Catastrophic Football Injuries
The recent focus on concussions in football doesn’t take away from a longer term success, according to
data from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. Rule revisions like those that have barred leading with the helmet in blocking and tackling have eliminated football fatalities due to brain injuries, which went from 36 in 1968 (across all levels of the sport) to zero today. They’ve also reduced cervical cord injuries from 30 a year in the late 1960s to single digits in most years since 1991.
