The Future of Football: NYTimes Links Big Tobacco with NFL Concussion Study

[Just a bit outside]

There are current and former NFL players that say the same thing?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/9-nflers-who-wont-let-their-sons-play-football.html

 

[johnmd20]

So you feel bad that the NFL, one of the most hypocritical organizations on earth, got taken advantage of by a hypocrite?

I guess not, the NFL is definitely not something I ever have cause to defend. It is certainly a shameless organization. It just felt pretty petty by Timberlake.

 

[Marciano490]

Snoop would like to have a word with you.

Fair enough, but Snoop ran a youth league, Timberlake cashed a check a couple times.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Cam Newton is going to have a really, really tough time in his 40s and 50s. He's probably gotten beat up more than any other player.

A little late to the party, but going to prison may have extended Michael Vick's life.

 

[FL4WL3SS]

I guess not, the NFL is definitely not something I ever have cause to defend. It is certainly a shameless organization. It just felt pretty petty by Timberlake.

So you wanted him to lie?

 

[HowBoutDemSox]

It just felt pretty petty by Timberlake.

Cry me a river.

 

[johnmd20]

Cry me a river.

I can't stop the feeling.

 

[SumnerH]

I can't stop the feeling.

I'm bringing Brady back.

 

[kenneycb]

He can be a hypocrite and the NFL can be assholes. It’s not a binary thing. Both can be wrong for different reasons. Good for him for taking advantage but it doesn’t mean he’s a morally-bound musician.

 

[mauf]

JT would rather have people talking about him not letting his kid play football than talking about Janet Jackson. Not sure changing the subject was his intent, but it works out nicely for him.

 

[h8mfy]

Back on the main topic, here’s an Op-Ed by the wife of a former NFL safety now believed to be suffering from CTE:


I’m the Wife of a Former N.F.L. Player. Football Destroyed His Mind.
https://nyti.ms/2GHqlh1
https://nyti.ms/2GHqlh1

 

[tims4wins]

Illinois moving toward banning football under age 12

http://www.espn.com/moresports/story/_/id/22616192/dave-duerson-act-passes-committee-advances-illinois-house-vote

HB 3431, also called the Dave Duerson Act, would prohibit any child under 12 from participating in organized tackle football. The measure passed out of the Illinois House mental health committee on an 11-9 vote Thursday and now heads to the House for a full debate and vote.

 

[joe dokes]

Divorced parents should-he-play dispute (I put it here because its the NYT. If there's a better place, it can be moved). My biases got the best of me when I was surprised that Mom wants the son to play, Dad not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/sports/football/concussions.html

PITTSBURGH — In this city with a deep and proud relationship with football, a custody dispute has pushed the debate about the sport’s safety into a new arena: family court.

A father, John Orsini, has gone to court to prevent the youngest of his three sons from playing high school football because, he said, scientific studies have revealed the perils of repeated blows to the head — especially for an athlete, like his son, who has a history of concussions. The boy’s mother, Mr. Orsini’s ex-wife, believes he should be allowed to continue playing because he understands the risks

.

 

[InstaFace]

I'm not sure how a 14-year-old could "understand the risks" in any legally meaningful sense. It's not real for them. Jim McMahon status is later in life, nobody thinks about (or gives any weight to) something that far down the road.

 

[Van Everyman]

I’m not sure how I feel about living in a world where Instaface has a non-BB avatar.

Also, that mother (or her attorney) is the worst of everything. Anyone, much less a parent, who can say with a straight face that the science in inconclusive on the dangers of football either cares more about social standing or the money their child could make from the game than the welfare of their child. Either way, one would hope a judge would see it that way as well.

Edit: typos

 

[Reverend]

I think the weirdest part is the idea that the burden of proof is on those who say football might be bad for people.

I mean, like, step back for a second and just LOOK at it.

I feel the same way about pollution regulations.

 

[mauf]

Not a terribly interesting legal case. A judge shouldn’t second-guess a doctor’s judgment, and I’d expect a high-school kid’s wishes to prevail in most cases where the divorced parents who share custody of him disagree.

