NBC's Bob Costas believes football could "collapse over time, barring a development in technology to make it reasonably safe" and calls the decline of the sport the "most significant story in American sports," according to Tom Schad of USA TODAY. Costas, speaking last night at the Univ. of Maryland's Shirley Povich Symposium, said, "The reality is that this game destroys people's brains." He added, "The cracks in the foundation are there. The day-to-day issues, as serious as they may be, they come and go. But you cannot change the nature of the game." ESPN's Tony Kornheiser compared football's "trajectory to that of boxing, saying that safety concerns could make the game obsolete in the coming decades." Kornheiser: "At some point, the cultural wheel turns just a bit, almost imperceptibly, and parents say, 'I don't want my kids to play.' And then it becomes only the province of the poor, who want it for economic reasons to get up and out. If they don't find a way to make it safe, and we don't see how they will ... the game's not going to be around." Costas said that the NFL's "defense mechanism -- to seek more information and continue to study the dangers of the sport -- will only hurt its own cause." Costas: "The more information (that) comes out, the worse it looks" (USATODAY.com, 11/8).
