For the first time in over 20 years, the NFL has finally acknowledged that there is in fact a link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE.  In the past, the NFL repeatedly denied any claims or allegations that there we any link between the two.  Not only did the NFL ignore the pleas of the former players, they also created the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee.  The committee "spent 16 years producing a body of suspect research that was almost transparently designed to support the NFL's spurious denials and bolster its smear campaigns against dissenting brain researchers and critics" (Furness). MTBI even said that "no NFL player" had experienced chronic brain damage from repeated concussions," and that "professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis" (Breslow). What this is basically saying is that since players do not sustain a ton of hits to the head, they do not experience any brain damage from playing in the NFL.  It's clear that culpability now rests in the hands of the NFL, but what now?  How will this admittance affect players, past and present? Countless times the NFL has put its players in an unsafe work environment, ranging from players fighting through the pain, to concussions, the dislocated shoulders, to the medical staff misdiagnosing and denying effective treatment to current players.  All the NFL seems interested in is incentivizing through player culture, but not actually taking full responsibility for not fully releasing just how dangerous of a sport football can be.  Through an investigation into how the NFL is dealing with the concussion crisis, and the recent admittance of linkage between football and CTE, I will argue that the NFL is both civilly and ethically culpable and that legal ramifications should be put in place against the NFL for not coming forward with everything that they knew about brain damage.  

"CTE is a degenerative brain disease that has been found posthumously in a number of former football players" (SI Wire).  The disease has been known about since the 1920s and was attributed to boxers since they experienced repeated blows to the head over a short span of time.  It was not until 2005 when Dr. Bennet Omalu published his research surrounding Mike Webster, a NFL star who died from CTE symptoms, that there was a concussion crisis in the midst of the NFL.  Over the course of his career, "Mike Webster had received more than 70,000 violent blows to the head.  Dr Omalu again stated that "the human brain wasn't meant to absorb that kind of consistent violent impact" (Lilly).  No matter how many times the NFL executives seem to deny what is really going on in the NFL, you cannot deny evidence and statistics.  According to the researchers in the Department of Veteran Affairs and Boston University, they have identified CTE "in 96 percent of NFL players that they've examined and in 79 percent of all football players" (Breslow).  These statistics make it a reason for us to believe that there is a growing epidemic in the NFL.  And that is just the beginning. "Diagnosed concussions rose by nearly 32 percent in the NFL this season" (Seifert).  How much longer till the NFL realizes that they are in a losing battle.  There will always be concussions in the NFL, it's up to them to change the way they going about regulating them.

Justin Strzleczyk was another NFL player in the 90s who died from CTE related symptoms.  After he died, his wife stated that "Nobody handed us a piece a paper and said you may die and leave your kids fatherless. Nobody said that death was option" (Howard).  Even though it is evident that the NFL has neglected to inform the players of what they are getting themselves into when they sign up to play football in the NFL, they still neglect they withheld any valuable information.  From these claims of neglect, all the NFL came back with was "we strongly deny those allegations that we withheld any information or misled the players" (Ezell).  Junior Seau was another player who died due to the symptoms of CTE. "On May 2, 2012, Junior Seau, one of the most talented and feared linebackers ever to play in the National Football League (NFL), died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest".  Seau's family claims that the NFL intentionally "hid the link between repeated blows to the head and long term cognitive issues" (Drysdale).  Since the players were not aware exactly how dangerous playing in the NFL was, they played the game without thinking twice about what injuries they would get that game.  Keith McCants, a fourth round pick of the 1990 NFL Draft stated that "we were paid to give concussions. If we knew that we were killing people, I would have never put on the jersey" (Kaplan).  He was not aware of what brain injuries could do to players, due to the lack of information that the NFL gave out.  If the NFL actually did tell their employees everything, maybe a lot of players would never have set foot on the field.  You hear all these stories of past NFL players fighting through the pain, playing with broken hands, torn ligaments, and popped out shoulders.  Maybe if they knew what they were truly doing to their bodies during game time, would they have played through the pain?  One quote from New York Giants Hall of Famer Harry Carson really exemplifies the last statement, he is quoted saying "There's so many guys who played, and they never knew what they were risking when they played," Carson said. "Now, when you play, there's enough information out there to make a decision as to whether you want to play or not. And if you go out to play, then you have to assume the risk of sustaining a concussion or some kind of neurological disorder down the road. These guys who [I played with] didn't really have a choice. Because we all played through concussions, it was a part of the game" (Serby).  How many lives have ended due to the neglect of the NFL and not coming out with all they knew?  The NFL is a fault for all of this and needs to be held responsible.

