The things you've mentioned seem like they fall in to the category of responses to increased awareness of CTE associated with contact sports. There's not dropping your kid off at the play ground... and there's not wanting your kid to lose their mind in their twenties because of repeated concussions. I'm mostly aware of it from the high profile pop culture cases like Aaron Hernandez and O.J. but it seems like a serious cause for concern and I don't think football will look the same in the next decade or so as it has in the past - especially in terms of high school athletics. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31610856/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_players_with_chron...

Well, there's some argument for stats and science here.

Padding for Rugby might actually make sense whereas the trend where kids can't go to the park or the grocery store alone is counterproductive.

A world where kids playing actually risky sports use safety equipment but also have the independence to go to the park and do pick-up games with friends with no adult supervision, that sounds like the right balance. Not every change today is bad.

It's not settled science but there's decent evidence that the padding and helmets contribute to the more violent nature of American football (where serious and long term injuries are more common than in rugby).

That is comparing professional to professional. The reason young children in rugby get padding is not so they can hit harder, but because they haven't internalized proper tackling form yet. So many more kids are going to get a knee to the face as they tackle their opponent, or unintentionally truck a person they're trying to tackle, compared to older people who know how to tackle correctly and safely.

It's difficult to separate out equipment from rules and just general attitudes--at least at lower levels of the sports. (And rugby is certainly not immune from concussion issues.) I do remember long-ago undergraduate we had some major problems in a match against a team where the rugby players were basically castoffs from that school's top-tier football program. We ended up walking off the field because they were basically deliberately trying to hurt people.

The issue with American football is the "line in the sand" nature of yardage. In rugby, as long as you wrap up the ball carrier and bring him down, it's fine if he gets another couple yards. In contrast, letting a running back get another couple yards is often the difference between a first down and a turnover.

Another reason is the lack of laterals in American football. In rugby, if you commit too hard to tackling a player, he laterals the ball to the player next to him, and you're now in a really, really bad defensive position. In contrast, laterals are so rare in American football that you can commit as hard as you want without consequences.

Neither of these things go away if you get rid of the helmets and pads; it just makes it more likely that people will die on the field, as they frequently did before helmets and pads were introduced. At one point, football was killing so many college students that President Roosevelt threatened to ban it.

This seems likely; the boxing equivalent is well-known.

Repeated concussions are suspected of increasing the risk of developing mental health problems one day by several times.

This might be the correct term: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalop...

The amount of concussions that happen in high/middle school is staggering, and has real effects. Theres a reason why 'dumb (contact sport) player' is such a pervasive stereotype. I, for one am really happy that full contact sports are being treated with some more caution.

"old man yells at cloud"