Tuesday, September 14, 2010
THIS WEEK IN FOOTBALL-RELATED BRAIN TRAUMA: Andy Reid defends his curious-at-best-and-possibly-barbaric handling of the Kolb and Bradley concussions; across the river at Penn, early stages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy were revealed in the brain autopsy of a 21-year-old Penn linebacker who killed himself this spring despite having no previous history of depression or diagnosed concussions.
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I love football, and I have 3 boys that are growing up loving football. My older two love to play in the back yard (and baby brother loves to watch) but that 2nd article is why I'm changing my mind about letting them play. The more I read about the brain injuries, the more hesitant I am to sign them up. I find myself encouraging soccer and baseball more and more.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, your link to the first article isn't working.
Fixed. I can't imagine letting a boy of mine play football.
ReplyDeleteI've read in the past that soccer has a pretty high incidence of sub-concussive brain trauma too, because of all of the heading the ball that people do. I suppose you don't get into real serious heading until you're playing at an elite level.
ReplyDeleteI love football, have since I was a kid. But the more I read about CTE, the more deeply uncomfortable I become with being a fan, with watching the games and cheering the players on. Reading about the Penn kid, it even makes me less comfortable with it. I think everyone who watches or plays football knows that there is a huge assumption of physical risk inherent in being a football player, but is CTE part of that? Even if it is, can I justify continuing to encourage young men to assume that kind of risk, which remaining as a fan would certainly do?
ReplyDeleteI was asked how I could still be a fan of football given what we know about CTE. I responded that I could because I believed that everyone was on the same page in terms of being responsible and using the current medical knowledge to ensure a safer sport. Both these articles undermine that belief -- that football *can* be made safe, and that its coaches will do their best to try.
ReplyDeleteIs there an over-under when football will just not be played anymore because there's no way to make it safe? I mean, Gladwell wrote a piece comparing it to dogfighting. Won't there just reach a point where parents don't let their kids play anymore? 2025? 2030?
ReplyDeleteAnd I say this as someone who loves football, but I can just see how it sort of slowly rots away over the next few decades as more and more of these stories come out.
Part of the problem, too, comes from the culture of not complaining about injuries, etc. That would really need to be changed---if someone takes a hit and has a pounding headache, etc., it needs to be okay for that person to ask to be taken out of the game.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem, too, comes from the culture of not complaining about injuries, etc. That would really need to be changed---if someone takes a hit and has a pounding headache, etc., it needs to be okay for that person to ask to be taken out of the game.
ReplyDeleteThat page is terrible. Pop-ups and pop-ins, and a goddam Olive Garden video ad that just starts playing as soon as the page loads.
ReplyDeleteI've written a lot about personal injury law over the past 18 months and I now know more than I should about brain injuries. I consider it a minor victory every day I leave the house not wearing a helmet, and if I had a child I can't imagine I would ever let him play football.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I agree that BOTH articles undermine that point. Certainly, the Eagles situation does, and Reid and the entire Eagles organization should be ashamed, particularly since this whole CTE thing got its start with the suicide of Andre Waters. But (and full disclosure, I'm a Penn alum, played football in middle school and some of high school, and gave thought to walking onto Penn's lightweight football team as an incoming freshman before deciding that I liked beer and sleeping late much better) I don't get the same vibe from the Times article -- it reports that Thomas had never before been diagnosed with a concussion on or off the field, and cites several docs who suggest that his CTE might even be attributable to the numerous subconcussive hits he must have taken during his years of playing football. I'm not exonerating the Penn coaches and medical staff -- they could well have failed to recognize Thomas's symptoms or directly or indirectly said or done things that encouraged Thomas himself to ignore them. But I am saying that I don't think anything in the article strongly points a finger their way.
ReplyDeleteI'm also saying that the suggestion that repetitive subconcussive blows could produce the same result as several concussions better be a REALLY LOUD FUCKING ALARM BELL to all tackle football programs at any level, and to every helmet manufacturer (and that goes for lacrosse, hockey, and baseball helmets too).
Me neither. Mine just started flag football (no contact), which seems to be a good compromise. We told him about the brain injuries and he no longer wants to play regular football (which he knows we won't allow, but he used to be a little rueful about it).
ReplyDeleteAnd is there a prop bet on which goes first, boxing or football?
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that there was anything they could have noticed or stopped. But that's exactly what's so scary.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Jenn; some of the scariest stuff in that Eagles article are the comments from players essentially cheering on what might be a really bad health decision.
ReplyDeleteGotcha. I thought your point was more along the lines that, in both cases, the coaches weren't doing their best to try.
ReplyDeleteWell last night the ABC National Evening news had a big article on the uptick in CBE in high school and teen basketball players and with girls especially. So frightening, and as a parent I don't know what he would do.
ReplyDeleteCertainly true, but when you get to that level -- *in order* to get to that level -- you've got to be the guy that wants to play every down, every game, every situation. Getting those guys to say "oh, I've got a headache, time to take a break" is a huge personality shift.
ReplyDeleteI was shocked when Bradley went back in, since it was clear he couldn't walk on his own. I couldn't tell whether Kolb had a concussion just by looking, but what kind of diagnoses did they do? Is it possible that concussions don't immediately manifest themselves?
