NFL Concussion Issue - NYT Article

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bideau said:
That would be a very astute observation.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mercury News finds NFL funneling funds to lawmakers sitting on concussion committee. <a href="https://t.co/Pub98fR4D6">https://t.co/Pub98fR4D6</a></p>— Tom E. Curran (@tomecurran) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomecurran/status/713367628996284418">March 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
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the result of this congressional "investigation" was decided before it even began...
 
Hawg73 said:
A solid point, although we'll have to see how hockey stacks up when it gets studied in a comprehensive way. I'll admit I don't know what has been done so far as that goes, but I heard on sports talk radio that it's been done and it's bad.

Boxing is probably worse than football, but.....you're right. Still fighting. This one really made me think that maybe I'm dead wrong about all of it.

NASCAR has deaths, but those guys have a far greater chance of getting decapitated than to get CTE from repeated trauma. That one is a bit different.
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And none of the sports I mentioned carry the intrinsic economic impact football does.

Trust me. It's going nowhere.
 
I disagree. Year after year some of the best high school athletes are leaving football to play other sports. My school, which has won a New England Bowl game four out of the last 6 years, and has sent players to BC, Iowa, UCLA, etc, has seen a drop in kids willing to put their brains on the line.
It's a trickle now, to be sure, but it's increasing every single year. Players are leaving after one major concussion at times.
 
patswin said:
I have a hunch Jerrah Jones will be found to be a key player in this debacle. Just a funny feeling no more no less. Id love to see him hung out to dry.
I'm starting to think he has a lot to do with the Pats getting boned by the league too.
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Hawg73 said:
You're catching on about Jones. He's been stabbing Bob Kraft in the back all along even while pretending to be his good buddy. He's a fvcking drunken snake and I'm glad my filter is still functional or I'd get really graphic.

God, guns and football and not necessarily in that order.
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Why did Jerry Jones turn against Bob Kraft? Let's try to answer...

1. Money/Prestige. The Cowboys have been the NFL's most valuable franchise by far for many years but the Patriots are closing the gap quickly. Jerry is a proud man and a ruthless businessman.

2. Cap punishment. Jerry took a hit because he went over the cap in the 'uncapped' year & Kraft sided with the NFL (= against Jerry). Nobody crosses Jerry and gets away with it.
Jerry is a proud man and a vengeful, ruthless businessman.

3. Jerry is jealous of the good PR Kraft received for his roles in the lucrative TV contract and in the CBA negotiations. Jerry thinks Jerrah could have done it better. (Firing Jimmy Johnson says otherwise.)
Jerry is a proud man and a jealous, vengeful, ruthless businessman.

4. Over the last 15 years the Patriots are the winningest team in the NFL. Jerry's team has been an 'also ran' which makes Jerry look bad as an owner/GM. Jerry thinks Kraft got lucky with BB and a 6th round pick.
Jerry is a proud man and an envious, jealous, vengeful, ruthless businessman.

I'll leave cheating, power hungry, etc. for others to have some fun with. :wink:
 
chevss454 said:
Why did Jerry Jones turn against Bob Kraft? Let's try to answer...

1. Money/Prestige. The Cowboys have been the NFL's most valuable franchise by far for many years but the Patriots are closing the gap quickly. Jerry is a proud man and a ruthless businessman.

2. Cap punishment. Jerry took a hit because he went over the cap in the 'uncapped' year & Kraft sided with the NFL (= against Jerry). Nobody crosses Jerry and gets away with it.
Jerry is a proud man and a vengeful, ruthless businessman.

3. Jerry is jealous of the good PR Kraft received for his roles in the lucrative TV contract and in the CBA negotiations. Jerry thinks Jerrah could have done it better. (Firing Jimmy Johnson says otherwise.)
Jerry is a proud man and a jealous, vengeful, ruthless businessman.

4. Over the last 15 years the Patriots are the winningest team in the NFL. Jerry's team has been an 'also ran' which makes Jerry look bad as an owner/GM. Jerry thinks Kraft got lucky with BB and a 6th round pick.
Jerry is a proud man and an envious, jealous, vengeful, ruthless businessman.

I'll leave cheating, power hungry, etc. for others to have some fun with. :wink:
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The Pats becoming the new America's team of the last 15 years is the main reason IMO. I always think back to what Don Yee said when this whole mess again, "There is no envy and jealously like NFL envy and jealously." Sometimes the simplest reason is the right one.
 
