Nwankwo Kanu 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.

We will always make sure player health and safety is our No. 1 priority in the NFL.

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.

The NFL, sadly, has a fatal environmental problem: It kills its workers.

You always want to see the NFL try to protect the players.

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.

I think they shouldn't allow cut blocks, because our knees are important to us, too. I know concussions are a big deal, too, but I think knee, cut blocks are a big deal, but that seems to be OK with the NFL. So they're not too concerned about safety, obviously.

I understand football is a freaky sport, and injuries happen.

I have a little easier time watching the NFL than college or high school. I used to go to the high school games, and now I have trouble with it. The NFL players get big rewards from it. I feel at least the NFL has made big changes to help their safety. And they're adults - they can make good decisions.

I'm very proud of high school, college and pro football, the strides have been made to make it a safer game.

The quarterback is the most vulnerable one on the field. He's in an awkward position a lot of times when he throws the ball. So he does have to be protected. You lose a quarterback, you're in trouble. I don't know if they can make it too safe. I think health becomes an issue.

I'm concerned about the future of football, because we have paid a lot of attention to concussions. We are more aware of concussions. But it's really the repetitive minor injuries, the ones that are asymptomatic that occur on almost every play of the game, the sub-concussive hits: that's the big problem for football.

There's been a lot talk about football and safety issues. My big thing is the benefits far outweigh the risks.

But the equipment to protect the players hasn't developed along with that, so now you have more players out with worse injuries, for longer periods of time.

Of course, in pro ball, they never hit the quarterback in practice.

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.

But now there are more concussions due to not being used to the hard hitting.

As a player, I was fortunate to work with coaching and medical staffs that underscored the importance of utilizing injury prevention exercises, which contributed to my healthy and long playing career.

News writing and sports writing have become synonymous. And it started with, you know, free agency, and now it's in the concussion debate.

If you really want to get rid of the problems in the NFL, put Obama in charge of it: in a few months it will be so deep in debt it will have to go out of business - no more concussions.

I'm sure there were concussions galore back when we played, but the doctors would just say, 'Shake it off,' or something like that... or 'Come on, you got to be tough... get back in there.' I see so many guys who played pro football in their 50s now who are so debilitated from having played it.

We don't want our players getting hurt.

Concussions have brought the consciousness to the problem, but I think the problem is football-related injuries, period, and the lack of support from the league of those players who have suffered those injuries. The denial factor has been unbelievable. I'm here because I'm a fighter to try to bring attention to this fact.

I really do care about the health of the players. That's one of the tough things about the NFL - it's so physically tough on the players.

I think medically, football is generally well looked after. There are always checks made. Anything which can be done to make footballers or sportsmen of any area safer has to be encouraged.