Flag Football Is More Dangerous

Friday, February 17th, 2017

Flag football is more dangerous than tackle football:

The study, which examined 3,794 players in grades 2-7 in two tackle football leagues and one flag football league, is one of the largest to compare injury rates in the different types of football. It was published online last week in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

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All injuries that resulted in loss of playing time were recorded. An injury was considered severe if it resulted in a concussion, fracture or ligament tear. All other injuries were considered nonsevere.

Across all leagues, 128 injuries were reported out of 46,416 exposures—that is, a practice or a game. The overall injury rate was 2.76 injuries per 1,000 exposures, which Dr. Peterson notes is similar to the injury rate in high school football.

Tackle football players in the study reported 2.6 injuries per 1,000 exposures, compared with 5.77 injuries per 1,000 exposures in flag football. While tackle football players reported concussions at a slightly higher rate, the difference with flag players wasn’t statistically significant.

Dr. Peterson theorizes that tackle football players suffer concussions individually, whereas in flag football, concussions often result from two people running into each other. Looking at the injury logs, he noticed, “concussions seemed to come in pairs in the flag league.”

Comments

  1. Clifton says:

    Seen a guy at a flag football game have his pants pulled down Naked from the waist down. While running downfield with the ball someone reached for the flag and hooked the inside of his pants instead, the momentum of both men resulted in a “pants-ing ” taking place.

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