"(dog barking) (Man) Yes!" "Ha, ha!" "I swear to Bon Jovi, if these sad sacks end up winning," "I'm gonna divorce you, Ray." "We'll call Lev and have him draw up the paperwork, 'cause the Giants are 20 yards away from the Super Bowl, baby!" "They ain't gonna make it." "Just like you wouldn't make it one day without me." "Yeah, you got me there." "(TV announcer) Giants are set up on the..." "Ahh, come on, guys." "This game better hurry up." "We're gonna be late to coach Tiny Tots." "Yeah, well, don't worry, my boys'll make quick work of you." "Huh, that's funny." "(gasping)" "Why are they your boys?" "Dude, please don't do your show right now." "So, you know this hairdo?" "Well, please inform him that the Rams are my boys because they're from my hometown." "But none of the players are from there." "They change every year, and your team just switched cities." "(chuckling) You know, this reminds me of a famous thought experiment." "Shut up!" "The game is on." "I'll pause it." "Say this sandwich is your team." "(small gasp) Over time, every part of it changes." "The turkey gets traded to Denver, the tomato gets suspended for dog fighting, and the bread can't close a stadium deal." "So, a philosopher would ask, "Is it even the same sandwich?"" "Hah." "(coughs)" "(TV announcer) ...On the L.A. 23 yard line..." "Tastes the same to me, Plato." "My heart stopped." "That's what's so weird about being a sports fan." "Everything but the name changes year to year, but we still love our team just as much." "It's like we're really just a fan of the logo." "Great, 'cause my logo is about to win the playoffs." "'Cause they're the best!" "Oh, the playoffs don't pick which team is best." "In fact, the playoffs are a random and chaotic system that's little better than a coin flip." "Buckle in, here we go." "Hi, I'm Adam Conover, and this is "Adam Ruins Everything."" "¶ (whistling)" "Adam, please don't ruin football." "My folks take it really seriously." "This human Prius?" "Ruin football?" "Yeah, right." "Football is the bond that holds this family together." "My family's the exact same way." "Except about books and with zero affection." "But look, I'm a huge football fan, too." "I mean, I'm wearing my favorite team's colors:" "The New York Yankees." "That's a baseball team." "Yes, but there was also a football team called the New York Yankees that played from 1926 through 1929." "Why do you have to be so specific?" "Great, now get your amber waves of grain out of the way because we're about to find out which of these teams is better at football." "Gladly." "Ahh!" "But as I was saying, the playoffs don't do any such thing." "In fact, they more or less pick the winner at random." "Okay, he's teleporting," "I'm gonna go make a sandwich for half an hour," "Godspeed, family!" "Historically, the team with the best record wins the Super Bowl less than half the time." "It's actually more common for a worse team to win." "(chuckles) Shut your mouth!" "My Giants were the champs in 2011, they were number one!" "Uh, no, they were number ten." "The Giants regular season record that year was nine and seven, the worst record of any team to ever win a Super Bowl." "But in the playoffs, they beat the Packers, who only lost a single game all year." "I hate to tell you this, but the Giants weren't the better team." "They were definitely the worst team, and they just got lucky." "Luck you!" "Aah!" "(Adam) Any team can win one game." "The problem with the playoffs is they have way too small of a sample size." "Sample size?" "What, like Halloween candy?" "No." "Look, you're from Jersey, right?" "Let me put it in Jersey terms." "Let's compare Bruce Springsteen... ¶ Baby we were born to run ...the statistical analysis of the playoffs." "Oh, my God, Bruce Springsteen!" "(chuckling) And Billy Joel." "I've been waiting in here for the longest time." "Oh, my God, Bruce Springsteen!" "Over his career, Billy Joel has won six Grammys." "Bruce here has won 20." "Yeah!" "But on February 25, 1981," "Billy beat Bruce for Best Rock Vocal Performance." "If you decide the whole contest based on one day in February," "Billy wins." "Bruce was robbed." "His heart was hungrier than mine." "It's exactly the same with the playoffs." "Just 'cause you win on one day, it doesn't make you the better team." "It's luck." "Okay, Mr. Spreadsheet, fine." "Maybe football does have a small sample size." "But what about the World Series?" "Best of seven." "Oh, baseball's even worse." "It's actually the most random major sport." "(crack of bat) Since 1995, the team with the best regular season record has won the World Series just 16% of the time." "Ugh." "I don't believe you." "You're not a sports nerd, you're just a regular nerd." "Well, maybe you'll believe the ultimate sports nerd, legendary Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane, who once said, quote..." "Long story short, you might as well skip the Super Bowl and award the championship to whoever wins the coin flip." "Ladies and gentlemen, the NFL champion is:" "Heads!" "(both loud grunting)" "But I love the playoffs." "I get to yell at Joe Buck." "You'd be surprised at what his name rhymes with." "And I like a little randomness