(01-17-2023 02:20 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(01-17-2023 01:34 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  All of college football would need to shift together, I expect. As with any rules change.

I hope the thing that tips it isn't a particularly devastating concussion case. Better that it's simply newly empowered athletes working with health experts.

Football is Football bc it's our modern answer to Gladiators. If you take away the physical aspect of the game, it will wither on the vine
....

Gladiators didn't have collective bargaining, medical research, and access to modern courts. Athletes do.

If gladiators had all that, history would look different. The Caesars were rich. Rich entities get sued.

The deciding factor in game evolution will not always be what fans crave. Athletes must watch out for themselves first. Fans can be led.

Exhibit A: the Pro Bowl. Exhibit B: NIL. Exhibit C: transfer portal.

I do not see football as we know it today becoming flag football. I will watch some of the Pro Bowl just for the novelty but wouldn’t want that every week.

Girls flag football is now a thing in several states at the high school level. Not sure if it would ever make it to college.

I agree with the posters above, though: Tackle football isn't going away. Fewer people may play it, but more people are watching it.

(01-17-2023 11:19 PM)AssKickingChicken Wrote:  I do not see football as we know it today becoming flag football. I will watch some of the Pro Bowl just for the novelty but wouldn’t want that every week.

Everyone is an expert on what they want to watch. No argument there.

People once existed who felt football without the Flying Wedge was hardly worth watching. They were experts, too.

The game has been evolving for well over a century. The overall direction has been toward less contact and greater safety. College students used to get killed playing American football in numbers that would be shocking now.

It's likely that future changes—and there will always be changes—will continue the general trend.