That said, if my son suffered three concussions, he’d be done playing football.

 

[InstaFace]

I’m not sure how I feel about living in a world where Instaface has a non-BB avatar.

It was between this or the 26yo BB as coach for the Lions, turning towards the camera briefly and looking like a serial killer.

You do have to admit that this is quite a face, though.

 

[bigq]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2018/03/10/nearly-half-patriots-first-super-bowl-winners-report-symptoms-brain-injuries/aXvjJscYPy5Gsjwqc8jdYL/story.html

This is unfortunate.

 

[Van Everyman]

This part was a tough read:

Randall Gay, who at 35 has been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, considers himself among the fortunate. The youngest Patriot to play in the 2005 Super Bowl — a starting defensive back, he led the team with 11 tackles in a 24-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles — Gay retired at age 29 in 2011 after suffering multiple concussions.

He has since graduated from law school with his wife, Desha, and they are practicing attorneys in Louisiana. But Gay’s cognitive deficiencies, he said, include depression and other symptoms he believes were caused by football injuries.

“There are days when I just wake up and don’t want to be around anybody,’’ Gay said. “I just want to be in a room by myself, not doing anything, not even watching TV, and I can’t explain what’s going on.’’

 

[soxhop411]

The NFL should be ashamed

Denied benefits, delayed payments, and the bureaucratic roadblocks of the NFL’s concussion settlement

On festive holidays, Ronnie Lippett, one of the hardest-hitting defensive backs in New England Patriots history, eats alone in his room because the sounds of family celebrations disorient and disturb him.

He never leaves his home outside Boston without a small spiral notebook that contains his precise itinerary, floor plans of the buildings he visits, phone numbers, and his favorite Bible passages.

His GPS goes, too. Otherwise, he is likely to get lost and need the police to help guide him home again

At 57, Lippett said he feels himself slipping away. A member of the Patriots’ All-Decade Team for the 1980s who started in the franchise’s first Super Bowl, in the 1985 season, Lippett devoted much of his life afterward to giving back to the Greater Boston community as a professional youth counselor and a parent of 26 foster children.
eficiencies that doctors have told him are related to the head blows he absorbed playing nine seasons for the Patriots.

Yet Lippett’s application for assistance under the NFL’s $1 billion concussion settlement has been denied, as have 179 others filed through March 13 by retired NFL players, including many Patriots.

“I know I’m not going to live that long,’’ Lippett said in a series of interviews. “I’m fighting to take care of my wife and kids and grandkids after I’m gone, but I’m getting set up to fail.’’

Lippett’s lawyer, Jason Luckasevic, who originated the class-action concussion suit and has helped more than 100 players file claims, alleges that the NFL and court-approved administrator processing the claims are unfairly denying benefits to brain-injured players or are trying to reduce or reverse monetary awards through appeals, audits, and other tactics.

“Everybody is being roadblocked,’’ Luckasevic said. “There are new obstacles and hurdles every step of the way, and Ronnie is a victim of the whole thing. He is a poster child of somebody who is supposed to get a payment.’’

The NFL, in a statement, said the settlement “is working as anticipated by the parties and approved by the court.’’

As of March 13, 1,703 former players had submitted claims for monetary awards since the process began nearly a year ago, and only 156 — less than 10 percent — had received payments of a combined $150 million. The NFL has funded an additional $56 million for 45 other players, but the payments had yet to be made for various reasons.

“To the extent there are delays in payment, that is caused principally by the large number of claims submitted at the beginning of the program, the large number of claims that failed to include the required medical information and backup, and the very significant number of claims that are being audited by the claims administrator for possible fraud,’’ the NFL stated.

The office of the claims administrator chose not to comment publicly. The office is monitored by two independent special masters who report to the federal court overseeing the settlement.

Lippett and 28 other members of New England’s 1985 Super Bowl team are among 342 retired Patriots who alleged in a class-action suit against the NFL and the helmet maker Riddell that they have experienced symptoms of brain injuries related to head impacts in games and practices. Riddell did not join the settlement and continues to litigate the case.


