Concussions in Football by Stone Giles

Stone Giles

May 7, 2018

Composition 2- Hammett

Concussions and CTE Final Essay

Intro

You can hear all of the different sounds, from the fans, to the players and coaches, but all you see is a blur. You have not gathered yourself completely yet, but you slowly stumble over to the sideline. As the trainers run over to you, all you see is the piercing light as they run the concussion protocol. After a few minutes along with some rushed steps, they say you are clear, yet you still don’t feel right. Next thing you know you are being shoved into the game to take more hits. This is the weekly life of a professional football player with the crooked rules for concussions in today’s National Football League. Concussions are the most dangerous injury in sports, due to the chance of head trauma and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). We are not taking the right steps to prevent and take care of concussions today. Despite the will to win and be the best right now, CTE will cause you to lose the will to live later on.

History

Concussions are the most common injury in sports, and occur in football more than any other. Seventy percent of football players experience concussions, which leads the second sport, boy’s ice hockey, by a whopping twenty percent (“Head Case - Complete Concussion Managements”). They began to be a concern in the early 1900’s, and have become a more growing concern ever since. Concussions can be caused by any contact involving the head, which is why they are so frequent in contact sports, where there is a lot of head to head contact. Yet, concussions are not just from head to head contact, because studies show that ten percent of youth sports concussions occur from head to body, or head to ground contact (Straus, 1). It’s also not as if concussions only happen at the professional level, because youth football players endure concussions at the same rate as football players of any age (1). These injuries may seem like no big deal with a small two-to-three week recovery period, but concussions look to be a silent longer lasting injury.

Mike Webster, a former National Football League (NFL) player and Pro Football Hall of Fame member, died at fifty years of age on September 24, 2002, due to a heart attack (Litsky, 1). Webster had a very troubled post-football life, where he was “homeless, unemployed, deep in debt, beset with medical ailments, lacking health insurance, in the midst of divorce, in the care of a psychiatrist and on medication, and involved in a complex lawsuit over real estate investments” (1). He was charged with forging nineteen prescriptions for Ritalin in 1999, so he could use it to treat brain damage (1). The more time that went on, the stranger and more bizarre his behavior became. Dr. Bennet Omalu was given the files on Webster, and had the chance to perform his autopsy. Omalu was told about Webster’s bizarre behavior and suspected he had a brain disorder (Omalu, 1). Dr. Omalu was confused during the autopsy, because the brain had no visible damage. He examined slides of his brain under a microscope and found abnormal patterns of proteins called tau and amyloid, both of which occur in Alzheimer’s and dementia pugilistica, but neither matched consistently with the patterns found (1). After extensive research of trying to match the slides with a known case, Omalu knew that he had found a new disease. After days of selecting and analyzing criteria, Omalu finally came up with a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (1).

 

Once CTE was discovered, more cases of it began to come out. Many former football players were coming out saying that they suffer from deep depression, and even pushed some players, like Junior Seau and Terry Long, and many more to commit suicide (Bahk). In 2015, Boston University confirmed that “eighty-seven out of ninety-one deceased former NFL players tested had CTE in their brains (“NFL Players with CTE”). Omalu was excited about his discovery because he thought it would “enhance the brand of the football industry”, but instead the NFL doctors continued to deny that CTE existed (“FRONTLINE”).

Social effects

Concussions and CTE have a huge effect on inner circles. We grow up loving professional athletes, but CTE causes us those same loveable athletes to become depressed and completely change who they are, as they suffer from mood and behavioral disorders (Gordon, 1). Mike Webster suffered extreme behavior changes, which caused him and his wife, Pamela, to divorce in 1992, after she had put up with it for a while. Webster failed to keep a job, and couldn’t even remember scheduled meetings (1). He would be found sleeping in his car or at a train station multiple times, while his wife would have no clue where he was. Mike’s sons said that sometimes he would be shaking so much due to his condition, that he had to buy a police Taser so that he could zap himself, ten to twenty times, just to relax and calm his nerves (1). Mike wasn’t the only one that suffered through this, he was just the first, which means that there are also at least ninety known other families, and that’s only counting football players, who have went through this (“NFL Players with CTE”).

CTE also effects the economy of the National Football League. Many people associated in the league came at Dr. Bennet Omalu when he first discovered CTE, and it’s no surprise why. The NFL acted as if they had no idea what concussions were doing to the players, but then CTE changed everything, from their ratings to the amount of money they had to spend. The NFL had to come out with safer equipment, as well as change many rules to make the league safer for the players. Every offseason, they say that their priority is to protect the players, but we hear that more than we see action. They introduced a more thorough concussion protocol, which teams don’t follow week in and week out, and have pledged to spend 100 million dollars on concussion research. The NFL is a crooked association, and concussions are causing more fans to be drawn towards other safer leagues, which has caused declines every year in all aspects for the NFL.

Examples

Aside from Mike Webster, many other former players have suffered from CTE. Junior Seau, a former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, helped lead the Chargers to their first Super Bowl win, owned a popular restaurant in San Diego, and was a beloved figure in the community (Fainaru-Wada, 1). But on May 2, 2012, Seau shot himself in the heart, killing himself and leaving the football world stunned (1). Within hours of his death, his family was receiving multiple calls from researchers hoping to get the chance to study his brain (1). In January 2013, it was found that Seau had CTE in his brain when he committed suicide (“Junior Seau Had Degenerative Brain Disease CTE When He Committed Suicide, Study Shows.”).

Ken Stabler, the former quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, also was a victim of CTE. Though Stabler’s death was because of colon cancer, CTE was still found in his brain. Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at the V.A. Boston Healthcare System, said that Stabler only had a “moderately severe” case of CTE (Branch, 1). Ken Stabler was a quarterback, which is the most protected position in football. This suggested that no position in football is immune to brain damage (1).