Hawg73 said:
Actually, you are 100% wrong about that.

Dr. Bennett Omalu, the BU research team, maybe a million people that watched the PBS special, a few million more that watched the Will Smith movie version and everybody involved with the NFL directly and a lot of folks who have read about the matter fully realize that almost every brain studied so far shows definitive evidence of CTE. It was something like 68 out of 69 the last time I heard the stats and CTE is not a common diagnosis at all, much less better than 98% of a study group coming up positive.

Saying that these guys don't know the "full extent" is slightly true, since nobody can effectively examine their brains for CTE while they are still alive, but given the extremely negative facts that are all over the news they fvcking well SHOULD understand that they are all going to have to deal with the effects of the disease in one way or another.
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So, it's 100% wrong but slightly true? :shrug_n:

You, I, nor anyone else knows what the research that could have been done, and done properly, would eventually show if the NFL hadn't been trying to shut down or tamper with the results for all these years. It could be far worse than anyone imagines (or better, I suppose).

Yes, I think that every player out there should be on notice that there is a very good chance they will suffer some sort of long term affects from brain injuries by playing. But is that chance 10%, 25%, 50%, 100%? What are the odds it will significantly reduce their lifespan? We could know so much more if the NFL hadn't been trying to bury the problem for so long.
 
A brilliant piece from Tm Curran:

http://www.csnne.com/new-england-patriots/nfl-must-start-showing-humanity-and-humility

NFL must start showing humanity and humility

I realized fairly young that I probably wouldn’t play in the NFL.

I actually remember when. I was in sixth grade and we were assigned to draw a portrait of our future selves. On my giant piece of oak tag, I sketched myself in a Steelers uniform, a mustachioed running back wearing No. 35 (one digit higher than Walter Payton and Earl Campbell).

One arm was longer than the other and my hands looked mutant so I probably would have been red-flagged at the Combine.

Poor drawing skills aside, I remember thinking as I worked hard on the drawing that it was unlikely to happen. But in the same moment I also was thinking the next best thing would be writing about the NFL. Because I loved to read and I loved to write and I was pretty good at both.

It took a while. Three years after graduating college, I got my first sportswriting job on the Cape. Every Thursday, when the Barnstable Patriot came out, I delivered my own papers around town. I hit every rung on the newspaper ladder over the next five years and finally, in 1997, started covering the Patriots for the MetroWest Daily News. My first real assignment was the 1997 draft and I remember spontaneously telling Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald, “This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Well, you’re doing it,” he said.

That I’ve continued doing it and been paid enough to have a family, buy a house, buy some cars, send kids to college and save for retirement is a blessing I try to remind myself of.

Beyond that, I’ve been in the right place at the right time to cover the greatest coach, quarterback and dynasty of the modern era. It’s like being a London theater critic in the late 16th century when Shakespeare was churning out plays.

I’ve been to Europe once. That was to cover an NFL game. I’ve been to most of the 50 states because I was covering NFL games or events. I’ve met and become close with people of far different backgrounds than mine only because I cover the NFL.

That’s long-ass preface is so you know where I come from when I say this: I don’t want professional football to go anywhere. I don’t want the NFL to die. Hell, I don’t even really want it to change that much. And I don’t relish having to acknowledge that the game’s brutality ultimately led to the deaths of some of the players I idolized as a kid and covered as an adult.

But it’s incumbent on me and the rest of us who cover and consume the sport to come to grips with the dangers and hold the sport’s stewards – the owners and league executives – feet to the fire on their self-serving, callous greed and hypocrisy.

Because until the league begins to consistently acknowledge – without qualifiers and mealy-mouthed defenses – that playing football has been and continues to be dangerous, the whole enterprise feels dirty. And until the league and its owners stop reflexively talking about how much money they’re throwing at research and how the game’s never been safer without also adding that that’s the least they can do after their treatment of the workforce for decades, then people will still believe the owners and league executives don’t get it.

And they proved this week that they don’t get it.

Speaking to lawmakers in Washington last week, Jeff Miller, the league’s senior vice president for health and safety, acknowledged the link between football and CTE, the degenerative brain disorder. That landmark moment was submarined by the NFL grabbing a sheet to cover its now-exposed ass in the still-ongoing litigation with players trying to get settlement money from the league before they die.