In all, 289 monetary claims totaling $320 million had received initial approval for payment as of March 13, but 35 of those claims had been appealed by the NFL, with the league losing 10 of the 12 appeals that have been decided. Other claims have been delayed by audits of physicians and for additional reasons.

Perhaps most glaring, only six of the 1,108 players who had filed monetary claims for diagnoses of dementia — less than .6 percent — had been paid by March 13. An additional 49 claims had received initial approval for payment, but most are pending appeals or other delays.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2018/03/17/denied-benefits-delayed-payments-and-bureaucratic-roadblocks-nfl-concussion-settlement/rEDWWKRygxJod2VvB740aM/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe:socialflow:twitter

read the rest at the link

 

[Harry Hooper]

Keep in mind the NFL touted its gift of $30 million in unrestricted funds to the NIH to study CTE, and then fought over making the awards to the point less than half of the $30 million got spent.

 

[jose melendez]

I just read the Lippett story and it really shook me. It's not a unique story, sadly, so I'm not really sure why this one in particular got to me, but it did.

I really like watching football, love it even, but I am increasingly aware that I am basically watching gladiatorial combat. In the NFL I can kind of rationalize it away because people are getting paid an awful lot of money to take years off their lives, but the college game, where kids really do get used up and thrown away with no money and no medical care for what they endured as student athletes is pretty unconscionable.

I probably don't have the character to give up football, but it's probably the moral choice.

 

[EricFeczko]

I think the weirdest part is the idea that the burden of proof is on those who say football might be bad for people.

I mean, like, step back for a second and just LOOK at it.

I feel the same way about pollution regulations.

We're primates. We're tougher than most people give credit for.

Fortunately, such proof is easy to provide; i mean in the context of football, pollution is actually much harder to prove

EDIT: Relatively harder to prove, I mean. We're kind of at the scale where it's so obvious, that you almost need a PhD to respond to arguments against the hypothesis.

 

[DJnVa]

I just read the Lippett story and it really shook me. It's not a unique story, sadly, so I'm not really sure why this one in particular got to me, but it did.

I really like watching football, love it even, but I am increasingly aware that I am basically watching gladiatorial combat. In the NFL I can kind of rationalize it away because people are getting paid an awful lot of money to take years off their lives, but the college game, where kids really do get used up and thrown away with no money and no medical care for what they endured as student athletes is pretty unconscionable.

Part of NCAA scholarship should be lifetime medical care. I don't care how expensive it is

 

[soxhop411]

And here it comes

Former NFL Players Claim League Is Manipulating Concussion Settlement, Say Program Is "Settlement In Name Only"

https://deadspin.com/former-nfl-players-claim-league-is-manipulating-concuss-1823944984

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/dementia-claims-in-nfl-concussion-settlement-are-going-unpaid-lawyers-say/2018/03/20/00e635bc-2c7f-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html

 

[soxhop411]

So yah. The nfl screwed the pooch on this.

 

[mauf]

So yah. The nfl screwed the pooch on this.

You’re much too quick to credit the self-serving account of a few plaintiff’s attorneys. Those attorneys co-created the system that they are now complaining about. And it was their job, not the league’s, to make sure that system would meet their clients’ needs.

I’m not close enough to the story to say whether the plaintiff’s lawyers agreed to a bad system, or whether they are simply trying to manage clients who had unreasonable expectations for how quickly they’d get their money. Either way, it’s not the league’s fault.

 

[InstaFace]

Just bumping this to note latest developments:

In April 2019, the Third Circuit reversed the voiding of cash-advance agreements giving players money in anticipation of settlement recovery, and kinda scolded Judge Anita Brody.

Deadspin, May 2019: The concussion settlement is getting worse. Judge Brody upheld the more-restrictive practice for getting cases certified. Lawyers such as Lance Lubel of Houston are generally upset and have contested the fees going to lead plaintiff counsel Chris Seeger. It got uglier in August.

However, Seeger seems content to collect his 1/3 rather than continue the fight for the players' rights. A few days after Judge Brody's ruling, she also terminated 3 of the 4 plaintiff lawyers from the case, including Lubel, leaving only Seeger.