in my sports." "The playoffs give Patty's crappy underdog team a chance to win." "Exactly, that's why the playoffs are fun." "Because that's when the objectively worse underdogs can beat their athletic superiors." "Face it, we don't like sports because they're rational." "We like them because they're random and make no sense-- let's watch." "Ahh." "No!" "Dad-gummit." "This Twitter egg's been yapping so much, we're gonna be late for Tiny Tots practice." "Last time we were late, the kids started playing Minecraft." "We'll DVR it and watch it later." "Nobody say what happens." "Ray, get the sports drinks, the kids gotta stay hydrated." "Oh, no, they don't, heh." "Dehydration is largely an overblown marketing myth." "(announcer) "Adam Ruins Everything" is sponsored by" "Hulko Sports Drink!" "Stick around and find out why everything you know about hydration is wrong." "¶" "(whistle blows)" "All right, kiddos, let's run some drills." "Ah, football practice, it's my favorite part of the week." "Most of the time." "Whoo!" "All right!" "Go... uh, Blue Skins?" "The league made us change the name." "Used to be super racist." "Not the color you're thinking of." "(whistle blows)" "Oh, my God, we've been out here for 15 minutes!" "We need to be hydrating!" "Everybody drink up." "Actually, the risk of dehydration is way overblown." "(chuckling) Buh-buh-buh!" "You're gonna tell me hydrating is bad?" "Yeah, right, take a lap." "Oh, I'd never make it all the way around." "In America, we've become obsessed with the dangers of dehydration." "People think that if they're not constantly drinking water, they risk death." "You're dehydrated." "And you're dehydrated." "And, oh, my God, you're practically a mummy." "But that fear is totally baseless." "Yeah, right, bub." "Everyone knows you have to drink eight glasses of water a day." "Yeah, everybody knows that, but it's not true." "No study has ever shown or even claimed that." "It's just something people say." "Really?" "Now you tell me." "(sarcastic chuckle) Water prevents cramps." "Oh, where'd you hear that?" "From my coach." "And I heard it from my coach, and he heard it from his coach, and so on." "Well, you didn't hear it from science, 'cause science says that ain't true." "Well, how much water am I supposed to drink?" "Well, you can just drink when you're thirsty." "That's crazy, you're a crazy person." "Who are you?" "Oh, Patty, this is Tamara Hew-Butler." "She's a professor of exercise science at Oakland University." "Our bodies already possess an extremely sensitive measure of dehydration." "It's called thirst." "As long as we drink when we feel thirsty, we really won't dehydrate." "That's how humans have done it for millions of years, and it's worked out fine." "The fact is, truly dangerous levels of dehydration are incredibly rare and only occur in cases of extreme sickness or isolation." "As long as you have free access to water and you drink when you're thirsty, you'll be fine." "Then why do I do this to myself?" "Hmm, maybe because beverage companies have spend decades drowning us in ads like these." "(announcer) Hardworking hydration, keep at it." "Hydrate the hustle." "G2 from Gatorade, the low-calorie, off-field hydrator." "Lucozade Sport hydrates and fuels you better than water." "'Cause the more water you drink, the better you feel." "Drink more water!" "These companies have consistently portrayed dehydration as a serious threat for one, simple reason-- it gets us to drink more." "The International Bottled Water Association publishes a hydration calculator that can recommend you drink two liters of water a day." "Dasani tells you that hydration is healthy, so drink up, preferably Dasani." "Paid spokesman Dustin Pedroia says he always hydrates with Vita Coco because it prevents cramps, even though it doesn't." "And in "Runner's World" magazine," "Gatorade ran an ad masquerading as an article titled "Hydration 101."" "It included tips like "drink early and often,"" ""don't wait until you feel thirsty"" "and "always drinks sports drinks."" "But that's all real science, right?" "Ah, here's where it gets sticky." "That ad was sponsored by the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, which was founded by Gatorade in 1985." "Its scientific mission?" "To discover exciting new reasons people should drink their product." "Our unbiased study found that people should drink a lot of Gatorade." "Terrific work, alert the media!" "We also may have found a cure for cancer." "Was it Gatorade?" "Damn it!" "Get back to me when it's Gatorade!" "Gatorade also sponsors sports science research at universities across America, and this can influence their findings." "¶ Money, money..." "The American College of Sports Medicine once recommended..." "When exercising, you should drink as much as tolerable." "¶ Money, money... ¶ It's all about the money" "Other companies soon followed suit." "Evian's parent company founded Hydration for Health, a group that..." "Important research, everybody!" "Drink Evian!" "Science says so." "Oh, I gotta tell the Tots about this." "(Adam) And, after decades of bad science and marketing, we now believe dehydration is a dire threat." "Gotta drink, drink or I'll