RED ZONE

Bob Costas: Football ‘Destroys People's Brains’

Warns game could collapse “once people actually begin connecting the dots.”

NBC sportscaster Bob Costas told a sports roundtable Tuesday night that football “destroys people’s brains” and warned the game could collapse over time “once people actually begin connecting the dots” between the research and the toll of head injuries. “The cracks in the foundation are there,” he said. “The day-to-day issues, as serious as they may be, they may come and go. But you cannot change the nature of the game. I certainly would not let, if I had an athletically gifted 12- or 13-year-old son, I would not let him play football.” Costas has been critical of football in the past, saying in 2014 that “there is a connection” between violent behavior by players and the head injuries they sustain on the field. Costas, who has worked for NBC Sports since the 1980s, including as host of Football Night in America, made the comments at the University of Maryland.