The NFL has started to implement rule changes to counter act concussions and improve diagnoses stating that "we are dedicated to making football safer and continue to take steps to protect players, including rule changes, advanced sideline technology, and expanded medical resources" (Breslow).  No matter what the NFL is doing, it just doesn't seem to be working.  For example, the NFL is trying to perfect the helmet.  Year after year they are working on the football helmet to try and minimize brain injures.  What they are really doing is incentivizing violence.  You might think that the helmet is preventing players from enduring repeated blows to the head and limiting the times one might become brain damaged.  Helmets are actually the thing that is making football a more violent sport. It is actually quite ironic. The piece of equipment developed to protect the player is instead causing fatalities.  Dr. Erik Swartz, a former rugby player, and a kinesiology professor at the University of New Hampshire said that "it is referred to as risk compensation, or risk homeostasis, when a player has a body part that is protected, and the contact with somebody else is imminent, you're going to put your protected body part first, just reflexively" (qtd. in Haislop).  So while the NFL aims to cut down on head related injuries, they are actually increasing the chances of them. As stated before, the NFL are taking numerous steps to try and improve the safety of the NFL.  "Since 2010, alone, the NFL has changed the length of kickoffs, imposed new rules to limit head and neck contact with defenseless players, and even required teams to consult with independent neurologists whenever a head injury occurs to a player, all in an attempt to reduce the number of head injuries and the effects therefrom suffered during the season".  Even though the NFL is trying everything in their power to make the game a safer sport, it's still a very violent game. "Players continue to hide concussion symptoms from coaches and trainers to avoid being taken out of a highly contested game and possibly even losing their starting positions permanently" (Drysdale).  In the NFL, it is a play or no pay type of league.  The players are so focused on playing that if they sit out for even a quarter, they might end up without a job.  All the NFL is doing is creating an implied incentive if anyone misses work.    It's the NFL's duty to alert players of what is to come from playing football.  The league's duty was to protect its employees of any unsafe conditions that came to their attention, without putting the players in harms way before anything was known.  "Employers possess a duty to their employees to ensure reasonably safe working conditions, taking into account the kind of activities entailed in their jobs" (Weinmeyer).  The NFL might now become financially responsible for unknowingly ignoring workplace hazard to occur through the bounds of the law.

Due to the harsh conditions they the NFL has put some its players through and the neglect to inform them of workplace safety, many people are describing the NFL as the next Big Tobacco Company.  The tobacco industry was notorious for playing down the dangers of using cigarettes, while they knew how dangerous they actually were.  Both companies were morally and ethically at fault.  Both companies hid vital information from employees/customers that could end up killing them in the long run.   It's no surprise that people have taken a liken to comparing the 2 large corporations.  The NFL then soon released a statement following a New York Times article that linked the 2 companies together.  Their statement is as follows "the N.F.L. is not the tobacco industry; it had no connection to the tobacco industry," which he called "perhaps the most odious industry in American history" (Shwarz).  It seems ironic that the NFL is defending themselves by saying that they have no connection with the tobacco industry, while there are thousands of former NFL players who are arguing the exact opposite. Brent Boyd, a former Minnesota Vikings lineman stated that "the tactics used by the league to deny benefits to retired players were similar to those used by tobacco companies to downplay the dangers of cigarettes" (O'Keeffe).  Boyd also goes on to tell lawmakers that The NFL is trying to distance themselves from liability for all the carnage left behind by our NFL concussions  --  just as tobacco companies fought like hell to deny the link between smoking and cancer".  Due to his time playing in the NFL, Boyd says that he now lives a life of constant hell.  "He has struggled financially, physically, and emotionally, since he retired from the NFL in 1986" (O'Keeffe).  Many former players are in the same boat as Boyd, neglected by the NFL for not acknowledging health problems caused by playing football.

To make matters even worse for the NFL, it was recently discovered that they actually omitted concussions from studies.  For years, the NFL has stood by and argued their research claiming that everything is fact and everything is to their knowledge.  Reports obtained by the New York Times "shows that more than 100 diagnosed concussions were omitted from the studies  --  including some severe injuries to stars like quarterbacks Steve Young and Troy Aikman. The committee then calculated the rates of concussions using the incomplete data, making them appear less frequent than they actually were" (Shwarz).  There needs to be some legal ramifications put into place now that it is publicly known that the NFL has been hiding the truth from both players and the public.  Due to these accusations, it seems as thought the credibility of the NFL is going down more and more.  How can players trust their employers with their lives if the NFL cannot report data that is beneficial to everyone?

After years of denial, the NFL has to take fully responsibility for what they have done regarding the concussion crisis.  As an organization, and an employer, they are ethically and civilly culpable for the damages that they put the players through.  CTE is an inevitable part of the game, but before than 2 weeks ago, the NFL never acknowledged the link between brain injuries and football.  The NFL needs to use its power and influence in the world of sports to save the lives of its current players instead of incentivizing them to be more violent.  To sum up the state of the NFL, former NFL player Nate Jackson stated that "the reason football is so dangerous is that the men making the decisions are not the ones getting hit."  To the players, football is the ultimate sacrifice, they put their sweat and blood into the game.  To the NFL, football is merely a business where they think they can just toy around with the lives of other with no legal repercussions.