ReplyDeleteThe league should suspend Andy Reid for a few games, just to send the message that the avoidable risks should be avoided -- to the extent there are unavoidable risks, that's another matter. It was especially telling that the color commentator for that game was Troy Aikman, who has his own history with concussions, but he was much tamer than he should have been.
I didn't read that as cheering on Bradley staying in. Mikell said essentially, we'd all want to stay in, but we shouldn't, so the decision has to be taken out of the players' hands. Vick (not unselfinterestedly) said Kolb coming out was the smart thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat was scarier to me is that the article also seemed to suggest that coming out of a game isn't mandatory if a player has a concussion, but only if he shows certain symptoms. That seems to give medical staff -- who are paid by the team -- an opening to keep players in when they need to come out. No concussed player should play, period. As a fan, I don't want to see people needlessly risking injury, not to mention, wouldn't the fact of a concussion make the backup a little more useful than the starter?
When I think of concussions I mmmm Olive Garden where my car keys at?
ReplyDeleteJust a question -- shouldn't any neutral person paid by the NFL have been empowered to prevent Bradley from returning to the game? Like the emergency brake on a train. Let's say Reid is telling the truth and that neither he nor any other person on his coaching or medical staff noticed Bradley falling down while leaving the field. Couldn't the replay official upstairs send a signal? Or, for that matter, couldn't there be some way for Aikman himself to send a message to the officials that somebody needs to make an evaluation on Bradley before he plays another down?
ReplyDeleteThe point about taking the decision away from Bradley is a good one. Perhaps there should be a way to take the decision away from Reid and his staff as well.
Adam, yes, if football can't be made safe under any circumstances- which is what these articles suggest, as you point out- I feel I'm ethically obligated not to participate in it as a fan. That troubles me greatly. Football truly is a great joy in my life (wow, that makes me sound...really lame), but I think a lot of that joy has to be lost if there is no way to make it safer than it apparently is.
ReplyDeleteSlate had a really interesting panel discussion about the NFL last week, including Stefan Fatsis, a former Denver Broncos player, and the discussion started with several entries about CTE and the culture of playing hurt. Fatsis had A LOT to say about the culture in the NFL, and how it treats its players as mere bodies, with little regard for them as people. And how players want it so bad, that they play through pain daily. It was...eye-opening, for me anyway. I'd have to think that kind of culture would have to change if football is to be made safe. About which I am currently dubious.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/id/2266532/entry/2266533/
To clarify, Fatsis is a writer who went to training camp with the Broncos as a PK to write a (very good) book about the experience, a la Plimpton's Paper Lion. But he has particular insights as a result of that experience that come through in the Slate discussion.
ReplyDelete"including Stefan Fatsis, a former Denver Broncos player." This amuses me. Fatsis is a sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal who got permission to attend the Broncos' camp as a kicker so that he could write a book about it. The players treated him as a little bit of a cute joke, but Shanahan never let him kick in a preseason game, and neither Fatsis nor the team never entertained the remotest possibility that he could actually play in the NFL.
ReplyDeleteOne of Bradley's teammates should have said something to the coaching staff.
ReplyDeleteInteresting note on the medical situation: I read somewhere on Sunday that Detroit wasn't sure about the extent of Stafford's injury because the visiting team didn't have access to x-ray/MRI at Soldier Field. And they spent *how* much renovating that stadium?
The medical imaging equipment was crushed by the spaceship when it landed on Soldier Field.
ReplyDeleteColor me embarrassed. I knew that, and my brain just made me type stupid.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of concussions, I
ReplyDeleteI thought it was blown up during the events of the last major Marvel Comics event, Siege.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if anyone still hasn't read it, I'll happily mail you my copy. After reading it four times in the two years I feel like it should be required material for any NFL fan.
ReplyDeleteInteresting phrase "the visiting team didn't have access" rather than saying something like the equipment was out of order. Surely the NFL wouldn't allow a team to purposely design a stadium so that only one team had access to medical diagnosis equipment, would it? A certain amount of home field advantage is to expected; preventing the other team from diagnosing and treating injury seems to cross a line.
ReplyDeleteAw, anyone can mistype in a comment thread.
ReplyDeleteI support a Reid suspension, if only to get better game management and play calling for a few games.
ReplyDeleteI thought the phrasing was interesting, but it was gossip from Scout.com, which I don't imagine is sophisticated enough to intend the nuance that's actually there. I have no idea whether MRI machines are or aren't common at NFL stadia, but they are ungodly expensive and probably wouldn't be heavily used (unlike x-rays -- given that most sports injuries are orthopedic and an x-ray is usually sufficient for triage).
ReplyDeleteI believe he was five feet nothing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm not unbiased on this one. Who sets up from the shotgun on 4th and 1?
ReplyDeleteI am not a sports fan but am a fan of HBO's Real Sports. They have done a couple of segments recently on sports and brain injuries. The last one connected the insanely high occurrence of Lou Gehrig's disease in professional athletes (football and soccer specifically) with brain injury/ concussions. Really scary stuff.
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