The actions were covered in other non-sports publications too, such as Insurance Journal.

In more recent developments, last week on Sept 12th, the NFL settled with an insurance company who had refused to pay out $1B to cover the league's settlement costs relating to these neurological problems in retired players.

 

[tims4wins]

Interesting article regarding the 3 point stance

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29194393/why-three-point-stance-become-football-thing-past

 

[BaseballJones]

Interesting article regarding the 3 point stance

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29194393/why-three-point-stance-become-football-thing-past

Laws of physics: low man wins. So if the NFL outlawed the three point stance (and presumably, the four point stance), and had all players line up in some sort of standing stance, I wonder if shorter linemen would become preferred. Much easier for them to get lower quicker than guys 6'5".

 

[Harry Hooper]

Laws of physics: low man wins. So if the NFL outlawed the three point stance (and presumably, the four point stance), and had all players line up in some sort of standing stance, I wonder if shorter linemen would become preferred. Much easier for them to get lower quicker than guys 6'5".

Increases the pool of available talent which could drive down the salaries paid to linemen? The NFL owners will love such a change.

 

[InstaFace]

Increases the pool of available talent which could drive down the salaries paid to linemen? The NFL owners will love such a change.

The NFL owners have a salary cap and a 90% floor on a 4-year rolling period. They're paying the money to somebody, regardless.

No longer having to encourage freakishly big athletes to get even freakishly bigger will probably lower their long-term liabilities in terms of the health of their alums.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Bumping this thread to mention the lawsuit being filed against World Rugby (rugby union's governing body) by eight former players, all under the age of 45, suffering early onset dementia as a result of in-game concussions - including a member of England's World Cup-winning team in 2003 who can't remember winning the tournament:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/08/steve-thompson-former-rugby-union-players-dementia-landmark-legal-caseI bring this up here because I have in the past wondered if football would be safer if its players didn't wear helmets, or at least not helmets as we know them (with face masks, etc.) - a change which in theory could force players to be much more careful about launching their bodies into their opponents, much as rugby players have to be. But perhaps that was a naive idea on my part.

 

[tims4wins]

Bumping this thread to mention the lawsuit being filed against World Rugby (rugby union's governing body) by eight former players, all under the age of 45, suffering early onset dementia as a result of in-game concussions - including a member of England's World Cup-winning team in 2003 who can't remember winning the tournament:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/dec/08/steve-thompson-former-rugby-union-players-dementia-landmark-legal-caseI bring this up here because I have in the past wondered if football would be safer if its players didn't wear helmets, or at least not helmets as we know them (with face masks, etc.) - a change which in theory could force players to be much more careful about launching their bodies into their opponents, much as rugby players have to be. But perhaps that was a naive idea on my part.

Very interesting as I've had that same thought before.

 

[Jinhocho]

My wife studies MCI as her area of specialty as a neuroscientist. She has also been the neuroimager on the NFL concussion work at UNC. She has personally briefed Goodell and top NFL execs on it. Interestingly, she said Goodell was one of the smartest minds she had ever encountered and its doubtful he is the useful idiot most people make him out to be.

 

[soxhop411]

Farve takes part in a PSA telling parents that they should not have their kids play tackle football before they turn 14
View: https://twitter.com/ConcussionLF/status/1427633377306365967

 

[Jeff Van GULLY]

Credit where credit is due: Favre knows a lot about blows to little heads.

 

[bigq]

Cumulative force of head hits is the best predictor of CTE

The largest study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy to date found that the cumulative force of head hits absorbed by players in their careers is the best predictor of future brain disease.

When Jeffrey Vlk played running back in high school in the 1990s and then safety in college, he took and delivered countless tackles during full-contact football practices. Hitting was a mainstay, as were injuries, including concussions.

When he became a coach at Buffalo Grove High School outside Chicago in 2005, Vlk did what he had been taught: He had his players hit and tackle in practices to “toughen them up.”

By the time he became head coach in 2016, though, he saw that many of his players were so banged up from a week of hitting in practice that they missed games or were more susceptible to being injured in those games.

