Purpose of Review
Professional football quarterbacks are at particular risk for upper extremity injuries due to the physical demands of their position coupled with the inherent risks associated with ...professional football. This review sought to evaluate current clinical literature to better characterize the injury profile unique to this athletic population.
Recent Findings
Shoulder injuries are the most prevented upper extremity injury among professional football quarterbacks. The quarterback position is disproportionately impacted by shoulder injuries when compared to professional athletes at other positions. Moreover, contrary to other professional throwing athletes, the majority of upper extremity injuries in the professional quarterback result from direct contact as opposed to the throwing motion.
Summary
The injury profile among professional quarterbacks is unique compared to other positions and other overhead professional throwing athletes. Overall, a paucity of high quality clinical evidence exists to support the management of injuries in this elite population.
A profile of a National Football League team Pryor, J Luke; Huggins, Robert A; Casa, Douglas J ...
Journal of strength and conditioning research
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Journal Article
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The purpose of this study was to document the physical profiles of players on the 2011 New York Giants (NYG) team and to make comparisons with the historical literature on previous National Football ...League (NFL) player profiles. In this study, height, body mass (BM), body fat percentage (BF%) using skinfold measurements, and several predicted 1 repetition maximal strength and power measures in 30 returning players from the 2011 NYG team, who recently won the Super Bowl, were collected. Players were grouped by position: running back, quarterback (QB), wide receiver (WR), tight end, offensive lineman (OL), defensive lineman (DL), linebacker (LB), and defensive back (DB). Pooled and weighted mean differences (NYG - NFL) and effect sizes were used to evaluate height, BM, and BF% comparisons of NYG to previous NFL studies from 1998 to 2009. The characteristics of the players as a group were: age, height, BM, BF%: 26 ± 2 years, 183.8 ± 9.0 cm, 144.9 ± 20.8 kg, 14.3 ± 5.5%, respectively. Comparisons highlight distinct position-specific dissimilarity in strength measures, BM, and BF%, which reflect current strength training, conditioning, and team play strategy. As expected, NYG positional differences were found for height (p ≤ 0.05), BM (p ≤ 0.037), BF% (p ≤ 0.048), bench press (p ≤ 0.048), inclined bench press (p ≤ 0.013), and squat (p ≤ 0.026). Anthropometrics profiles did not significantly differ from previously published trends in NFL players indicating equity in physical characteristics over the past 13 years. However, NYG LBs, DLs, OLs, QBs, and WRs trended toward less BF% but generally similar BM compared with NFL players, suggesting greater lean BM in these positions. This study adds new players' data to prototypical position-specific databases that may be used as templates for comparison of players for draft selection or physical training.
This article proposes a new metric to proxy for the incidence of player absences faced by National Football League teams based on the percentage of team payroll resources that are inactive over the ...course of a season. This variable significantly predicts team performance. Calculating this measure for individual position groups allows me to test for differences in the marginal impact of salary resources across these groups. Results indicate that resources dedicated to offense, in particular to offensive linemen and starting quarterbacks, have the highest marginal impact on team performance. This suggests a market inefficiency where these players were relatively underpaid.
In general, National Football League (NFL) players tend to live longer than the general population. However, little information exists about the long-term mortality risk in this population. Frequent, ...yet mild, head trauma may be associated with early mortality in this group of elite athletes. Therefore, career playing statistics can be used as a proxy for frequent head trauma. Using data from Pro Football Reference, we analyzed the association between age-at-death, position, and NFL seasons-played among 6,408 NFL players that were deceased as of July 1, 2018. The linear regression model allowing for a healthy worker effect demonstrated the best fit statistics (F-statistic = 9.95, p-value = 0.0016). The overall association of age-at-death and seasons-played is positive beginning at the 10.75 and 10.64 seasons-played point in our two models that feature seasons-played and seasons-played squared as explanatory variables. Previous research that does not account for this survivorship bias/healthy worker effect may not adequately describe mortality risk among NFL players.
