A devastating look at NFL concussions

POSTED 2:00 p.m. EDT, May 15, 2007

A DEVASTATING LOOK AT NFL CONCUSSIONS
by Michael David Smith

Last year, Bryant Gumbel made some comments on HBO's Real Sports that embarrassed the NFL.
He insulted the head of the NFLPA, Gene Upshaw, suggesting that he was nothing more than a puppet for the league. That was particularly noteworthy because Gumbel had recently been hired as the play-by-play announcer on NFL Network.

That controversy has long since blown over, but a Real Sports segment that first aired Monday night (a brief clip of which can be viewed here) has the potential to be a much bigger problem for the league.

The segment began with a discussion of former Philadelphia Eagles safety Andre Waters, who committed suicide last year. Waters' family donated his brain to be studied, and the doctors who examined it believe the concussions he suffered in the NFL directly contributed to the depression that led to his suicide.

Dr. Ira Casson, a neurologist and the head of the NFL's committee on concussions, insisted that "[t]here's no clear evidence" connecting player concussions to depression, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, or any other health problem. Of course, the tobacco industry was able to find doctors, who would say there were no long-term health risks associated with smoking cigarettes for decades -- even after everyone knew that was nonsense.

I'm not saying Casson is anything like the doctors who inhabited the back pockets of the tobacco companies, but a doctor who gets a paycheck from the NFL has an obvious conflict, and according to the Real Sports report, independent doctors who aren't conflicted say people who suffer concussions in their 20s and 30s end up with serious problems later in life.

Every time a former NFL player shows up on television with clear signs of brain damage, everyone watching has to wonder why no one stepped in to put a stop to this problem.

And that led to the question from Gumbel at the end of the segment, a question every viewer had to know was coming: "Where's the NFLPA in all this?
Where's the union that's supposed to be protecting these guys?"

While Gumbel might have an axe to grind with the union, it doesn't mean that his question is not a good one.

Good article. This raises some serious questions that the players and the nfl need to look at. Should there be rules in place so that if a player has x number of concussion they can not play, can helmets be improved. I doubt much will happen because there is too much money involved to worry about the health of the players, the smart players (robert smith) understand the risks and only play for a handful of years. Also note that these guys are all a little nuts long before the alzheimers sets in.