According to an opinion article published by The Guardian, the danger of the game is no longer theoretical or limited to individual incidents. A recent study published in the British Medical Journal, which examined the brains of former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021, showed that 215 out of 235 donated brains carried signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy known as CTE.
The study indicates, according to the newspaper, that the prevalence of the disease among deceased NFL players during that period may have been at a minimum of 24.5%, and at a maximum of 97.7%, with the actual rate being somewhere between the two numbers. This conclusion means that the disease may not be marginal among those who spend their careers in stadiums, but rather a danger that affects a wide segment of players.
The danger does not come from just one hit, but from repetition. In every game, lines collide, and heads receive small concussions that do not always register as direct hits. However, over the years, it may turn into long-term neurological damage, associated with depression, apathy, impaired executive functions, and declining cognitive abilities.
The newspaper draws attention to a very harsh figure: every 2.6 years of playing football, the probability of contracting CTE doubles. Also, one football season in high school or college may expose a player to between 600 and 1,000 subconcussive blows, that is, blows that do not necessarily lead to a clear concussion but leave a cumulative effect on the brain.
These numbers become more serious when placed in the context of American reality, where some children begin playing violent football at the age of five. Therefore, the newspaper believes that talking about the need for boys to play this game is no longer just cultural nostalgia or old masculine rhetoric, but may even come close to exposing children to danger.
Concerns do not stop at CTE. The article also indicates that playing football increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by 61% compared to athletes in other organized sports, and that the risk is higher for those who played at the university or professional level.
Numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. In a book published in 2024 about the cost of college football on people, The Guardian journalists spoke to former players who lived through the effects of brain injuries. Some of them said that they feared that they had CTE, but that they would not know that until after death, because a confirmed diagnosis is usually made only after a post-mortem brain examination. Others reported panic attacks, memory loss, and difficulty staying in school or speaking after repeated concussions.
These testimonies make the discussion less abstract. The problem is not only in the future of a professional player who earns millions of dollars, but in the thousands of boys and young men who enter the game in schools and universities, and are exposed to the same blows before they even reach professionalism.
The newspaper says that one of the former players spoke about colleagues who played in the NFL and then ended their lives, before post-mortem examinations revealed that they had CTE. This type of story increases fears of the relationship between repeated trauma and severe psychological and neurological outcomes.
In 2025 alone, 9 former NFL players under the age of 48 died, 7 of them by suicide, according to the article. The newspaper uses this number to confirm that the football tragedy is not far away or postponed, but is already happening, even if the audience does not always connect the exciting present on the screen with the painful future off the field.
As for the NFL, it confirms its commitment to player safety, and over the past years it has made amendments to the rules of play and protocols for dealing with concussions. But “The Guardian” believes that these measures do not change the essence of the game: American football, as it is played today, is still based on repeated collisions with the head and body.
Therefore, the article reaches a sharp conclusion: the league will not stop itself. Companies, channels, sponsors and fans are all part of a huge machine that makes the game bigger than just a sport. If the regime is not ready to back down, the decision goes to the fans, families and schools.