National Football League (NFL) teams spend substantial time and money trying to predict which college quarterbacks eligible to be drafted into the NFL will have successful professional careers. But ...despite this investment of resources, it is common for quarterbacks to perform much better or worse than anticipated. Prior work on this “quarterback prediction problem†has concluded that NFL teams are poor at determining which quarterbacks are likely to be successful based on information available prior to the draft. However, these analyses have generally focused only on quarterbacks who played in the NFL, ignoring those who were drafted but did not appear in a professional game. Using data on all quarterbacks drafted since 1997, we considered the problem of predicting NFL success as defined by two metrics (games played and Net Points), based on when a quarterback was drafted and his performances in college and at the NFL Combine. Our analyses suggest that college and combine statistics have little value for predicting whether a quarterback will be successful in the NFL. Contrary to previous work, we conclude that NFL teams aggregate pre-draft information—including qualitative observations—quite effectively, and their inability to consistently identify college quarterbacks who will excel in the professional ranks is a consequence of random variability in future performance due to factors which are unlikely to be observable.
The disparity between athlete compensation and major sports revenues has produced criticisms of The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)’s Collegiate Model of athletic competition. In ...defense, the NCAA argues that it promotes competitive balance. One implication is that moving toward a professional model would reduce balance. The present article tests this hypothesis by comparing competitive balance in Power-5 conference football to that for the professional National Football League (NFL) using a variety of balance metrics. The results provide no support for the NCAA’s implicit hypothesis of less balance in the NFL, undermining competitive balance as a legitimate defense of the NCAA’s Collegiate Model.
Background:
Multiple risks predispose professional football players to adverse health outcomes and, in extreme cases, early death; however, our understanding of etiological risk factors related to ...early mortality is limited.
Purpose:
To identify etiological risk factors associated with all-cause and cause-specific mortality among National Football League (NFL) players.
Study Design:
Systematic review; Level of evidence, 3.
Methods:
Articles examining all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk factors among previous NFL players were identified by systematically searching: PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar from 1990 to 2017. Study eligibility and quality were evaluated using the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines.
Results:
A total of 801 nonduplicated studies were identified through our search strategy. Of these, 9 studies examining 11 different risk factors were included in the systematic review. Overall, the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality was lower among NFL players than among the general male population in the United States. Nonwhite athletes, those in power positions, and those with a high playing-time body mass index (≥30 kg/m2) were associated with elevated all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risks.
Conclusion:
Methodological issues associated with the examined all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk factors preclude a definitive conclusion of etiological protective or risk effects. Comparison groups less prone to selection bias (“healthy worker effect”) and a life-course approach to the evaluation of suspected risk factors are warranted to identify etiological factors associated with early mortality among NFL players.
Background: Neurofilament (NF) proteins are major cytoskeletal constituents of neurons. Increased CSF NF levels may reflect neuronal degeneration. Objective: To investigate the diagnostic value of ...CSF NF analysis to discriminate in relatively young dementia patients between frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTLD) and early onset Alzheimer’s disease (EAD; onset ⩽65 years of age), and in elderly dementia patients between dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and late onset AD (LAD; onset >65 years of age). Methods: In CSF of 28 FTLD, 37 EAD, 18 DLB and 33 LAD patients, and 26 control subjects, we analysed NF light chain (NFL), phosphorylated NF heavy chain (pNFH), amyloid β42 protein (Aβ42), total tau and tau phosphorylated at threonine 181 (p-tau181). Results: CSF NFL levels were higher in FTLD patients compared with EAD patients (p<0.001), and diagnostic accuracy of p-tau181 and Aβ42 analysis improved with addition of NFL analysis (sensitivity 86%, specificity 100%). CSF pNFH levels were elevated in DLB, LAD and FTLD compared with controls (p<0.05) but no significant differences were found between the dementia groups. Conclusions: In the diagnostic workup of relatively young dementia patients, CSF NFL levels may play a role in the discrimination between FTLD and EAD, especially in combination with Aβ42 and p-tau181 analysis.
Doctors, journalists, and other advocates are attempting to draw attention to the dangers of head trauma in football, and the popularity of social media has given them a new outlet to perform ...advocacy. This case study explores how advocates for concussion awareness in football used Twitter to help spread their message during the 2013 Super Bowl. A content analysis of tweets from 92 concussion advocates on the day of the Super Bowl was conducted. Analysis revealed that the advocates used Twitter for (a) linking to football concussion content, (b) Super Bowl game-related commentary, (c) non-concussion or non–Super Bowl related links or messages, (d) linking to non-football concussion content, (e) concussion-related commentary, (f) engagement, and (g) self or website promotion. Results demonstrate that while advocates have a tremendous opportunity to use the agenda-setting possibilities that are afforded through Twitter, concussion advocates did not utilize Twitter in this manner.
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