Concussion PSA compares football dangers to smoking

Everybody seems to be having fun when the kids in a new public service announcement are just playing football, until one boy is thrown to the ground and the background music turns ominous.

Then, the coach starts handing out cigarettes.

“Tackle football is like smoking,” a youthful voice-over says as a smiling, motherly type lights a cigarette for one of the preteen players.“The younger I start, the longer I’m exposed to danger.”

“Tackle Can Wait “is part of a campaign by the Concussion Legacy Foundation to steer children under 14 years old into flag football and away from the contact version of the sport. The organization says children who start playing tackle football at the age of 5 have 10 times the risk of developing the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy compared to those who wait until they are 14.

“Tackle football is really a man’s game, and it’s incredibly dangerous to the developing brain,” CLF co-founder Chris Nowinski says in a video accompanying the ad.

“We now have the data that show that playing youth tackle football and developing CTE is correlated in a very similar way to smoking, and developing lung cancer,”Nowinski said.“We’re trying to help parents visualize that those two things are equally bad: Letting your kid smoke and letting your kid play tackle football are both bad ideas.”

Some states, including California, New York and Illinois, have discussed banning tackle football for children under 12. Until then, the PSA hopes to let parents know about the risks.