The neglect or lack of injuries in the NFL has always been something that highly interests me.  Ranging from players fighting through the pain, the concussions, the dislocated shoulders, to the medical staff misdiagnosing and denying effective treatment to current players.  All this stems from the mentality that staying on the field is more of an unspoken rule than exception.  It's a sad world we live in where a billion-dollar industry doesn't care about their players, and only seeks the financial gain that comes with the entertainment.  I'm interested in this topic because I would like to understand why an elite business like the NFL would go through the trouble of neglecting their players, and from another standpoint, why would some players not seek out medical attention when they seriously need it.  The NFL should care more about the people who make the owners and CEOs rich.  A healthy player means a healthy team, and that's what brings a team money.  NFL players play the game because of their love for it.  When they get hurt, they expect to have state of the art medical attention, and not the neglect that is currently going on in the football world.  I think it would be pretty interesting to learn about the effects of CTE on a brain and how a player's ability to do normal function's change as a result of having CTE.  Knowing why some players turn to suicide as a result of repeated brain trauma is something that I would like to look into.  I don't really think that this question affects my views or my values.  I just really want to understand why the NFL would go through with something that hurts everyone.  I suffered a concussion during my junior year of high school from football and was out for 3 months.  I understand what some players go through with football injuries and can understand how after repeated blows to the head, players need to seek serious medical attention.  My dad has also had numerous concussions while playing football in high school and always wondered how repeated hit to the head affects someone.  I think that I am qualified to write about this because I have a passion for the game of football, and if I'm interested in it, why would I not write about it? 

One source that I really enjoyed reading was a review of the film "Concussion."  It's an article written by Lamont Lilly and he basically talks about how the NFL doesn't care about their players at all and that the NFL executives only seek financial gain.  If you aren't a player who is making the team money, then they could care less about you.    He is definitely biased towards the NFL being a dangerous sport.  Throughout the paper he references players committing suicide due to CTE and just the overall neglect that the players are getting when it comes to injuries.  He tries to persuade his audience with past player's deaths.  They just cannot handle the toll of getting repeatedly hit in the head, and some have turned to suicide as a way out.  The major values or interests at stake in this article would have to be the health and lives of all of the players who get misdiagnosed and being denied proper treatment by medical staff who are paid to keep things quiet about the health of the players.  The author of this article is Lamont Lilly.  From what I gathered about him is that he is an activist, and an editor.  This does make me a little skeptical of his credibility.  His credentials matter because he may be able to convince an audience regarding his argument.  

Another source that I found about this topic is an article written by Jason Breslow, and it focuses on the insanely high amount of former players who have tested positive for CTE.  A staggering 87 out of 91 former players tested positive for CTE.  The lab also found CTE in 131 out of 165 players, who played either professionally, in college, or in high school.  The major values and interests at stake would be the health of the current players and how the NFL can dedicate their time to making football a safer sport.  There is talk about the NFL investing in more research to accelerate the understanding of this injury.  I believe the author to have pretty good credibility when it comes to writing about this article. He has previously worked as a reporter and producer for The Boston Globe, PBS NewsHour, and Bloomberg.  And he has continuously covered the concussion crisis.  His bias seems to be leaning more towards the NFL being at fault and having negligence when it comes to the topic of hiding concussions and CTE.

The last source that I researched for this topic dealt with the NFL lawsuit where thousands of players testified against the NFL and its negligence towards teaching the players about the serious effects of multiple hits to the head.  The agreement from the 2 parties will span over the next 65 years and will cost the NFL over $900,000,000.  The major values and interest at stake for the article would have to be do what is right for the former players and continue to have benefits for retired players who suffer from injuries due to playing in the NFL.  Also, to research and handle the way the NFL treats concussions nowadays.  The 2 authors seem to have good credibility about the topic since they are writing for the USA Today Sports section.  The bias that they show would have to be in favor of the former NFL players and resolving any conflicts they have with the NFL.

The research question "how is the NFL neglecting its players?" is arguable because many people see nowadays that the NFL is doing whatever it takes to make the sport more and more safe.  It so happens that they are now implementing these procedures only after they were called out and sued by former player for neglecting to tell the about the serious health effects that concussions cause.  People will defend the NFL by saying they are doing everything right by adding safer equipment, but that still does not dignify them when they neglected their own players.  For all the sources that I have found so far, everyone seems to be in agreement that the NFL is neglecting players when it comes to serious injuries.  They are not confiding with them how serious it can be to take numerous hits to the head.  I can't really seem to find any differences with my sources because I am searching for articles about the same topic and they all seem to agree on the same things.  I might need to revise my research question to specify if I want to talk about how both the NFL neglects the players and how the players neglect the injuries.  It can go both ways.  You hear about the players who even after some pretty serious injuries, get back up and re-join their team on the field.  As of right now, it's focused more on the NFL as a corporation and how they neglect its players by not giving them proper treatment neglect to tell them everything about their injury.  Doing both sides might add some depth in the paper.   

