The Role of Government Safeguarding the Health of NFL Players

Question: Explain the Role of Government in Safeguarding the Health of NFL Players? Answer: Literature Review An important injury for the football players who play professionally is known as concussion. The management, prevention and diagnosis of concussion are very important to the National Football League, its member clubs and players and the NFL Players Association. The NFLs Neck, Spine and Head Committee have evolved as an extensive tool of protocols for the management and diagnosis of concussions in the National Football League players. The management and diagnosis of concussion is often complicated by the problem in identifying or locating the injury along with the individual and complex nature of managing the injury (Thompson, 2013). The following problems need to be discusses in detail: Concussion policies of the National Football League: Revisiting the Sports Administrators Charter and the role of Australian Football League ad National Rugby League in concussion management An article was published in the Sports Law Journal in the year 2011. In this particular article, the authors have pointed out that the United States are not succeeding to protect the NFL players. This clearly shows the inefficiency of the US Government. It raises various questions about the responsibilities of the government in safeguarding the National Football League players from health related injuries and fatal injuries. The researcher needs to compare the alleged failure of NFL with the lawsuit like Big Tobacco. The main aim of this particular research was to keep a check on the responsibility of the US government towards the NFL players. The researcher has also reviewed the concussion management policies of the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League (NRL) as well. The AFL and the NRL has also adopted various strategies to prevent their players from different concussions. They are going hand in hand with the NFL to safeguard the interests of their players (Strain et al. 2013). The Impact of Preemption in the NFL Concussion Litigation Another journal was published in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) in the year 2013. It is found lately that the concussion rate has rapidly increased among the National Football League players. The researcher has shown that there are several lawsuits (81 to be precise), which are filed against the players of NFL regarding the rate of concussion. The former players settled mutually in the year 2013, where it was made clear that the NFL will give away $765 million to the players for their own benefit. The US government helped them to implement the new policies and laws that could further help in compensating the National Football League players whenever required. The research has also been argumentative in certain aspects. Some of them believed that the US government is not responsible for bearing such huge amounts for the fatal injuries of the National Football League players (Drysdale, 2013). Injury, pain and use of prescription among the former National Football League players This particular paper was published in 2011 (Science Direct). The background mainly deals with the various types of injuries faced by the football players during the National Football League. The researchers took help of the telephone survey of the National Football League players. The survey showed that the football players of the NFL, whose talents were not properly recognized during the National Football League, are now compared mostly with the other players of the National Football League. It is also found that their pain during the NFL was much less as compared to the present scenario of the NFL players. Currently, they are more misused in the context of concussions and heavy drinking. The retired National Football League players are misusing the powers and the government seems to have no control over them. This is argumentative from the perspective of the US government. They should implement more strict policies to keep a control on matters like this (Mann, 2014). NFL drug policy and Harm reduction This particular article or paper was published in the Sports and Social Issues journal of 2013. This article aims at finding out the policies that are used by the players of the National Football League to reduce the harm caused from the illicit psychoactive drugs. Various policies were implemented by the National Football League to reinforce or add to the tradition of penalizing those who used drugs and the US government further initiated those policies. The drug policies mainly focused on the drug testing process and they require and need self-restraint from use of the illegal drugs. This context clearly portrays that the National Football League punished the players who used the illicit and illegal drugs. The punishment was suspension from the employment and at times, it resulted in deduction from the payment of the employees. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of the National Football League as well as the government of USA to implement few strategies to keep control ove r the harm reduction of the players of NFL. The researcher has analyzed three cases of suspension of players from the perspective of reducing harm. It also shows the procedure to carry out the process of harm reduction among the players of NFL (Edelman, 2013). Tackling the NFL: An analysis on the role of the US government in workplace safety The Duke University Libraries published this particular article in 2014. The researcher aimed at analyzing the role of the federal government of USA in relation to the reduction of the crisis faced by the NFL in terms of concussion. The private sector also indulged with the federal government to improve the safety and health of the National Football League players. It was also found by the researcher that the government had previously intervened in the sports industry to solve several issues. However, no significant impact was found on the legislation of concussion. Three case studies have been stated by the researcher that can easily act as a guide to the intervention policies of the government in terms of concussion crisis. Football is considered a unique and genuine industry and the concussions or the issues related to health are not properly intervened by the US government. The government still needs to adopt few strategies to safeguard the interests of the National Football Leag ue players (Jenkins, 2012). 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