President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters. If they had a son, Obama isn't sure that football would be an option for him.
"I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football," he said in an interview with the New Republic. "And I think that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.
"In some cases, that may make it a little bit less exciting, but it will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won't have to examine our consciences quite as much."
Obama isn't asked what changes could be made, nor does he indicate if he'll have a role in making changes happen. He believes a bigger concern for the sport comes from the college level, which acts as the NFL's feeder system.
"I tend to be more worried about college players than NFL players in the sense that the NFL players have a union, they're grown men, they can make some of these decisions on their own, and most of them are well-compensated for the violence they do to their bodies," he said. "You read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of these same problems with concussions and so forth and then have nothing to fall back on. That's something that I'd like to see the NCAA think about."
The NFL has taken steps to improve player safety, and Obama touches on the fine line the league must walk on this issue. The NFL has the responsibility of protecting the long-term health of its players while continuing to produce an exciting and profitable product. In a game with inherent violence and injury risk, that's no easy task.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.
