Thank you to Michael Sokolove for writing such a powerful piece about the long road to making a settlement from the NFL a reality.

There are 1.27 million lawyers in the United States, one for about every 300 Americans — about 400,000 more of them than there are doctors. Their work is rarely glamorous, and especially for those just starting out in the profession, it can be grinding and repetitive. Jason Luckasevic, hired out of law school in 2000 by a firm in Pittsburgh, passed the bar exam on his first try and was quickly sworn in to practice. The ceremony, such as it was, took place on a Thursday in a clerk’s office, rather than in a courtroom in front of family and friends, because his bosses needed him to get started. The following Monday morning, he drove to Johnstown, about 90 minutes away, where he spent the day taking depositions from former employees of an enormous steel plant that had exposed them to asbestos. Late that afternoon, he climbed back into his Honda Civic and headed home. He repeated this routine for the next six months, five days a week, racking up some 400 depositions and about 20,000 miles on the road.

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Tom Cutinella’s football game Wednesday, October 1, probably began like any other. The guard/linebacker took the field amidst cheers from the crowd, ready to take on the opponent.

Everything changed during the third quarter as his team fought to keep their 17 to 12 lead. The same roaring crowd fell silent as Cutinella, a junior in high school, collapsed after a big hit with a member of the opposing team. Hours later he died in the hospital.

Head injuries in football continue to make headlines across all ages. Parents of youth football players debate whether it’s safe for their child to play in the contact sport. College players are beginning to see the risks and quitting after a few concussions. More and more retired professional players are posthumously diagnosed with CTE and current professional players are increasingly violent.

After years of denial, the National Football League (NFL) recently admitted repeated head trauma from playing can result in long-term diseases, including Alzheimer’s, ALS and CTE. In fact, the League estimates 1 in 3 players have a higher chance of developing a neurodegenerative disease than their counterparts who don’t play football.

Researchers at the Department of Veteran Affairs’ brain repository in Massachusetts found 76 of the 79 brains from former players had CTE. In another study, 128 football players donated their brains, many with suspicion they suffered from the disease. Almost 80 percent of the sample tested positive for CTE. These brains came from footballers who played at high school, college or professional levels.

CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is the result of repeated head trauma. The brain begins the production of an abnormal protein, tau, which interrupts normal brain function before eventually killing the cells. Symptoms range from depression to dementia. It changes the mind of its victim.

About two years ago, Jovan Belcher, a former Kansas City Chief, killed his girlfriend and then shot himself in front of the teams’ then trainer and coach. His autopsy revealed the presence of CTE. Former Steeler and Hall of Famer Mike Webster was completely unrecognizable before he died of a heart attack at age 50.

Many are now connecting the NFL’s concussion issues to its domestic violence issues. While the two cannot be definitively paired, research confirms the longer someone plays, the heightened chance of long-term brain injury, which leads to bouts of rage and increased aggression.

These potential problems begin young, as the NFL helps fund youth football programs with a reported $45 million per year. Heads Up USA tries to teach proper tackling to reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury, but there’s no research that supports a different style of tackling is any safer.

Football is an American pastime, but it’s cutting too many lives short. How much longer can football as we know survive?

[This post originally appeared on gpwlaw.com]

Footnotes

Breslow, J. M. (2014). 76 of 79 deceased NFL players found to have brain disease. PBS. [Link]

Dowdy, Z. R. et. al. (2014). Tom Cutinella, Shoreham-Wading River HS football player, dead after injury in game, authorities say. Newsday. [Link]

Draper, B. (2014). Autopsy shows Chiefs LB Belcher had CTE damage. Yahoo Sports. [Link]

Jenkins, S. (2014). NFL must pay for its handling of concussion issues- or Congress should intervene. The Washington Post. [Link]

With the exception of the beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took last night, the recent NFL and college football headlines are grim reminders of the troubles plaguing the League.

It seems as if Ray Rice and the NFL concussion lawsuit served as starters to the continuing stream of bad news in their respective areas. Just when we thought we’d seen the worst of it, well, we were wrong.

First the discussion about the violent natures of some NFL current and retired players. After Ray Rice, teams across the league seemed anxious to rid their rosters of any potential issues to place them in the same position as the Ravens. Adrian Peterson was removed from the Vikings’ roster for alleged child abuse. Apparently he “disciplined” his 4-year-old with a switch in May. The Vikings put him on the exempt list, then reinstated him to play against the Saints and then finally suspended him indefinitely the following day, but not before losing a major sponsor in Radisson Hotels.

Moving to the Arizona Cardinals, we have former Steelers’ running back Jonathan Dwyer. This week he was arrested for a domestic abuse incident that occurred in July. According to witness reports, Dwyer tried to undress and his kiss his wife and attacked when she refused his advances. He hid in the bathroom when the police arrived, telling his wife he’d kill himself in front of her and their then 17-month-old son if she said he was home. It gets worse. Just a day later he punched his wife and threw a shoe at his baby and then chucked his wife’s cell phone from the second story of their home when she tried to call the police.

This is just the latest in a long line of violent reports from professional football players. Are football players more prone to violence because the nature of the game they’re paid to compete in? Do you think they can get away with it because their status and income? Or is it a deeper and more terrifying issue.

Last Friday the NFL released a startling statistic- one in three former players will experience long-term cognitive issues at ages much younger than their non-athlete counterparts.

We’ve seen the effects of CTE on retired players. They become different people. Violent. Erratic. Depressed. Too often they take their own lives. This leads to the question on all our minds- is playing in the NFL making these people violent? Did the years of concussions and head injury finally reveal the ugly, long-term side effects with these players?

At least it seems some aren’t taking any chances.

The starting quarterbacks for UConn and the Texas Longhorns announced within the past two weeks they’re retiring now after sustaining at least three concussions during their respective football careers. To them, the game isn’t worth the potential consequences. John Abraham of the Arizona Cardinals is also considering retiring after a concussion last Monday and more than year of memory loss.

Time Magazine posed an important question on a cover released yesterday- is football worth it? Many are using the hashtags #BoycottNFL and #GoodellMustGo to voice their anger with the league for letting this behavior seemingly go unpunished or with a slap on the wrist, with particular vehemence toward the commissioner for his mishandling of every crisis that’s come his way in recent memory. Many are calling for sponsors to pull their funding until the NFL makes some serious changes.

So many of us wait the long spring and summer months for football to return, staying up to date with offseason updates, training camp and preseason games, but what are we supporting? Are we allowing a screwed up system to continue for our own entertainment?

Because of the millions of viewers, football will probably make it through the current problems and emerge with more fans, but at what cost? And what will change? Football as we know it must adapt to address growing concerns about concussions and the long-term effects.

Footnotes

Laird, S. (2014). When football isn’t with it. Mashable. [Link]

Smith, M. D. (2014). Latest concussion may end John Abraham’s career. NBC Sports. [Link]