Yeah, I'm calling baloney too. I'm just on the outer edge of Gen-X, born in 1980. (I've never heard of anybody using "Gen-X" to refer to a birth year as late as the 1990s - most sources I've seen use something like 1965-ish to 1980-ish, at least for the US).

There's definitely a lot more concern about safety, especially with all of the concussion studies coming out recently. But there's a lot more awareness about the issue, and there have been some youth football rules changes for injuries. (The Pop Warner league has recently changed some of its rules to address just that). I really don't see this as stopping the game generally. As long as high schools are raising money by having football teams, there will continue to be football teams.