Followed this week by the tactless, tone-deaf, arrogant remark from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones who called the notion that data supported a link between football and CTE “absurd,” the league somehow backslid from the point it was before Miller stated there was a link.

Then, on Thursday, the New York Times published a story revealing the NFL’s five-year report on brain injuries in the late ‘90s left out of its data more than 100 concussions. The league – presumably at the urging of its newly-installed PR honcho Joe Lockhart volleyed back TWICE with point-by-point takedowns that only served to make the league look like it was dissembling and obfuscating even more.

The thing that mattered from the Times story was that the NFL knew it didn’t have complete concussion data in the five-year study but claimed it did. The league’s defense was, basically, “If you read the fine print you’d see we didn’t make that claim.” The Times found evidence of the NFL – despite the fine print – touting the data as complete.

Later on Thursday, former NFL player Kevin Turner – one of the lead plaintiffs in the NFLPA’s concussion lawsuit – died from ALS.

As yet, not a peep from the NFL on Turner. Too busy manning battle stations on other fronts I guess.

How about this, find your f****** humanity and let it show, because I’ve talked to enough of you individually and know it’s in there. Lead with that. And humility.

People want to feel as if the teams they root for – or cover – are run by families that are having the same awakening we all are. That there’s an uneasy truce we have to make as an NFL consumer. We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact some of the collisions we watched contributed to terrible health issues later on.

We can accept that those collisions will continue and be part of the game if we know the people running the league are addressing the dangers not to protect their wealth but to protect their employees and to give redress for mistakes made in the past.

That’s all I got.
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The NFL continually minimizes the dangers of concussions, as well as its culpability, regardless of its PR stance. "He got his bell rung" hardly describes the living hell the victims of CTE endure. They all act like a concussion is only a head 'stinger'.
 
Regarding some of the other sports mentioned in previous posts:

Hockey - The NHL is far ahead of the NFL in acknowledging and dealing with concussions. They were several seasons ahead in handling in-game situations and the protocol for getting back on the ice. They're not hiding behind lawyer speak. Also, hockey has more leg injuries than head injuries. The sport, by it's nature and self-regulation, discourages hits above the shoulders. Most of the action takes place from the chest down. Additionally, at the youth levels, contact is strictly regulated and youth concussions are far from the norm. Football, by it's nature, cannot avoid head contact.

NASCAR - Everyone involved with auto racing has known the risks of participating since the dawn of car racing. It's a risk that everyone involved knowingly takes. However, the industry has continuously looked for technologies to improve rider safety and continues to do so.

Boxing - IMHO, concussions is one reason why the sport has been on the decline for some years now along with the rise of ...........

MMA - The risks are well known and no one runs away from them. I don't watch it, so I don't know what safety protocols are in place. But the fighters know what they're getting into and no one is trying to convince then otherwise.


Curran is spot on. The issue with the NFL right now is their refusal to admit the dangers. As he says, it feels dirty. I still believe that the sport will eventually fade in popularity not because people will be turned off by the inherent violence, but that the talent pool will continue to dwindle as younger players choose other sports. We'll begin to see the decline of the athleticism and skill.
 
I don't find Curran to be disingenuous; I think his position reflects that of many football fans who simultaneously love football but loathe the NFL.
 
D2maine said:
curran personally profits from and directly supports the NFL and its propaganda machine. kinda disingenuous to call them out at the same time you are lining their pockets and yours.
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Is it just me, or do you become more and more of a douche with every passing day? Seriously. Job trouble? Problems at home? Health issues? Whatever it is, you should take care of it. I only bring it up because I'm worried about you, and I care. :coffee:
 
D2maine said:
curran personally profits from and directly supports the NFL and its propaganda machine. kinda disingenuous to call them out at the same time you are lining their pockets and yours.
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Where did he deny that? Did you bother to read the article? Did you read this paragraph?

That’s long-ass preface is so you know where I come from when I say this: I don’t want professional football to go anywhere. I don’t want the NFL to die. Hell, I don’t even really want it to change that much. And I don’t relish having to acknowledge that the game’s brutality ultimately led to the deaths of some of the players I idolized as a kid and covered as an adult.
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What's your motivation to even state that? Where do you want the dissenting voices to come from? Just slinging mud at Curran without context is pretty weak assed.
 
bideau said:
Regarding some of the other sports mentioned in previous posts:

Hockey - The NHL is far ahead of the NFL in acknowledging and dealing with concussions. They were several seasons ahead in handling in-game situations and the protocol for getting back on the ice. They're not hiding behind lawyer speak. Also, hockey has more leg injuries than head injuries. The sport, by it's nature and self-regulation, discourages hits above the shoulders. Most of the action takes place from the chest down. Additionally, at the youth levels, contact is strictly regulated and youth concussions are far from the norm. Football, by it's nature, cannot avoid head contact.