die!" "Well, it's not like drinking too much liquid's gonna kill anybody." "Actually, that's exactly what it can do." "All of this scare mongering over dehydration has created an entirely different problem:" "overhydration." "Phooey, you drink hard, you pee hard." "Not if you're exercising." "Exercise stops you from peeing by putting your body in water conservation mode." "And if you overhydrate then, all that extra fluid has nowhere to go." "Holy crow!" "It's called exercise associated hyponatremia, and it can be deadly." "In a study of the 2002 Boston Marathon, nearly one-sixth of the runners studied were found to have hyponatremia." "These runners drank so much liquid during the race, that by the finish line, they had actually gained weight." "And she wins by a belly!" "Okay, now, that's a joke, but this is a serious problem in sports." "At least 12 athletes have died from overhydration." "No, that's terrible." "It's true." "Overhydration is dangerous." "Most researchers, including myself, think that it's the marketing of the beverage industry that's responsibility for this surge in fluid overload hyponatremia." "So, I've been putting the kids in danger?" "No, Patty, death by hyponatremia is extremely rare." "Just give the kids free access to water." "Let 'em drink when they're thirsty, and don't treat these ads as science." "I don't deserve to wear this uniform." "(sobbing)" "Hey!" "You made my Patty cry." "Kids, let's practice some tackling drills." "I've got just the dummy." "See ya, Adam." "Maybe now's a good time to talk about the whole concussion issue." "I knew he was gonna talk about concussions." "Go, Blue Skins, murderize that human tofu ball!" "(Adam) Ah!" "No, wait!" "The truth about concussions is really interesting!" "(birds chirping) (Adam) Aah!" "(kids screaming)" "Aah!" "No, no, no!" "No, kids, no, my skull hasn't completely fused yet!" "Aah!" "Uhh!" "Oh, oh..." "I forgot, kids can't hurt me." "I always forget I'm an adult." "But not everyone is so lucky." "Because the truth is, brain injuries in the NFL" "Hey, before you get started, okay, we know plenty about concussions." "They talk about it on "Sports Center."" "They made that Will Smith movie I slept through, and they've instituted all these new rules." "The NFL is on it, problem solved!" "Problem not solved, because the truth is everything you know about football and brain injuries is wrong-- ugh!" "(sports commentator) Ooh, that's gotta hurt!" "That could be a concussion." "(commentator two) Let's watch it again from Sky Cam." "(Adam) Ahh!" "(commentator two) And he's being taken out of the game thanks to that new rule." "Good job, NFL, you solved the problem, nothin' more to see here." "And no more fussin' 'bout concussin'." "Actually, let's keep fussing'." "'Cause there's still a ton of concussin'." "¶" "Hey, see, Pats, look, we're on TV." "Hey, Murph!" "Oh, where is that Stephen A. Smith?" "I've always wanted to kick his ass." "The NFL claims to take concussions seriously." "But the rate of diagnosed concussions keeps rising, and those are just the ones we know about." "The truth is, our national conversation about brain injuries in football misses the point entirely, because concussions are just the tip of the iceberg." "Huh, what's happening?" "Oh, I changed the prompter, just go with it." "The brain disorder found in football players is called" "Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE, and here's the hard truth." "It's not just caused by concussion-- wait, really?" "Yes, really." "It's also caused by the tiny run-of-the-mill hits that happen dozens of times a game." "Plays like this one." "Ooh, that was unremarkable." "This one..." "Booyah!" "Those are common." "Or even this one..." "Howzah!" "I'm snorin' because that was boring." "Exactly, these are totally routine tackles and plays that happen over and over again in every game, especially to linemen." "But research now shows that even little hits like these cause CTE, which can lead to lifelong memory loss, depression, aggression, dementia, anxiety, and even suicide." "Hold up, hot shot." "How do tiny little baby hits like that cause dementia?" "Good question-- let's go to the premier expert in this field, Dr. Ann McKee," "Professor of Neurology at Boston University and Director of the CTE Center." "Thanks for joining us, Ann." "Thanks, Adam." "Unfortunately, it's true." "CTE isn't just caused by concussions." "It's also caused by the small sub-concussive hits that build up over time." "If you play football at any level, the chronic hits to the head will cause brain damage." "Well, that's easy, why don't they just build better helmets?" "That will never work." "When the body and head suddenly stop, the brain stretches, breaking its internal structures." "Unless you can fit a helmet inside your skull, there is no way to stop it." "Yeah, but that can't happen to, like, everyone, right?" "(Ann) Unfortunately, it does, Ray." "We found CTE in over 96% of former professional players' brains that we've studied." "96%?" "Oh, no." "Ooh, that is regretful and upsetful." "The fact is, our research shows that it's practically impossible to play football without suffering irreversible