So, starting in 2019, Vlk eliminated full-contact practices. Players wore shoulder pads once a week, on Wednesday, which he called contact day. That’s when they hit tackle bags and crash pads, and wrapped up teammates but did not throw them to the ground. Vlk said no starting player had been injured at his practices in four years.

Vlk’s approach to limiting the number of hits players take has been spreading slowly in the football world, where much of the effort has focused on avoiding and treating concussions, which often have observable symptoms and are tracked by sports leagues.

But researchers have for years positedthat the more hits to the head a player receives — even subconcussive ones, which are usually not tracked — the more likely he is to develop cognitive and neurological problems later in life.

A new study published on Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications added a critical wrinkle: A football player’s chances of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., are related to the number of head impacts absorbed, but also to the cumulative impact of all those hits.

The study, the largest to look at the causes of C.T.E. to date, used data published in 34 studies that tracked the number and magnitude of head hits measured by football helmet sensors. Using the data, which went back 20 years, the scientists estimated the number and force of head hits absorbed by 631 former football players who donated their brains to studies overseen by researchers at Boston University.

The paper tried to address one of the most persistent challenges for brain trauma researchers: identifying what aspects of head hits contribute most to C.T.E. They looked at the number of hits to the head, the number of years playing football, the force of those hits and other factors.

The best predictor of brain disease later in life, the study found, was the cumulative force of the head hits absorbed by the players over the course of their careers, not the number of diagnosed concussions.

The latest data “seems to support the idea that, yes, all these hits matter, they all add up,” Dr. Nauman said. “If you accumulate damage faster than the body can repair it, now you’ve got a problem.”
He said the analysis pointed the way toward obvious changes that could make football safer, like the elimination of hitting in practices and the development of helmets that absorb more impact, especially to the back of the head.

Dr. Nauman noted that the new study included brains of players with and without the disease, sparing it from the common concern that the researchers looked only at the most damaged brains.

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

Taking the NFL out of the mix and focusing on the youth football aspect ONLY.

1) If your youth football coach is not coaching the living shit out of the hawk tackling technique (preached by Pete Carroll, who continues his reign as the most underrated genius in football), pull him or her out. The head should not be involved in any football tackle any more.
2) If your youth football coach cannot tell you how much live contact there will be in each practice, pull your kid out. Every coach should be looking at this closely.
3) If your youth football coach does not concussion test at least one kid per game then pull your kid out.

With all that being said, I remain convinced that youth football is tremendously important. I think that young men struggle with managing energy and aggression, and football is one of a number of outlets where that energy and aggression that is productive. I believe that the game can be taught and played safely - meaning that the incidence of brain trauma is in line with other sports and activities. I have coached about 7-10 seasons of youth football, all focused on line play and as a D-coordinator when no one else wants to, and I have only had two kids have actual concussions - both instances were freak instances where kids fell backwards at odd angles. I have pulled about 25 kids off the field for examination (vs. a quick on-field test), and in a handful of cases I have sat kids who I wanted to watch further. In two of those instances I have had parents swear at me because they felt that their player should return to play, so....whatever.

Every time some commentator complains about leading with the head calls, or helmet-to-helmet (Troy Aikman, ironically, is the worst about this), it contributes to this concept that player safety is a "nice to have", when actually the sport is dying at the youth level. And it shouldn't. Young men need contact sports.

 

[crackerjack9]

Taking the NFL out of the mix and focusing on the youth football aspect ONLY.

1) If your youth football coach is not coaching the living shit out of the hawk tackling technique (preached by Pete Carroll, who continues his reign as the most underrated genius in football), pull him or her out. The head should not be involved in any football tackle any more.
2) If your youth football coach cannot tell you how much live contact there will be in each practice, pull your kid out. Every coach should be looking at this closely.
3) If your youth football coach does not concussion test at least one kid per game then pull your kid out.