Solutions

            While so far there are no known cures for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), there are a few solutions that could make a lesser chance of it happening. One solution to reduce concussions in football, would be to make even stricter penalties on big hits. In the National Football League (NFL), sixteen percent of the leagues concussions occur from big hits (Leberfeld). So if the league made stricter rules that would punish the team in-game, the percentages of big hits would drop even more. Another possible solution is to change the rules for receivers and running backs in the NFL. This would restrict receivers and backs from catching the ball in the middle of the field, and would cause the receivers to stay outside of the wide hash marks. This would stop almost all plays going across the middle of the field, which would almost virtually eliminate blindside hits. While this solution would decrease the number of yearly concussions greatly, it is very unlikely because it will change the whole rulebook of football.

            A large majority of concussions come from blindside hits, which happen when a player gets hit while looking the other way, so he never saw it coming. Blindside hits can be reduced if players were not always running across the middle of the field, because that is when they are most vulnerable. They are running toward the linebackers while looking at the quarterback, so the second they catch the ball they are getting smashed. Another solution to stop blindside hits is to penalize the offensive coordinator when they call crossing routes. This solution could work very well, as it will only change the gameplay a little bit, but will make it much more safer (Kline).

            While these are just a few solutions to stop concussions, there is not much that will actually cause them to stop happening. Football is a very dangerous and full-contact game, and will never be concussion-free, because of how the game works. There is only one way that will 100 percent stop concussions in football, and that is to just stop playing. But that is very unlikely, because football is the most popular game in the United States (Russell). The next most realistic solution is to make a very dark video showing cases of CTE in former NFL players and how much it will impact you for the rest of your life. Then all players must watch this video before they enter the draft and choose to sign with a team. I think that this solution will be very useful, because players will be exposed to the effects of CTE early on, before they start their pro careers.

Camus and Absurdity

            While Camus’ opinions on absurdity are very clear, I think that concussions in sports are not absurd. However, I do believe that it is absurd that we all sign up to play football, even though we know the risks. Research shows that CTE has led to death, so you could say when we sign up to play football, we are signing up to die. But concussions in football is not absurd, because contact is the main objective of the sport. So when an injury from contact happens in a contact sport, it is not very absurd.

Conclusion

            It is important to create awareness about the dangers that concussions can cause, because it is very common for football players to get later on. CTE is very dangerous, and not as many people know about it as they should. If we all try to come together and make solutions to make football a safer game, then maybe we save them from having a depressing life later.

Works Cited

Bahk, Dara. NFL Athletes with CTE Who Committed Suicide. sbindependent.org/nfl-athletes-with-cte-who-committed-suicide/.

Branch, John. “Ken Stabler, a Magnetic N.F.L. Star, Was Sapped of Spirit by C.T.E.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Feb. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/sports/football/ken-stabler-nfl-cte-brain-disease.html.

CBS/AP. “Junior Seau Had Degenerative Brain Disease CTE When He Committed Suicide, Study Shows.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 10 Jan. 2013, www.cbsnews.com/news/junior-seau-had-degenerative-brain-disease-cte-when-he-committed-suicide-study-shows/.

Fainaru-Wada, Mark, et al. “Doctors: Junior Seau's Brain Had CTE.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 11 Jan. 2013, www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8830344/study-junior-seau-brain-shows-chronic-brain-damage-found-other-nfl-football-players.

Gordon, Meryl. “Before 'Concussion': Mike Webster's Shattered Life.” Reader's Digest, Reader's Digest, 6 June 2017, www.rd.com/health/conditions/mike-webster-brain-injury/.

“Head Case - Complete Concussion Managements.” Stats on Concussions & Sports - Head Case - Complete Concussion Managements, www.headcasecompany.com/concussion_info/stats_on_concussions_sports.

Kline, Sam. “Concussion Discussion: 9 Solutions That Will Keep NFL Superstars Healthy.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 12 Apr. 2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/496967-concussion-discussion-nine-solutions-that-will-keep-nfl-superstars-healthy.

Litsky, Frank. “Mike Webster, 50, Dies; Troubled Football Hall of Famer.” The New York Times, 25 Sept. 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/09/25/sports/mike-webster-50-dies-troubled-football-hall-of-famer.html.

Mar, Daniel Leberfeld1. “NFL Concussions Up 16 Percent in 2017.” Breitbart, 1 Mar. 2018, www.breitbart.com/sports/2018/03/01/nfl-concussions-up-16-percent-in-2017/.

News, CBS. “NFL Players with CTE.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 24 Jan. 2018, www.cbsnews.com/pictures/nfl-football-players-with-cte/

Omalu, Bennet. “Concussions and NFL: How the Name CTE Came About.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 Dec. 2015, www.cnn.com/2015/12/21/opinions/omalu-discovery-of-cte-football-concussions/index.html.

Russell, Bill. “Top 10 Most Popular Sports in America (TV Ratings) Sporteology.” Sporteology, 17 Aug. 2017, sporteology.com/top-10-most-popular-sports-in-america/.

Straus, JD Lindsey Barton. “Youth Football Concussion Study Criticizing Limits On Contact Practices As 'Shortsighted' Generates Controversy.” MomsTeam, www.momsteam.com/health-safety/youth-football-concussion-study-generates-controversy-over-suggestion-that-limiting-contact-practices-mistake.

.“Tag Page – FRONTLINE.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oral-history/league-of-denial/cte-discovery-of-a-new-disease/.

Russell, Bill. “Top 10 Most Popular Sports in America (TV Ratings) Sporteology.” Sporteology, 17 Aug. 2017, sporteology.com/top-10-most-popular-sports-in-america/.