Like vegan pizzas and secular Christmas celebrations, I can hear and understand the reasoning behind why people like football, but their explanation does nothing to make me want to participate on any level. So it’s very interesting to me to read this report of an apparent cultural shift, sparked by concerns about brain injury.

You really think the NFL is worried about young athletes? If so, they’d have changed the rules years ago, abandoning face masks, enlarging the ball to make it difficult to throw, switching to one platoon football. But they’re not worried about players. They’re worried about their money. Parents read the news, they know about concussions and CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. While a recent study wasn’t random — brains were donated by concerned families — the analysis by Boston University of brains from dead players showed that of 111 brains from NFL players, 110 suffered CTE, a condition causing depression, psychosis, dementia, memory loss and death. And what does science tell us? —Chicago Tribune