The NFL is in a Head on collision with CTE

The following is from a paper written for a class at the University of Utah.

As a former football player who spent a total of 5 years playing organized tackle football there isn’t a single instant which I can remember where I didn’t leave a practice or a game without a headache. But what about the times that I cant remember? Its no secret that football is a dangerous sport that involves brutal physical contact which has left players with broken bones and even paralyzed. But a growing concern in football is the risk of concussions and their long term effects.

In 1920 doctors began studying boxers and how the sport of boxing affected their brains in the long term. The doctors began to discover that many of the boxers were experiencing Alzheimer’s like symptoms, this eventually became to be known as Chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. CTE has a large number of effects on the human body ranging from tremors, dementia and social instability to memory loss and suicidal tendencies.

The first diagnosed case of CTE in a football player was 2005 when Mike Webster, former Pittsburg Steelers player died of a heart attack but not before suffering from depression, amnesia and dementia. So why would someone who appeared to be in peak physical health have such an unhealthy mind? The diagnoses came from Dr Bennett Omalu, Mike Webster had CTE.

It was estimated that Mike Webster had suffered the equivalent of 25,000 car crashes over his career from high school through the NFL. The diagnoses of CTE was initially met with anger and doubt from the NFL who was unwilling to admit that football had played any part in Webster’s death, however soon after the death of Mike Webster other former players Justin Strzelczyk, Terry Long and Andre Waters all died after experiencing many of the same mental ailments as Webster and we diagnosed with post partum CTE.

Since this initial discovery of CTE in professional football players 90 of 94 former NFL players have been diagnosed with post-partum CTE. Evidence of CTE has also been found in 96 percent of NFL players and 79 percent of all football players regardless of the level of competition. CTE is not only affecting former players from 30 years ago but has recently effected current players. In 2010 Nathan Stiles, a 17 year old high school football player died following a game in which he suffered a concussion. And in an event that shocked the sports world Jovan Belcher, a linebacker playing for the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL shot and killed his girlfriend and proceeded to drive to the Chiefs football stadium where he shot and killed himself in front of Chiefs coaches Romeo Crennel and Gary Gribbs, it was discovered later that Belcher had signs of CTE.

So what can players do to prevent CTE? Some have quit football all together, including 49ers Linebacker Chris Borland who retired after just one year in the NFL due to the risk of concussions. A group of 4,000 former NFL players filed a lawsuit against the NFL for compensation for their long-term health issues caused by football including CTE which resulted in a settlement worth over one-billion dollars including a percentage of which that will go towards concussion research. The NFL has even spent millions towards to development of safer helmets and other equipment that will help prevent concussions. But has any of that helped? The NFL reported 271 concussions in the 2015 NFL season, up 65 from the previous year. And that is only the reported concussions, in one league. Hundreds more occurred at the collegiate and high schools levels of football.

At this point there is no cure for CTE and the only way to officially diagnosed CTE is by direct examination of the brain tissue which means by the time CTE can be diagnosed the patient is already dead. However none of these facts seem to have an effect on the majority of the American public. Over one-million high school students participated in high school football from 2015-2016 with 73,660 players in the collegiate level (NCAA.org). The NFL even brought in 7.1 Billion dollars in revenue in the 2016 season alone (Bloomberg). Football isn’t slowing down so it’s our job to keep up in our prevention of head injuries such as concussions and CTE.