players are disqualified from the game for their actions. So, the question is how can the game be changed so there aren't as many injuries but also be the same sport we all know and love. Clearly, the NFL is progressing in ways that protect its players but is it enough? Can there be more done? Obviously yes, there always can be, and overall there always will be injuries. However, the main goal is to limit the injuries and the NFL is seemingly doing for the most part everything possible to crack down on these injuries. In general the NFL talked about how much they valued the safety of its players and ended up taking action and doing something about it. In life, and throughout the world in each and every community this is something that isn't done very well. People do not defend their words with actions. For example people do not back something up they say by actually following through and doing it like the NFL did in this situation. The NFL knew there was a problem at hand, the NFL said what their values were and that the safety of the players was important to them so they fixed it the best they could. If more people followed through with their values and beliefs like the NFL our communities and our world would be made a better place.