Alabama A&M’s Medrick Burnett Jr. dies after sustaining head injury

It is the worst fear for every parent whose child plays tackle football.

It happens every year in different communities across the country, to high school players. This week, Alabama A&M’s Medrick Burnett Jr. died from a head injury sustained on the field last month.

Burnett, a redshirt freshman from Lakewood, Calif., suffered the injury on Oct. 26 in a game against Alabama State.

Via Associated Press, Burnett died on Wednesday night. He was 20.

And football life goes on, as it always seems to. Few will decide to stop playing when they hear of Burnett’s death. Most will reconcile it by saying, as Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa did last month, “There’s just risk in everything and everyone, and I’m willing to take the risk.”

There hasn’t been a single in-game death in the NFL since 1971, when the Lions welcomed Chuck Hughes died of pre-existing heart disease. In July 2009, then-Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer predicted that a player would inevitably die during an NFL game.

“The truth is. . . here in the NFL someone is going to die,“ Palmer said at the time. “It will happen.”

It almost happened at the beginning of 2023 when there was a routine attack Commotio cordis For Bills safety Damar Hamlin.

If it happens, what will happen to the NFL? Given that Medrick Burnett Jr.’s death was received more like an afterthought than the major story it was intended to be, those who play football at all levels are likely to shrug it off flinch, view the situation as a coincidence and continue reacting.

That doesn’t mean anyone should stop. Everyone has the right to engage in a wide range of risky behaviors. Many take far greater risks than football players for far less money. (Heck, some pay good money for the rush of enduring serious injury or death.)

The point is that when it happens there seems to be little to no soul-searching or re-evaluation. As Joe Burrow said after Tua’s severe concussion against the Bengals in late September 2022: “Part of what we decided to do. You will have head injuries. You’ll tear your ACL. You’ll break your arm. This is the game we play, this is the life we ​​lead, and we get paid well for it. I think going into every game, We know what we’re getting into.”

When the risks of brain injury became clear and obvious more than a decade ago, many assumed that football would wither and die. Some in the media actually seemed to support this and tried to tie any potential retirement to concerns about concussions.

And here we are. At the end of 2024, the game is stronger than ever. The people who play it accept the risk. Even if accepting these risks means pretending not to notice when the risks come to fruition for someone else, in the worst way possible.