Football has turned itself into America’s sport, the biggest event of the year has turned into an unofficial national holiday, but recently the issue has resurfaced about if the NFL is truly protecting their players. The NFL isn’t doing enough to protect the players against prevention and recovery of concussions. There has been lawsuits, movies, and news reports about the head trauma football players are facing.
According to Jodi Balsam, “more than 2,000 former players have sued the NFL, seeking compensation for cognitive and neurological impairment caused by repetitive traumatic brain injuries.” They are claiming that “NFL has engaged in fraud, misrepresentation, and negligent conduct for over 50 years.” The NFL failed to fully warn these players about the long term effect of concussions and how serious they were. The players were never given any proper equipment, policies and procedures to deal with these concussions. The class action lawsuit just seeks to have the NFL take liability which would make NFL-funded medical monitoring program and associated health benefits. There is also a personal injury claim that seeks money for lost income, relief for medical bills and for personal suffering.
The players won the lawsuit and the nfl had to pay up to $5 million per retired player for head-trauma-related medical bills. This was a huge win for the players because it meant that the NFL had to recognized the fact that they have lied to all their former players and now they have to face the consequences. Normally the Nfl would cover theses issues up and deny them, but this time they couldn’t
Brain Trauma can lead you going crazy. On December 1,2012, Jovan Belcher, killed his longtime girlfriend then killed himself. Dave Duerson was suffering with depression after he retired. Duerson took a gun and shot himself in the chest. The suicide note he left said to donate his brain to science, so they could determine if he was suffering with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). CTE is a disease which is associated with repetitive brain trauma. CTE can result in memory loss, mood swings and difficulty concentrating, eventually it will turn into dementia. CTE can also result in aggression and lack of impulse control. There is no known cure and it will start around the age of 40. The way to get it is by constant head trauma, like being repeatedly hit in the head.
The numbers for the amount of concussions in the NFL each year is alarming. In 2012 there was 261 diagnosed concussions in the preseason and regular season, in 2015 there were 271 diagnosed concussions. In just 3 years the amount of diagnosed concussions have risen by 10, and yet the NFL has done very little to change this statistic to try to lower it.
CTE is very prevalent in former NFL player, as in a study conducted by Harvard “evidence of a degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, was found in 87 out of 91 deceased NFL players' brains by researchers from the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, according to PBS.” The NFL is trying to ignore these statistics but the growing concern around the country with this issue is making it hard to do. This isn’t only affecting the pros as children are playing this game to.
According to Pellman, “high school players demonstrated more prolonged neuropsychological effects of concussion,” as compared to the professional athletes. Professional athletes have performed normal after 2 days of and regular injury, but the high school athlete demonstrates slower recovery time. There are about 3.8 million cases of concussion related injury every year in youth sports, and 8.9% of high school injuries are concussion based. The NFL needs to do improvements in their research with concussions to pass it on to the youth leagues. Their research could potentially help millions of children every year with concussion related injuries.
The NFL claims they are helping to stop the concussion epidemic in football. The NFL donated $30 million to the Bethesda, Md. based Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, to help research of brain injuries and other various injuries. According to the NFL this is the largest donation ever in league history. Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner, said “"Our commitment here is to hopefully help set the standard and lead the way in research about head injuries, and we're doing it with the leading scientists." This donation came after the NFL was sued by over 3,000 of its former players, who claimed they haven’t done enough to properly help them with the head injuries. The year before this they had suffered 266 concussions in the league and the year before it was 270 concussions. This alarming amount of concussions that they have suffered shouldn’t have been what made them donate this money or that the players were suing them. They should have the players safety come first and not money.
The movie, Concussion, that came out during the holiday time caused a stir of contersey with the NFL as they were often asked if the players are truly safe playing football. A week before the movie came out the NFL held a conference with all the players to talk about head injuries. This is a little suspicious that they were getting worried about what the players are going to think about the NFL after the movie came out. They were also sending out their spokesmen to stations like ESPN to talk about how the NFL was dealing with concussions and all the progress they made. The NFL was working overtime to keep the public from criticizing them when the movie came out.
Concussion was about a forensic pathologist, Bennet Omalu, and a neurosurgeon, Julian Bailes, who do an autopsy on a former Pittsburgh Steelers player and find some evidence of brain damage in their brains. The NFL has been trying to ignoring the issue and kept him in the shadows. According to Wijdicks, “What starts out as a cordial conversation quickly takes a contentious turn as Maroon warns Omalu that the release of his findings will jeopardize one of America's most popular sports.” If these finding came to the general public it could jeopardize the game entirely and have it potentially stopped. If they found out that football can kill kids and it's very prevalent than people will stop playing football. The Nfl was hiding the issue because they were worried that if this type of information came out that the players will stop playing.
Bennet Omalu says he believes that OJ Simpson suffers from CTE, he says that because of the actions that Simpson has done. The NFL spokesman said that this claim is irresponsible because he’s very highly respected and they will believe it. There’s no way of testing if you have CTE until you die, and that you can’t blame every former NFL player’s actions on CTE. The Spokesman also said that he has to be very careful of what he says because people will take his word like the bible because of how highly respected he is. The spokesman of course is going to say that there’s no correlation because that would be a bad image of the NFL. If it turns out that OJ has CTE than everyone is going to think that every NFL player is going to turn into a killer and go insane.
Will Smith, who plays Bennet Omalu, says that he took the role of the doctor in this film because he didn’t know all the hazards of playing football while his son was playing football. Initially he wasn’t going to take it because he didn’t want to be “that guy” but eventually he agreed to play this part so parents everywhere can be informed when they have there kids playing football. Will Smith said the director, himself, and the creative team had no contact with the NFL at all. He said that they didn’t need it because they talked to Dr. Omalu and read the transcripts, they also had the families there in Philadelphia while filming this film.
