Why We Need Hit Counts in Football – Brain Health Education and Research Institute

We already count pitches in baseball to save arms. Is it time to track hits in football to save lives? Here’s a modest proposal: Count hits to the head in football just as we track pitches in baseball.

As the risks of concussions and other brain trauma from playing football have become clearer, leagues have tried to limit the bone-rattling thwacks that were once celebrated by cheering spectators. Yet researchers increasingly believe that football-related head trauma is more likely to result from multiple–and often perfectly legal–hits, rather than a single shot. Which means the danger of playing football is as much in the accumulation of small hits to the head as it is the stomach-churning big one. And yet no major organization at any level of the game, from Pop Warner to the NFL, has a mechanism in place for counting the number of blows players take to the head.

The concept of limiting a pitchers’ throws to prevent injury has become gospel throughout baseball, from Little League—where young pitchers must leave the game after reaching pre-set caps—to the pros, despite the fact that there is no scientific consensus about how these numbers actually preserve vulnerable arms. These counts are so entrenched that graphics on TV broadcasts keep a running tally of throws, and announcers fill air time debating how long arms can hold up. Yet in football, where brains are at stake and the science is clear, a similar debate over instituting hit counts is virtually non-existent.