brain damage." "And the NFL knows about this?" "They do, in fact the NFL has admitted that playing football is linked to CTE." "They just don't take it seriously." "When asked whether football was dangerous," "NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said..." "There's risk in life." "There's risk to sitting on the couch." "I don't know about you, but if my couch was giving brain damage to 96% of the people that sat on it," "I would throw out that couch." "But, hey, I guess it's easy to ignore the truth when you're getting paid" "34 million bucks a year to protect the status quo." "Well, the players are millionaires, too." "I'd take that risk for that kind of cash." "Oh, yeah, NFL players can make their own decisions." "They're adults." "But you know who can't?" "Kids." "Oh, crap, children." "I forgot about the children." "There are less than 2,000 current NFL players, but more than 1 million high school students play the game, as well as hundreds of thousands of straight-up kids." "And, well, I'll let Dr. McKee tell you the rest." "Children's brains are especially susceptible to brain damage." "The truth is the brain isn't even finished developing until age 25." "It's difficult to say this, but children simply should not be allowed to play football." "Isn't that a little overboard?" "Well, why don't you ask the players?" "If I had a ten-year-old boy, I don't know that I'd be real inclined to encourage him to go play football." "If you had an eight-year-old kid now... would you tell him you'd want him to play football?" "I wouldn't." "And my whole life was football." "Especially me, knowing what I know now, there-- there's absolutely no way, no way in hell that I would do it all over again." "Harry Carson?" "But he won the Super Bowl with the Giants in '86." "He would take that all back?" "Look, it's hard to hear that the game we love is killing people and hurting kids." "But it's true." "Oh, my God, the kids, the Blue Skins." "I had them run tackling drills." "Adam, get us out of here!" "We gotta stop them!" "Right." "No, no, no!" "(sound slowed) Noooo!" "We'll be right baaaack!" "No!" "No, no, no." "No, no, no!" "Ah, whoof." "Thank God they're so bad at football." "All right, everybody stop." "Take a knee, Blue Skins." "(Patty) Come on." "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we all gotta stop playing football." "It's dangerous, and there's no way to stop it." "Ray, there's another way." "It's true, if we keep playing football the same old way, players will keep dying, parents will pull the next generation of athletes out of the sport, and the game we love will slowly fade from prominence" "just like boxing and horse racing did." "We used to feel five feet tall." "But now we're minced meat." "(bell dings)" "Tastes do change." "But they don't have to." "We can save football by changing it." "Like how?" "You just said almost all hits cause brain damage." "So, what, we ban tackling and get rid of linemen?" "I mean, yes, that would work." "But that wouldn't be football." "Yeah, that's exactly what they said back in 1905." "(Adam) Back then, the sport was so violent that college players were getting trampled to death." "There were 18 deaths nationwide that year alone." "Yes, the sports was far too brutal even for me, Teddy Roosevelt!" "(birds screeches) Ooh!" "That's why I insisted football legalize a forward pass." "It made the game safer by opening up the field." "Yes, that made the game fundamentally different forever, but it was still football." "(bird squawks, thud) Ooh!" "Ha ha!" "I don't know, that seems hard." "Well, we have a choice." "We could either do the hard thing and make real changes to the game, or we can keep ignoring the problem, and 50 years from now football will be dead." "And that would be a shame because football is awesome." "(all) Yeah!" "Ah, here you guys are." "Oh..." "Remember when you said that everything about this sandwich could change and you would still love it?" "Well, then why is the one part that's killing people the part that we decided we have no power over?" "Let's save the sport we love by changing it for the better." "Are you with me?" "(all) Yeah!" "I said, are you with me?" "!" "(all) Yeah!" "Well, then let's get out there and never play tackle football ever again!" "(all cheering)" "Let's go, let's play touch." "¶" "(engine revving)" "Hey, is Adam here?" "Yeah, and you are?" "I'm his sister." "His sister?" "Oh." "Rhea, hi!" "Hey, slugger, how was your show thing?" "Oh, it was great, I taught Murph's parents all about playoff statistics and hydration and how playing football injures the brains of millions of high school students every year." "Well, I'm glad you had fun." "Hey, I hope he didn't bug you too much." "Did you, uh... did you restore this car yourself?" "Oh, yeah, 500 bucks and five years of elbow grease." "She's a beauty, huh?" "Yeah." "Well, aesthetics aside, public transportation would be far more efficient..." "(engine revving)" "What?" "What's that?" "I can't hear you over this horsepower!" "Say goodbye, Adam." "Bye, Murph, see you on Crossword Puzzle Friday!" "(tires screeching, engine revving)" "Maybe he's adopted?" "¶ (theme song whistling)"