Since the damaging impact of concussions on football players across all levels of the sport has become indisputable, there’s been a heightened focus on finding a way to make the game less dangerous without changing it too much from it’s current, brutal form.
One of those proposed solutions was “Heads Up Football,” a heavily-promoted initiative to teach coaches (and, as a result, youth players) better safety procedures and proper tackling drills. But a new report finds that claims of the program’s effectiveness have been greatly exaggerated.
The NFL funds the program, and USA Football — the governing body of youth football in the country — oversees it. Last year, the NFL and USA Football released findings from an independent study claiming that Heads Up reduced injuries by 76 percent and concussions by 29 percent.
Great news, right?
Well, not so fast. Alan Schwartz of the New York Times reported on Tuesday that those numbers came from preliminary findings, released five months before the study was complete.
The final study separated data from leagues who played by Pop Warner rules (with no affiliation to USA Football) and those who solely used Heads Up guidelines. They found that not only did the Heads Up program alone not reduce concussions by 30 percent, it actually resulted in a slight (and statistically insignificant) increase in concussions.
Can This New Football League Be The Savior The Sport Needs?As I drove up to Baltimore on a rainy, cold day in March to watch the Baltimore Cobras of the American 7s Football…thinkprogress.orgThe Heads Up program did reduce overall injuries by 45 percent. That is far from a trivial drop, but it’s significantly less than the heavily-publicized 76 percent that the NFL and USA Football touted.
Overall, the Pop Warner strategy of greatly reducing full-contact practice time and outlawing the most dangerous heads-on blocking and tackling drills was the most significant. But USA Football does not promote those strategies. (As Deadspin put it, “football is safer the less you play it.”)
Those involved with USA Football and the NFL said they were unaware that they were promoting inaccurate figures.
“USA Football erred in not conducting a more thorough review with Datalys to ensure that our data was up to date,” Scott Hallenbeck, the executive director of USA Football, told the Times in an email. “We regret that error.”
Datalys, the firm that conducted the study, said they released the figures (76 percent fewer injuries and a 29 percent fewer concussions) in February 2015 before the full study was complete because, “the results were so compelling, we felt morally obligated to make the youth football community aware of the results.” Datalys representatives said that they did not specifically alert USA Football that the findings from the completed study contradicted the numbers released in February.
As NFL Continues To Downplay Concussion Concerns, Roger Goodell Gets Safety AwardSports by CREDIT: Alex Brandon, AP This week, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will be presented with the Jacksonville…thinkprogress.orgWhile Datalys is taking the blame for this particular incident, it’s clear USA Football and the NFL did not do due diligence before presenting incorrect and downright misleading information to the public.
This isn’t anything new, of course. A congressional report in May found that the NFL tried to interfere with concussion research by the National Institute of Health, and a Times report earlier this year found that from 1996–2001 the NFL omitted more than 100 concussions from data used for concussion research.
But it’s becoming harder and harder for the league to cover up the truth. Many NFL players are retiring early due to concussion concerns, and participation in youth football is declining at alarming rates.