While an important study and shocking findings, I find it irritating that this is front page news on the BBC Sport website, whereas the launch of the season and the first round of matches is hidden away.

This is a sample of 50 people, and the amount of damage headlines like this have on the sport is untold. It is very difficult to get away from there being some sort of agenda in the BBC. I wonder if a similar study on Rugby Union would deliver similar results, and if so, what prominence it would get on the BBC website.

I would imagine any contact sport would deliver similar results. No hard impact to the head is ever going to be beneficial, whatever the sport.

Agree most contact sports would deliver similar results, I`m not too sure what we can do as a sport what we are not already doing, i think most contact sports governing bodies have been quite proactive in introducing concussion tests in the game although i must admit, it seems to be a bit hit and miss in league recently - For me if you take a knock to the head you should definitely go of and get tested for concussion.

According to the recent studies American Football is like assissted suicide in terms of the effects of head trauma but this was not flagged up in the run up to the Super Bowl.

I would of thought the massive helmet and all the protective gear would put it behind the likes of our game?

Ironically, they've found that the helmet causes more damage.

Having played American Football for 7 years, I'd say the pads just get used as weapons, as you feel you can just throw your whole body into it without thinking about the consequences. Knee injuries are particularly bad, as it's inch thick polycarbonate helmets against 1cm thick foam knee pads, assuming they're even wearing them as a lot of players ignore that rule. I was lucky in a way that I only had 2 concussions in 60 games + hundreds of training sessions and no other proper injuries.

It's an issue that needs to be highlighted and investigated. That's more important than any negative effect it has on us IMO.

Re - (Old school) NFL helmets

Whilst the helmet protects the outer skull itself, most concussive impacts are (I understand) caused by the brain hitting the inside of the skull as a result of shock/impact.

Obviously with these sorts of studies, the games have evolved since the times that the subjects have played/study periods passed, and medical/welfare advances have already been made to address player head injuries.

So its not just the head shots then, its the impact from every tackle i suppose.

Whilst I think they dropped the ball for a few weeks last month, on this I think it's no different to other sports. Look at the coverage doping in athletics and cycling gets, the former is taking much of the coverage leading to the Winter Olympics. The issues surrounding the new (Phil Neville) and former (Mark Sampson) women's England football managers took more prominence than the matches. In the recent Ashes in cricket the issues with Stokes, Bairstow and Duckett took centre stage.

A number of American sports scientists suggest that the helmets and padding are part of the problem. They allow players to hit harder and the concussion comes from the brain hitting the inside of the skull rather than the skull being hit. One suggested answer is to do away with all the protective gear.
In Rugby League we could introduce zero tolerance for head contact but relatively few tackles involve the defender throwing themselves forward in quite the same way. A second possibility is to reduce the number of interchanges to make forwards play more minutes and so value stamina above explosive body mass. In the past players were less massive and this would benefit good little uns over the behemoths of today.