• dhork@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I may be in the minority here, but I say he should play as long as he wants to, and as long as he has medical clearance. Unless the doctors say “The next hit is guaranteed to turn you into a vegetable”, or his wife and family urge him to stop, he should go out there.

    Now, he should probably take extra precautions. He should change his game and use the protections afforded to the QB position to make sure he is not taking those hits to the head. Maybe Patrick can send him one of those Great Gazoo helmets to try. They look absurd, but they seem to work well for him.

    But the man is making over 200 million on his new contract. Is that enough to compensate for the CTE in 20 years? Maybe, maybe not. But there are people who work very physical jobs all over the world who wreck their bodies doing them for a fraction of the pay. Nobody is worried about how they will fare in their later years.

    Tua is in a privileged position, and as long as he can play at that level I don’t think anyone else (other than his doctors and family) has the right to advise him to walk away from that. If his brain is mush later, at least he made the choice to mush-ify it.