Are Concussion Realities Helping To Erase Warrior Mentality of NFL Players?

Despite the increased awareness of concussions and head-related traumas in the National Football League, the sport will always be home to the "warrior mentality"—a mindset that the game as it is currently structured requires.

Simply put, the "tough guy" attitude is far too engrained into the sport for it to change in the short term, even if the evidence of long term effects on health are becoming well-documented in the sport. 

There are obvious reasons for this conclusion. 

For starters, few would argue that the NFL is home to some of the most impressive athletes on the planet.

260-pound linebackers now run at a sprinter's speed. Defensive and offensive linemen often tip the scales at over 320 pounds but move on their feet as if they were half the size. Safeties and cornerbacks can—when equipped with helmets on their heads—become human projectile missiles capable of all kinds of havoc. 

The NFL is also home to some of the toughest athletes in the world. 

Few sports require the kind of violent collisions football ensures on every play. Those same linebackers that run 4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash mash heads every first, second and third down with guys like the 320-pound pulling guard, whose sole job is to put that linebacker flat on his hind parts, and the 280-pound fullback running full speed through the hole to seek and destroy the line backer. 

It's a violent game. And violent games cause injuries. 

But as a football player, you're taught to fight through injuries. Bust up your arm? Rub some dirt on it. Ankle throbbing? Tape it up and get out there. Chronic pain? Nothing a shot or two can't fix for the next three hours. 

The same even goes for head injuries among current players. 

Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher, arguably one of the game's toughest overall players, admitted in January to HBO's Real Sports that he would hide a concussion so he could continue playing. 

"

If I have a concussion these days, I'm going to say something happened to my toe or knee just to get my bearings for a few plays. I'm not going to sit in there and say I got a concussion, I can't go in there the rest of the game.

"

Urlacher expressed little concern for any long term effects. 

"

First of all we love football. We want to be on the field as much as we can be. If we can be out there, it may be stupid, it may be dumb, call me dumb and stupid then because I want to be on the football field.

"

That mindset likely isn't shared with 100 percent of professional football players, but you'd be crazy to think that a majority of players—even after the rash of tragic deaths among former players—share Urlacher's sentiment on the entire issue. 

From most of our chairs—the one's that don't host an NFL player—Urlacher's mindset is idiotic.

A correlation between repeated head injuries and later health difficulties and debilitation is no longer just a theory. It's well documented that the things you do to your brain now have an effect down the road. Risking what Dave Duerson went through, what Junior Seau potentially suffered from and what hundreds of others continue to fight for, the chance to finish out an otherwise meaningless football game seems borderline insane. 

But that's exactly how football players work. 

Violence, injury and toughness are engrained into the players, mostly because the three are intertwined in the game. To know one is to the know the other. 

And unless that connection is somehow broken—which remains unlikely if the NFL is to keep its vastly superior product—the warrior mentality will continue. 

Urlacher simply admitted what 95 percent of other NFL players actually think. 

Do you really think that Ray Lewis is thinking about the possibility of future depression or dementia on third-and-3 in the fourth quarter? Would he sprint to the sidelines beforehand if his bell got rung the play before?

I'll let you answer that for yourself. 

Don't get me wrong, the awareness and aggressiveness from the NFL on the issue of concussions and head injuries has been admirable since Roger Goodell took over as commissioner. The league is safer now than it was before his policies came into place. 

But there's very little that Goodell can do to shake the mindset of football players. He can fine James Harrison all the money in the world, but he's still going to knock out the 185-pound receiver attempting to run a drag route into his zone. 

It's what he was trained and programed to do. 

The concussion issue is a big problem for the NFL. In fact, it's probably the single most pressing problem the league has faced in terms of long-term security in recent memory. 

But to really enact change in the sport, the powers that be have to find a way to change the culture of football. Change the mindset.

And unless Goodell and the higher-ups at the NFL can find a way to do that without disintegrating everything about the game that brings in billions of dollars every year, don't expect the recent increase in concussion awareness to drastic change what's going on between the shoulders of NFL players.