Smith went on to say that football has the fastest, strongest bodies playing the sport. If you have the fastest strongest people coming at each other once a week for a game and more at practice, there’s bound to be some head trauma. If someone has a guy who is 300 pounds running at you and hitting your head, they will have some head trauma.
The NFL has tried to change the rules when it comes to hitting the quarterback. The rule is that you can’t hit the quarterback when they are throwing or after the throw. The USA Today reported that “49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, said the rule is flawed and bias.” He thinks this because the referees will enact this rule more with a superstar quarterback compared to a normal quarterback. The rule should be enacted for every quarterback no matter how sensational they are, because they are trying to protect their players.
In an interview conducted by the USA Today Harbaugh said that when his team was penalized for a late hit the referees told him that the quarterback clearly didn’t have the ball, but when his quarterback did the same exact play and got hit they didn’t penalized the team. This is a humiliation to the NFL because it was clearly the same play that occurred but the referees are picking favorites. The referees shouldn’t be picking favorites because it could potentially harm a player if the referee doesn’t call penalties for one team but calls them for another.
The issue with this rule is mainly the gray areas, in this case it is decided by the referees. In some cases the referees will make calls leaning toward the bigger paid players because they bring in more money than the average player. Before every game the referees for the games get together and talk about how they will call the game. Most of the time they will spend more time paying attention to the bigger products than the lesser known names. Even “Packers linebacker Clay Matthews said in multiple interviews this week the plan is to test the NFL's rules on hitting read-option quarterbacks by knocking around Kaepernick whenever they get the chance.” If a player is saying this before a game it is very scary for Kaepernick. This means that he is going to hit him every chance he gets, even if it’s illegal just to test what the referees will call.
CTE isn’t only an NFL issue as non NFl football players has been diagnosed with it. A college student who player for Ohio State University, Kosta Karageorge, went missing, after he told his mother that concussions had messed up his head. Later in the week they found him dead in a dumpster, he shot himself in the chest. This is an extremely heartbreaking story because he was a walk on to OSU which is very difficult to do.
Terry Long was an offensive linemen for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 80’s and early 90’s. One night when he was home alone he drank antifreeze and when they found him, he was unresponsive, he died a few hours later.
Earlier this season New Orleans Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, was hit in the head during a game. After this hit he wasn’t feeling right so he checked himself out of the game to prevent further injury to his head. The trainers on the sideline, who part of their job is to notice when someone has a concussion or symptoms of it, didn’t catch this. It was good sign that Brees checked himself out of the game, but what about the guys who don’t. Brees makes $18,750,000 a year, so he doesn’t have to worry about supporting his family if he checks out of the game. But what about the guys who are less fortunate and doesn’t make as much as him?
Those guys are living check to check because they are living way beyond their means on living. In the Nfl those guys are very competitive and try to keep up with the guys who make a lot more than they do. If they get hurt out of the field they won’t necessarily check themselves out because they are worried about being paid. Those players are the ones who won’t be diagnosed and eventually develop CTE.
The Nfl has to do something about that issue, because if they check out they aren’t getting all the money they would have because they are hurt. Their contracts guarantee so much money will be paid to them not matter if they are hurt or not, but if you don’t play you don’t get the extra money you would get if you played. So some of these players won’t be checked out so they can get all that extra money. The Nfl needs to address this issue because eventually one these player will get extremely hurt, because they will play with a concussion then get hit again. In worst case scenario some player will die on the field if they keep playing with a concussion.
If a player were to die on the field the Nfl would be under a lot of scrutiny. The media and public would sit back and wonder if they should continue to support this game. Already some people like Carlos Guerrero are saying that the concussion issue is already turning them off the game, because of their denial about the issue. Guerrero said that football use to be his favorite sport to watch, and he use to be addicted to it. But now he says “ the thing that I most associate with the NFL is those same players completely forgetting their own memories.” It is sad to know that some of the sports icons that kids will look up to will forget all their memories.
The New York Giants faced scrutiny this year as they allegedly let their superstar wide receiver, Odell Beckham Jr, play with a concussion. In the first week of the season Odell got rocked by the defender in the first quarter and he was visibly shaken up after the huge hit. As he came stumbling over to the Giants bench the medical staff tried to undergo a concussion test, but he was cleared to play. They seemed to have rushed the process because Odell didn’t miss any time in the game. The previous was under review and during that time the Giants apparently performed the concussion procedures. Instead of making sure Odell was perfectly healthy they rushed him back out on the field in order to win the game. The Nfl seems to care more about money and winning the games instead of the players well being.
The Nfl is a business and wants to protect their valuable assets. The Nfl, however, needs to be reminded that, they are not only dealing with money but also people's lives. They seem to just care about the money and spend more time protecting their big names players. What the Nfl fails to do is protect the “no named” players. They need to recognize that they are responsible for protecting every player in the league, not just a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.
Concussions are a very serious issue that they seem to be trying to ignore, but eventually they can’t ignore the issue anymore, the issue is relevant in all aspects of today’s world. Movies have been made around the issue, the news stations are covering this issue, and ESPN has been discussing this issue a lot recently. The issue has became a household one as everyone in America knows about. The Nfl needs to do something to help protect their players from concussions because eventually it will turn to CTE. With social media as prevalent as it is today the Nfl should consider that if a big named player, that the kids know today, dies of CTE it will be shown all over Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. They need take this issue and make sure that it doesn’t happen to any other players.
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