by: Evie Zahner
As the Super Bowl grows closer, there is tons of excitement about who will win, and how the game is going to go. Personally, I hate football. I think it's boring, slow, and the rules are next to impossible to understand. People have tried to explain it to me countless times, but I just can't stand it. However, the mind numbing experience of watching a football game is not the only thing contributing to my hatred of football. It's also how the NFL has a history of covering up and dismissing instances of domestic violence and contributing to the concussion crisis by exploiting their players.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, is a neurodegenerative disease that affects people that have suffered multiple concussions or brain injuries. The largest demographic affected by this disease happens to be football players. Football players take multiple hits per game, and even if the hit is not directly to the head, the impact when they hit the ground may be enough to injure their brains. The NFL is, in the end, a business. A business that depends on the best players winning their games, and injuries can inhibit their playing time in these games. I believe that the NFL does not actually care about the wellbeing of its players, and is not personally concerned with their rehabilitation after an injury, or what happens as a result of their injuries after the player's retirement. In a study of 202 ex-football player's brains, 99% of ex-NFL players were found to have developed CTE. There is evidence that the NFL worked to hide research that had revealed that repeated head injuries cause irreversible damage to players. There was also evidence that playing in the NFL can significantly lower a player's lifespan, and impair the quality of their lives following concussions. The NFL hid this information from the public as well as from their own players for as long as possible. The NFL promoted the idea that there was no link between long term brain damage and playing in the NFL, all while settling with families of former players who had suffered from CTE. The NFL has paid over $1 billion in medical related settlements to families of former players who suffered lasting effects of brain damage caused by playing in the NFL.
I reached out to Mr. Hutchins, the athletic trainer here at Wooster, and asked him his thoughts on the NFL's concussion crisis. He also mentioned the medical settlements that the NFL has been involved with, and how they covered them up to seem less severe. Mr. Hutchins also mentioned some interesting points I haven't heard before, like how when Mike Webster was found to have severe CTE and brain damage, the NFL began to challenge the claim that concussions from football could lead to permanent neurological damage. The NFL then formed a task force led by a NY Jets doctor, who was later found to have no expertise or training in neurology. The NFL had players who formed neurological conditions dropped from a study as to not give the NFL a negative reputation.
As part of these medical settlements, Mr. Hutchins told me the NFL has implemented some changes to their protocols. They have trained injury spotters sitting in a box, who have the ability to call down to the field and have a player evaluated. He also mentioned that the NFL has an independent neurologist at every game to check if a player has sustained a concussion, which is good because if the league had hired a neurologist, there could be motivation for a team neurologist to look the other way in order to clear a player faster and get them back to the game. The NFL has also instituted on field penalties for tackling a defenseless player, and in college players will get thrown out for tackling defenseless players. They have also developed the "Heads Up" campaign to teach proper tackling, and support playing flag football until the age of 14.
However, another interesting point Mr. Hutchins mentioned was the announcers of the games. He said that he had noticed announcers using the term "head injury" instead of concussions, to make it sound less serious. Football is a violent game, there's no denying that. However, Mr. Hutchins mentioned how people seem to glorify the big hit. I think this is something that many watchers of football may not even realize is happening, but crowds and fans seem to go crazy when there is a huge tackle or a player gets slammed to the ground. For someone like me who doesn't like football, I hate watching players get hit. At the end of the day, these players are people who can get seriously injured. Glorifying the big hit is only going to encourage unnecessary violence within the game, and potentially get more players seriously injured, and increase the risk of severe neurological damage.
The NFL clearly has a history of trying to cover up serious problems in their organization, as is shown with the way they have handled the concussion crisis. Next week, I plan on diving more into the issue of domestic violence within the NFL, and how it has plagued the league for years with no consequence to the players who commit the crime of domestic violence.