How the NFL Wound Up in the Same Sand Box as the Tobacco Industry, and How To Get Out

The NFL’s reaction to the connection between concussions and brain injury resemble similar arguments from tobacco industries in the 90s.

The game of football has long since been a hands-on, physically demanding game. Over the years, equipment has been developed to protect players against organ and bone injury including padding, shoulder guards, helmets with face masks, etc. Until the mid-90s, however, one organ that wasn’t thought to be affected by long term, repeating injury was the brain. The evolution of helmets has evolved immensely since the 1920s, where only leather was worn (on rare occasions; it wasn’t uncommon to see half the field playing with bare heads). As helmets developed, they weren’t to protect from concussions, per say, but general head injuries.

This infographic depicts the amount of force that is needed to produce concussions and the most powerful football hits. A scary amount:

The main issue in developing new helmet technology to protect against concussions is that they only address padding, not rotation, which is the main cause of concussion in athletic collisions. You can browse through six helmets companies have made in hopes of combatting the concussion issue.

Before any of the recent advancements had been made, the NCAA had been investigating the potential effects of concussions, or Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries, during the 1980s and 1990s. This investigation followed injuries to star players such as Troy Aikerman. It wasn’t until three years later that the NFL opened a formal investigation and MTBI team. Since 1994, the NFL has vehemently denied that concussions have any long term effect on players and their abilities post-injury despite heavy evidence against that (to be discussed later). PBS has produced a timeline of such cases and major events from ’94 to 2013 here.

Dr. Ann McKee, an independent researcher from Boston University, has studied brains for many years. Since 2009, McKee had been proactively researching and speaking about her findings of CTE, or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a degenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head in football players, though the NFL had denied each claim. Her final results were revealed at a conference in Zurich in 2012. McKee revealed that CTE was discovered in 33 out of 34 former football players’ brains studied. This evidence was too strong for the NFL to deny any more and stopped cherry-picking evidence published in a NFL-sponsored neurology survey. Since 2010, the organization has been proactive in its efforts such as donating money for CTE research, changing NFL rules to attempt to offset head injuries and, most recently, agree to a 765 million dollar settlement with retired NFL players who claimed that the NFL had deceived players that brain injuries were connected with football. Concussions in the NFL have risen 14% in the past year.

[Above shows brains from left to right with 1) no CTE, old male 2) NFL player’s brain, middle aged 3) a boxer’s, middle aged]

What’s most interesting is the approach the NFL took when these claims came out. It’s most reminiscent of the tobacco companies’ denial in the 90s with the denial of evidence and deception of information concerning players. Despite numerous years of evidence between head injuries and CTE/dementia, the League denied any wrongdoing or connection between the two, in turn refusing to put players’ health at the top of their priorities list. The above article written by Ian Gordon depicts the three main ways the NFL denied these connections.

1. Cherry-picking data from NFL-sponsored surveys 2. Co-opting a reputable journal to publish questionable research: 3. Blasting independent researches (such as Dr. McKee)

The tobacco industry is looked down upon and will more likely than not be stuck with a negative reputation. The NFL, however, has the power the turn its own reputation around with this “concussion discussion” (ha) coming to its highest peak in the recent months. The NFL needs to become transparent in its past denials and claims while being as proactive as possible in regards to brain testing, and helmet and game advancement. The NFL is being looked at like the bad guy. Commissioner Roger Goodell has the opportunity to work with numerous partners whose interest is to better the game of football and the wellbeing of players, starting from 5 years old to 55, which he must take advantage of. He has the opportunity to help get real, informative research published with NFL sponsorship as well as work with independent researchers such as McKee. If the Commissioner isn’t looking out for the good of the players, who is? Alas, time will tell whether or not the NFL has taken the right cue from the tobacco industry this time.