With all that being said, I remain convinced that youth football is tremendously important. I think that young men struggle with managing energy and aggression, and football is one of a number of outlets where that energy and aggression that is productive. I believe that the game can be taught and played safely - meaning that the incidence of brain trauma is in line with other sports and activities. I have coached about 7-10 seasons of youth football, all focused on line play and as a D-coordinator when no one else wants to, and I have only had two kids have actual concussions - both instances were freak instances where kids fell backwards at odd angles. I have pulled about 25 kids off the field for examination (vs. a quick on-field test), and in a handful of cases I have sat kids who I wanted to watch further. In two of those instances I have had parents swear at me because they felt that their player should return to play, so....whatever.

Every time some commentator complains about leading with the head calls, or helmet-to-helmet (Troy Aikman, ironically, is the worst about this), it contributes to this concept that player safety is a "nice to have", when actually the sport is dying at the youth level. And it shouldn't. Young men need contact sports.

Is the hawk technique the same as "Heads Up" Technique that is used by USA Football leagues?

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

Is the hawk technique the same as "Heads Up" Technique that is used by USA Football leagues?

They employ the same head safety principles. Right now USA Football is miles ahead od any other organization in terms of how to coach safe football.

 

[Marciano490]

Taking the NFL out of the mix and focusing on the youth football aspect ONLY.

1) If your youth football coach is not coaching the living shit out of the hawk tackling technique (preached by Pete Carroll, who continues his reign as the most underrated genius in football), pull him or her out. The head should not be involved in any football tackle any more.
2) If your youth football coach cannot tell you how much live contact there will be in each practice, pull your kid out. Every coach should be looking at this closely.
3) If your youth football coach does not concussion test at least one kid per game then pull your kid out.

With all that being said, I remain convinced that youth football is tremendously important. I think that young men struggle with managing energy and aggression, and football is one of a number of outlets where that energy and aggression that is productive. I believe that the game can be taught and played safely - meaning that the incidence of brain trauma is in line with other sports and activities. I have coached about 7-10 seasons of youth football, all focused on line play and as a D-coordinator when no one else wants to, and I have only had two kids have actual concussions - both instances were freak instances where kids fell backwards at odd angles. I have pulled about 25 kids off the field for examination (vs. a quick on-field test), and in a handful of cases I have sat kids who I wanted to watch further. In two of those instances I have had parents swear at me because they felt that their player should return to play, so....whatever.

Every time some commentator complains about leading with the head calls, or helmet-to-helmet (Troy Aikman, ironically, is the worst about this), it contributes to this concept that player safety is a "nice to have", when actually the sport is dying at the youth level. And it shouldn't. Young men need contact sports.

What age do kids transition to helmets, pads and full hitting? The real young youths still play a version of flag football, right?

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

What age do kids transition to helmets, pads and full hitting? The real young youths still play a version of flag football, right?

Right now, it’s around 4th grade, which would be 9-10, but “full hitting” is an exaggeration to an extent. Regardless, they are still vulnerable.

I think we are going to see that rise to 6th or 7th grade soon which would be absolutely fine by me. To me, other than getting heavier kids out and exercising (which is a very good benefit IMO) tackle football doesn’t have the benefits for kids under 12-13 that it does for 13+

 

[Rick Burlesons Yam Bag]

Also, yes. The NFL's endorsement of flag football has been a fantastic development. It isn't helping my line kids, but it is good for youth participation.

 

[AB in DC]

Another devastating NYT piece.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/16/us/cte-youth-football.html

They started playing football as young as 6.
They died in their teens and twenties with CTE

 

[InstaFace]

Oof, that very first video... brutal. As a parent, I can't imagine seeing my 18yo kid talk very calmly and rationally about how he was now unable to think straight as a result of something I let him do, asks that I donate his brain to science, and then steps out of the car and fatally shoots himself in the chest. Imagine being that parent. Or his coach.

152 examples just of the brains these young kids donated to the BU studies. Their own brains. How many tens of thousands around the country every year?

 

[bigq]

A bunch of videos there and I could not watch them all. Heartbreaking. Most but not all of the parents wish they hadn’t let their sons play tackle football.

 

[kenneycb]

I don’t think that’s right. Northeast, maybe. South, doubtful.

 

[jose melendez]

I’m a little surprised that a number of wrestlers were impacted. Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing where you’d get repeated concussions.