Whenever you're falling or getting tackled, try to protect yourself. But that's part of the game; that's part of football.
The NFL should be more worried about pensions than CTE.
I never had problems with injuries as a kid or in the youth team. My injuries started at Chelsea, when I broke my foot during a pre-season game. That was just pure bad luck, but after that, I had some muscular injuries, too, so I had to get to know my body better.
I understand being second-guessed and stuff when an injury happens - certainly I understand that - but that's football.
He [Gerald R. Ford] played too much football with his helmet off.
You can be an astronaut, knowing it can be super dangerous but understand intuitively what the risk issues are. Not having the same usable knowledge about the risk of football, or any line of work, doesn't work.
I really do care about the health of the players. That's one of the tough things about the NFL - it's so physically tough on the players.
Sometimes, quarterbacks just get hurt. So do running backs, so do linemen, so do wide receivers. Blaming innovative schemes for these injuries is shortsighted.
We're going to start with the injury report, obviously. Manning, Clark, Addai, Reggie Wayne, Freeney, Mathis, Brackett - all those guys will not play. Oh, hold up. That was my wish list for Santa Claus.
Most of the hits I take come on top of the shoulder pads.
I'm concerned about the future of football, because we have paid a lot of attention to concussions. We are more aware of concussions. But it's really the repetitive minor injuries, the ones that are asymptomatic that occur on almost every play of the game, the sub-concussive hits: that's the big problem for football.
We've had people like Marc Vivien-Foe die while playing. There have been too many others, including Cheick Tiote. The clubs and the federations have to be serious about giving checkups to the players.
Certainly, our work has identified CTE in many professional football players, but we're also seeing it in a very high percentage of college players.
I'd love to still be able to play a bit of football, but my knees are shot to pieces.
I played the game for 20 years, and I think that kept me on the football field, being adjusted. Getting hit so many times, being all out of whack, and going in to see my chiropractor kept me back on the football field.
Some if it may seem hokey to some people, but if you traveled where I've traveled, done what I've done and seen the results that I've been getting, then you understand where I'm coming from. Playing in a football game is like being in 30-40 car accidents. You can find yourself in awkward positions. That stuff takes its toll. But if you take advantage of health care, balance your body back out, put it back where its supposed to be, you function better, and you recover faster.
I'm sure there were concussions galore back when we played, but the doctors would just say, 'Shake it off,' or something like that... or 'Come on, you got to be tough... get back in there.' I see so many guys who played pro football in their 50s now who are so debilitated from having played it.
Glute bridges make sure my hips are staying in line. Making sure that I'm not putting added stress on the hamstrings, hip flexors, or groin. Being able to stabilize the hips is pretty much the center of playing football, so you can stay healthy.
When the President of the United States comes out and says, 'If I had boys, I wouldn't let them play tackle football,' that's a big punch to the gut for our sport.
As we walked through the National Museum of African American History and Culture, I pushed my grandfather in a wheelchair he had reluctantly agreed to sit in. He is a proud man who also knows that his knees aren't what they once were - that years of high school and college football had long accelerated the deterioration of his aging joints.
As a manager, you always want as many players available as possible, but injuries are a part of football, as it is a contact sport.
My generation, people who played with me, they're suffering from football.
Jay Cutler, he's a fine quarterback, but I think at times he gets a little nicked up.
There's no doubt about it; playing football and how tough it is on the body afterwards.
The reality is that it's just the nature of the game. It's the nature of playing offensive line, defensive line, and linebackers, where your responsibilities as a player involve those little hits that are going to accumulate. You can't take that out of the game.
