Jim Otto Quotes

Football has always been violent. In the early days of the game, they didn't wear hard helmets. They wore soft helmets, which were just designed to protect the ears. In the '40s and '50s they began to introduce hard helmets, which provided much more protection against things like skull fractures.

I never had a concussion playing rugby.

The NFL today has bigger, stronger, bodies than ever, moving faster than ever, hitting a stationary object harder than ever before - so the physics of the hit have changed.

Head and neck injuries are what parents thinking about letting their children play tackle football should be thinking about, talking about, and demanding answers about, from any coach presenting himself as a worthy custodian for their child's introduction to tackle football.

Yeah, I mean there's points in every game where you get a hit and you feel a little woozy. Not every game, but mostly every game you hit someone and you're like, 'Whoa, that was a good one.'

I would bet you that even though people think I absorbed an inordinate number of head injuries, I'd say relative to the number of guys who have played this game, I would say that my head injuries were relatively small.

I would advise kids not to play any sports, such as tackle football, where they are exposed to repeated blows to the head.

They're on the right road, but there's a long way to go on concussions, not only in the NFL, but college football, high school football and all football.

I just banged it a little bit on a helmet. And you know, if you get your throwing motion and momentum going at a helmet it makes it hurt a little more and it freaks everybody out because it's your throwing shoulder, but honestly, it feels great.

To recognize that head injuries were as essential a part of football as they are of boxing would be to erase the fine distinction on which the game's respectability rested.

It's great playing a sport where you don't get hit in the head.

Boxing is a great example of it, but in football, sometimes you're taking greater hits than boxers. When you have one man going full speed against another man, and those heads are colliding, it's just the fact of science you're going to have results.

The only way you're gonna eliminate helmet-to-helmet contact is to take the helmets off. Go back to leather helmets. I mean, I think a defensive player would be much less inclined to lead with his head if he had no protection.

As long as we're having contact and as long as there are collisions, there's going to be head injuries. What the long-term consequences are of that, we're beginning to learn, and that definitely will have an impact on the game as we know it.

I'm not in the business to get hit and take concussions.

Number one, from a tackling standpoint, we teach strike zone hits, and we want to hit absolutely as hard as we can in that strike zone, and that's absolutely what we call a batter in the batters box from the chest all the way down to the knees.

The truth is, what Americans enjoy about football is much of what makes the sport dangerous. However, I believe there must be a way to find the art of success and vitality in football, without the driving the level of impact that causes serious risk of head trauma, paralysis and other life-changing injuries.

Concussions happen. If not on every play, then they happen like every other, every third play, you know.

It doesn't take science to know that when you have head-to-head collisions, there's going to be some effect.

Despite the fact that every sport this side of badminton worries about concussions that result in brain damage, CTE, the National Hockey League refuses to accept the overwhelming medical science. Good grief - the NHL still permits fights.

Concussions, you have to be really honest with yourself, and sometimes that's hard to do.

I want to leave this sport with a little bit of my brains left.

While the U.S. government is unlikely to ever limit the number of football games, plenty of parents are refusing to let their children play the sport due to the risk of head injuries.

It makes common sense that children, whose brains are rapidly developing, should not be hitting their heads hundreds of times per season.

I'd hate to see the game I love go away because it is considered too dangerous and parents are scared to allow their kids to play.