The most popular sport in all of the United States, football, is known to be dangerous. People are aware that people take big hits while participating in this sport but what will this do to the players in the long run? There is more at hand than just torn ACLs or broken fingers; players in the National Football League (NFL) are at serious risk of losing their life due to head trauma sustained during their athletic career. In examining the current issues of head trauma in the NFL I found that the league is not doing enough to protect its players. 

The Problem

The NFL was founded in 1920 and has since been regarded as the most prestigious of all football leagues worldwide. As was stated before, people knew that a sport that was as physical as football would be dangerous but until the 21st century the most prominent danger of them all went unnoticed, head trauma. The repeated abuse a football player takes can lead to Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which is described by The Boston University CTE Center as "a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head" (Marcin). CTE or sometimes referred to as Dementia pugilistica used to be mostly associated with boxing but more recently has become one of the main talking points in the NFL because the problems it is causing. In Vox's "The NFL Concussion Crisis, Explained" it is shown how this disease came to be and how it is affecting NFL players still today. Along with this it shows how the concussions are still a problem despite the NFL's efforts to decrease them. 


The Past

I grew up watching football as many people living in the United States did such as my dad. I was always curious though why all the legends in the NFL that my dad talked about were commonly deceased, often not even at that old of an age. CTE was discovered to be extremely detrimental to these former players lives and sometimes even fatal. This only was put into the spotlight following the death of Mike Webster in 2002. He was only 50 years old, however, his brain showed damage that resembled a brain that was far older. Some may argue that this is a problem with football itself, not the league itself but that is not entirely true. When the autopsy of Mike Webster was conducted by Dr. Bennet Omalu his findings were assailed by the NFL and they even attempted to make him retract his statements regarding CTE in the league (Breslow). That was over a decade ago and the discoveries have not stopped, retired players of all ages have been tested and proven to have memory problems far worse than that of the average person (Park). Retired players' brains are damaged and more players are going to face the same fate because currently the NFL is still neglecting the problem.

The Present

2002 was 14 years ago and the NFL has made a few moves at making the sport safer. They have had slight rule changes which has caused a drop in concussions, but they are still more concussions than there were 10 years ago. Some may view this as the NFL doing all it can, but that is also false. Many of the simplest changes such as changing the concussion test have not been made. The current concussion test is flawed and often has concussed players sent right back onto the field. The NFL tells the public when the issue is addressed that they are doing all they can but test such as the King-Devick Test are not used despite being quicker than the current concussion test. From studies alone it seems obvious that the King-Devick test should be used but this is more likely to take players out of the game for their own safety and the last thing the NFL wants is its star players off the field (Armour). Also these changes aren't necessarily progressive, in fact the only few years it seems that the NFL has made major changes were 2011-2012. These two years also seem to be right before the lawsuit against the NFL regarding life changing or even ending effects of CTE caused by trauma sustained in players' football careers. This lawsuit that finally came to a close in 2015 will end up costing the NFL over $900 million. Another part of this settlement is that the former players or their families do not have to show the conditions of their CTE were related to NFL football (Mihoces and Axon). To me it seems once the NFL realized it might be in legal trouble they did what they could to fix their act and since then not much has changed regarding head safety. Luckily, this lawsuit brought a lot of attention to the issue of head trauma in the NFL and some players have even put themselves into early retirement because they are aware of the dangers. 50% of players who receive a concussive blow don't even know and dangers such as this one has forced players such as Anthony Davis to retire early (Beck). 

What Now?

The NFL made its changes ...  almost 5 years ago. They boast about the fact that that the amount of concussions in the league decreased from 261 to 229 in 2013 then to 206 in 2014 as a result of the rule changes implemented earlier in the 2010s. Then why were the number of concussions last season 271? Higher than they have ever been. Even co-chairman of the NFL's head, neck and spine committee Richard Ellenbogen states, "we've lowered the threshold for diagnosing concussion, for pulling players out and evaluating them" (Seifert). Even with that acknowledgement the league has not made any large efforts to fix the problem since before the lawsuit. The NFL has been a target for criticism regarding domestic abuse or child abuse the past few years and it almost seems as if media has moved on from focusing on the NFL's neglect of addressing the issue of player safety when it comes to head trauma. If this continues more players will die. More than half of the time a player returns next game after receiving a concussive blow (Breslow). Without proper sideline testing or safety precautions players will keep on getting hit and keep on slowly losing control of their brain and have to live in the nightmare that is being stuck with CTE. No one knows how to stop concussions but we need to try and do our best to prevent them and the NFL has not done its part. The only major rule changes were in preparation for a lawsuit and who knows how long it will take for something else major to arise and make the NFL address the issue once again. More and more discoveries are being made about CTE and hopefully the NFL will be able to pay attention to these discoveries to protect the lives of the athletes. 96%. That is the amount of former players that show signs of CTE (Beck). And looking at current statistics related to head trauma currently this number doesn't seem to be going down much. How many players will have to die for the NFL to finally take action again and invest more into the safety of its athletes that worked their whole life to become a professional athlete only to fall victim of a condition they cannot do anything about? When my dad talked to me about football legends, they were no longer with us. I want to one day be able to talk to my son about football legends and how they are still alive and well. 

