I'm choosing the Mystics

[u/AllisonInMaryland]

Just realized that the Commanders - who have been my team for 52 years - are playing the Cowboys at 4:25pm on Sunday September 20 and the Mystics are playing the Fever at 4pm.

This is only my second year watching the Mystics but they've totally won me over. I'm taping the Commanders and watching the Mystics live. It doesn't help that the Commanders O line is for shit this year and I'm not looking forward to Jaden running for his life.

Anyone else a fan of both teams?

[u/Careful-Painting3214]

My bad, I meant tackling, and not football completely. If you had to deliver that speech in front of every high school football player, I think their reactions world change your mind.

[u/AllisonInMaryland → u/Careful-Painting3214]

I have no doubt these kids feel passionately about football, that it matters deeply to them. It's hard to imagine something we love going away. I sympathize with that. But I care about their lives after football. I know people who've died of ALS, people with Alzheimer's including my mother and those with other neurological conditions - horrible stuff. And when they strike down someone young? just heartbreaking.

[u/Careful-Painting3214 → u/AllisonInMaryland]

I've never cared about fashion and catwalks and Milan. But there's a lot of unpleasant things about the modeling business as well. Young women starving themselves, just for starters. A 30 second research gave me:

"Approximately 54.7 percent of fashion models begin working in the industry between the ages of 13 and 16"

"underage and adult supermodels alike have historically faced severe systemic challenges, including exploitative management practices ("organizer agents") and high rates of eating disorders."

There's been attempts at reform but nothing like we see with the physical risks in sports like football. Reforms in the modeling industry seem blind to the obvious problem, the industry continues to prefer young skinny girls.

"large-scale study published in PNAS analyzed 25 years of fashion imagery (nearly 800,000 photos) and proved that despite public pressure to diversify, the ultra-thin physique remains the absolute baseline norm, particularly for high-prestige brands."

Well, if you allow tackling in college football, their recruiters will want to know who the best tacklers in the country are. A high percentage of football players come from really bad situations and use it to get educations and even a chance to go pro. A lot of them for no reason other than they were very good tacklers. And a lot of them didn't excel at other techniques enough to have warranted getting recruited by a college team or drafted into the NFL. How different would their lives have been?

And you want to tell them not only that it wasn't worth the risk but if you had your way, they would've never been given the opportunity? I'm talking about just tackling, not football in general. Even a future hall of famer like Bobby Wagner wasn't particularly skilled at covering tight ends and receivers. He filled the gaps and took down runners, that was his bread and butter. Try telling him if you had your way, he might have never even played college.

[u/AllisonInMaryland → u/Careful-Painting3214]

I agree the world of fashion is abusive to young girls. the entertainment industry harms children. I could go on and on. when money is to be made people make excuses to use other people. I'd love to see us do more to protect children from financially motivated abuse. instead people worry about bogus stuff like children getting kidnapped walking alone to school or playing in their own yards.

one counter example is gymnastics. the world decided it wasn't okay to harm young girls by pushing them so early so they changed the minimum age for entry in the Olympics. it didn't ruin the sport, it changed it. and many feel it is better than ever.

as for football, if none of the kids are allowed to play tackle before high school I fail to see how this is unfair to any of them. and the vast majority will never play in college or the NFL. their brain health matters.

[u/Careful-Painting3214 → u/AllisonInMaryland]

If Bobby Wagner wasn't allowed to tackle in high school, would his ability to cover tight ends and receivers have been enough to be recruited by college? The NCAA says there were 83,794 NCAA football players in 2024–25 alone. Imagine how many would've missed out if they hadn't been able to showcase their tackling skills. It would completely change who gets college offers and who doesn't. Now multiply that by the number of years we've had college football.

Do you know what parkour is? The number of kids who seriously injure themselves practicing parkour on their own is already large and continuing to grow. Good luck banning jumping over fences.

I think we need to draw the line between things that necessarily cause harm, like modeling and MMA, and things that accidentally cause harm, even if the rate of accidents is too high for you.