Mike Lupica believes NFL should use a waiver form
By Mark Carman
Mike Lupica speculates on the future of the NFL and the challenge parents face when their children want to play football.
Mike Lupica used to have some interesting conversations with Mike Ditka when he was getting ready for The Sports Reporters on ESPN.
“We were sitting in the green room at ESPN getting ready and Ditka would wander in. One time he showed me a picture,” Lupica remembered. Look what I (Ditka) wore and look at what they (current NFL players) wear. I was much more conscious of protecting my head wearing that (old helmet) than they are wearing this. Ditka thinks the players were less inclined to lead with their head when they were wearing those skinny old helmets. Helmets that feel like body armor empower them to take more risks with their head.”
Player safety and the lawsuits that pop up around it is still something the NFL is figuring out. Lupica has a solution.
“I have said that eventually they are going to have players sign a waiver form. You come into the league, you understand the risks of brain injury. You understand football is a violent sport, and it will indemnify the league against future lawsuits.”
Lupica does not believe, like some do, that the NFL is on going to be extinct one day.
“I don’t believe football is dying. I don’t think its ever going to be like boxing has become in this country. Literally and figuratively, I think the NFL is too big to fail.”
Lupica has a new book out titled Lone Stars targeted for young readers. The book takes a look at the challenges parents face when deciding whether or not to let their kids play football.
“The greatest threat to the National Football League isn’t a court case, or the NFL players association. It’s Mom,” Lupica opined. “Once moms in greater and greater numbers decide they don’t want their sons to play football, then they do have a problem.”
Lupica has four children, three sons, but admits to dodging a bullet with none of them loving the game. He can see a scenario where the way youth football is played undergoes a significant change.
“Now that we are all living the world of the new information about CTE and concussions and all the rest of it. I can see an America where kids are playing flag football until they get to high school,” Lupica said.
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Lupica does see the NFL changing, but only because they have been forced to.
“Now they are doing everything that they can, but think about how they identified what a serious problem this is. How negligent they were in the past, cause they did write a 762 million dollar check and they did it without blinking an eye.”