New cause of concussions in youth sports, Madden?

I never thought I could laugh at a story about kids' sports and head trauma. I changed my mind. The Onion reports on a growing health crisis - "long-term neurological consequences" from playing Madden football.

"The situation is far more serious than we had previously thought," said Vincent Wu, head of neuropathology at the IBIR. "Playing Madden football increases one's risk for a wide range of cognitive impairments, from difficulty focusing, to a decreased awareness of one's surroundings, to a generalized inability to engage with society at large.

"Playing so many simulated seasons takes a devastating toll," Wu added. "The human brain was never meant to withstand the brutal impacts of this game."

Clever. And a takeoff on a real news story published in the New York Times on Sunday. It revealed that the next generation of the Madden game - Madden 12 - "will be realistic enough not only to show players receiving concussions, but also to show any player who sustains one being sidelined for the rest of the game — no exceptions. Beyond that, in the background, the game’s announcers will explain that the player was removed because of the seriousness of head injuries."

So the trick is to play enough Madden to absorb the message without playing so much that you hurt yourself.