NASCAR - Everyone involved with auto racing has known the risks of participating since the dawn of car racing. It's a risk that everyone involved knowingly takes. However, the industry has continuously looked for technologies to improve rider safety and continues to do so.

Boxing - IMHO, concussions is one reason why the sport has been on the decline for some years now along with the rise of ...........

MMA - The risks are well known and no one runs away from them. I don't watch it, so I don't know what safety protocols are in place. But the fighters know what they're getting into and no one is trying to convince then otherwise.


Curran is spot on. The issue with the NFL right now is their refusal to admit the dangers. As he says, it feels dirty. I still believe that the sport will eventually fade in popularity not because people will be turned off by the inherent violence, but that the talent pool will continue to dwindle as younger players choose other sports. We'll begin to see the decline of the athleticism and skill.
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The topic want head injury/concussion. It had escalated to a death on field.

I cited those sports as having already gone down that road. Yet still thriving.

The NFL will not die.
 
D2maine said:
curran personally profits from and directly supports the NFL and its propaganda machine. kinda disingenuous to call them out at the same time you are lining their pockets and yours.
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Curran has been forthright and honest, brutally sometimes, about the NFL, called out people that need to be called out and others are afraid to, and has an exceptional grasp of the words that need to be spoken.

Except to you, apparently.
 
curran is so upset with the nfl but continues to line his pockets with $ from the nfl, yawn he spoke harshly, he is so cross, he talks tough.

just sick and tired of tough talk but no real action by those who actively support and profit, stop making the nfl money and they might start to give a crap. you think the nfl will give 2 fvcks about any of this as long as the $ keep flowing in.

hell everybody is all giddy congress is looking into concussions, except almost every member of the committee looking into it has been bought by the NFL. the findings there were decided before the investigation even began.

the nfl owners only care about one thing, money, until we as fans start to hurt the bottom line we are the problem.
 
D2maine said:
curran is so upset with the nfl but continues to line his pockets with $ from the nfl, yawn he spoke harshly, he is so cross, he talks tough.

just sick and tired of tough talk but no real action by those who actively support and profit, stop making the nfl money and they might start to give a crap. you think the nfl will give 2 fvcks about any of this as long as the $ keep flowing in.

hell everybody is all giddy congress is looking into concussions, except almost every member of the committee looking into it has been bought by the NFL. the findings there were decided before the investigation even began.

the nfl owners only care about one thing, money, until we as fans start to hurt the bottom line we are the problem.
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How exactly does he line his pockets with money from the NFL? The guy worked his way up and now works for Comcast Sports Network. The NFL doesn't own it. If you actually read the article, you might have garnered just how much Curran actually DOES care about the sport, given it was his dream to become a player. But let's not give any credit to anybody. Ever. We'll just bitch and moan about the NFL because THAT does a lot of good.
 
D2maine said:
curran is so upset with the nfl but continues to line his pockets with $ from the nfl, yawn he spoke harshly, he is so cross, he talks tough.

just sick and tired of tough talk but no real action by those who actively support and profit, stop making the nfl money and they might start to give a crap. you think the nfl will give 2 fvcks about any of this as long as the $ keep flowing in.

hell everybody is all giddy congress is looking into concussions, except almost every member of the committee looking into it has been bought by the NFL. the findings there were decided before the investigation even began.

the nfl owners only care about one thing, money, until we as fans start to hurt the bottom line we are the problem.
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Your negativity never fails ...
 
PatsFanLisa said:
How exactly does he line his pockets with money from the NFL? The guy worked his way up and now works for Comcast Sports Network. The NFL doesn't own it. If you actually read the article, you might have garnered just how much Curran actually DOES care about the sport, given it was his dream to become a player. But let's not give any credit to anybody. Ever. We'll just bitch and moan about the NFL because THAT does a lot of good.
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its the bitching and moaning without action i am sick of lisa.

comcast and curran most certainly profit from the nfl, be serious.
 
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