With public concern about the long-term impact of football-related concussions and head injuries growing, New Orleans Saints Quarterback Drew Brees has launched a flag football league to offer parents and their children another option to play the sport.
Brees tells The Wall Street Journal that he fears concerns about concussions will drive parents to keep their kids away from football.
He has reason to be concerned.
Enrollment in youth tackle football is declining and the number of high school players nationwide is down 4.5% over the past decade, the National Federation of High School Associations says.
Flag, however, is a bright spot. A report by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association says 1.4 million children ages 6 to 17 played flag football in 2016—a 10% leap from 2015.
Brees, 38, also played flag while growing up in Austin, Texas, before moving on to tackle football in high school and college. He’s credits flag with jumpstarting his love of the sport.
“I feel like football is something that’s truly American,” he says. “It would be terrible if it goes by the wayside because people are afraid to play it because they don’t think there is a better option.”
Brees launched the Football ‘N’ America league earlier this year. He’s coaching two teams—and his 7-year-old son, Bowen, plays for one, while his 8-year old son, Baylen, is on the other.
“It’s an adorable scene: a still-active, future Hall of Famer standing amid a scrum of children the size of bar stools, trying to arrange them at the line of scrimmage without anyone wandering off to look at a cloud,” reads The Wall Street Journal feature.
“You really appreciate coaching a lot more when you start doing this,” Brees says. “They don’t listen to a word you say, and they forget it the second you tell them.”
