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Aaron Hernandez CTE
- Thread starter lowlife
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Clearly the WBC. They need to adopt inflatable gloves and more effective headgear.
And while we're at it, NASCAR needs to implement a 35 mph speed limit and side bumpers to minimize the effects of collisions.
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Suing the NFL won't bring Christy Mack back
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He was never allowed to make an informed decision since the NFL did everything to bury CTE research and papers. If they had done nothing to prevent discovery, it would be much easier to say that the NFL wasn't negligent.
No one forced him to play football. No one forced him to be a murderer. Personal responsibility is a thing. CTE is a thing. CTE didn't cause him to be a shit human.
Physiological damage is the gamble players take in exchange for the millions they make. I'm sure some steps could be and will be taken to improve player health which I am totally for.
Physiological damage is the gamble players take in exchange for the millions they make. I'm sure some steps could be and will be taken to improve player health which I am totally for.
Until the NFL acknowledges and makes good on the fact they paid doctors to obscure the research between football and concussions(as well as the significance of receiving one), they should get sued by every former player and be forced to pay up.
It's one thing to know full well the ramifications, but when your employer is pointing to doctors' corrupt research as proof the dangerous sport is harmless I can hardly blame these players. They're paid to play football, not make medical decisions.
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I tend to agree with this. The potential for head injury from multiple impacts, even mitigated by a well designed helmet, isn't new information.
I think the NFL is gonna get sued for a while though in the next few
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Well, what would you say if someone working at a nuclear power plant wasn't told the ramifications of the radiation they were exposed to on the job. You know those meters that all people at plants wear that tracks exposure, imagine if the employer after discovery the level of radiation in the plant went out of its way to discourage the use of radiation meters or quit providing them all together to prevent and failed to inform the employees of the dangers to their health.
In football, I would give the NFL a free pass on broken legs and hands and busted up knees. These are things that everyone can wrap their head around. Things that you can't readily see or understand the damage that is happening. Of course, people know getting hit in the head is bad just like being exposed to radiation is bad but an informed decision can not just be made on know it is bad.
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I'd say they're as stupid as a coal miner who never heard of black lung.
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This case is very similar. Company paid doctors tell coal miners that black lung was not present even though the x-rays showed mounting evidence.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/201...ohns-hopkins-hospital-over-black-lung-program
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Uh huh.
But were those coal miners unaware that black lung was a potential danger when working in coal mines?
OF COURSE, they were aware.
Just like a pro football player is certainly aware that despite padding and precautions, he might get injured such that he can no longer play.
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There is a difference between being aware of the danger and preventing someone from making an informed decision.
The coal miners were misdiagnosed for the reason to prevent the company for having to pay benefits. This is very similar to the NFL burying everything to try to push the known existence and prevalence, and symptoms of CTE. They wanted to push the settlement date as far back as possible knowing that it would cost them billions of dollars. Concussion protocols are only a very recent thing. The NFL could have developed these protocols 20 years ago to prevent players from playing when they should have been resting and recovering from a concussion. Instead they let them and in some cases basically pushed them back onto the filed to risk even worse injury. All to show they didn't know but the documents internal and medical research show they very well knew what they were doing.
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Sure... But when your boss tells you that the industry wide health issue for which the industry is famed tells you "everything's fine, just great", why would you trust that?
If you don't want to risk CTE, don't pursue a career in pro football. If you don't want to risk black lung, don't work in the coal industry and move your family to where there's work that won't kill you.
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Lol, why are people acting like Hitmandez was playing in the league in the 80s? His career ended 4 years ago.
The players who actually were deceived about head trauma are already being paid out in a settlement.
The players who actually were deceived about head trauma are already being paid out in a settlement.
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The problem is severe. They have already found CTE in the brains of people who just played high school football. I am wagering if the true extent of the problem was ever determined and disclosed to the public, the popularity and support for high school football would drop much more than it has. The best thing that could have happened to Aaron Hernadanz was if he had been caught or linked to a crime earlier ,served a bit of time, and been exiled from the league. As is, he probably would have been a blubbering by the time he turned 40.
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Agreed
***Long ass novel incoming so I'll highlight the main points***
No offense to anyone but the argument that "well he chose to play football" is a lazy one that probably stems from the fact that people (justifiably) loathe Hitmandez because he's a murderer
But moving beyond that and being objective here...
Hitmandez's final season was 2012:
https://www.si.com/nfl/nfl-concussion-protocol-policy-history
The point here is, these concussion protocols weren't in place when Hitmandez was playing. As an aside, lol at this new policy. We all saw that Canthers/Broncans game where Can Newton was absolutely rocked to the dome multiple times, yet never once removed from the game to be evaluated.
Before the current "concussion assessment guidelines", when Hitmandez was playing, common league-wide practice for the NFL was to simply have players take a few plays off to "walk off" obvious concussions. Then the ko'd player would be sent back out there to be exposed to further head trauma. To put this into perspective, imagine an MMA fight: fighter A gets ko'd by fighter B, ref temporarily stops the fight, fighter C comes in to fight fighter B for a round, then fighter C comes out and fighter A is sent back out there to continue vs fighter B. Fighter A takes further damage until the time clock expires, or perhaps fighter C briefly subs in for him again at some point after another obvious ko. Fighter A has suffered at least one concussion and been exposed to further brain trauma and who knows how many concussions. Once you suffer a concussion, any further brain trauma at that point -- especially within such a short proximity of time -- exponentially increases the degree and severity of brain damage incurred. Now imagine this happens in multiple events over an 18 week period for multiple years.
And we know for a fact that this analogous scenario has happened in the NFL, and the reasonable deduction to draw is that it very regularly happened. Numerous players have recounted how they've had their "bell rung" then got back in the game and performed heroics despite literally having zero memory of the rest of the game. Anyone who's ever been concussed can tell you that even though your brain has been broken and shutting down after suffering severe trauma, an emergency reserve part of your brain can then kick into auto-pilot mode based purely on reaction and survival instinct, and that, coupled with your body's muscle memory and training, take over. You also become extremely agreeable to suggestion because you're basically a mindless drone at that point. When I suffered my first concussion on a basketball court at age 13 I finished the game I was playing then literally either rode or walked my bike all the way back home just over a mile away having crossed two busy city streets while doing so. Then when I got home my mom asked me if I was ok and I asked her who she was. Then at the hospital a few hours later I couldn't answer the questions of my age or what year it was. This is why we as NFL viewers never thought twice when we saw a guy get knocked out of a game then come back to catch or throw a TD. Now think of all the players who got back into the game and didn't do anything heroic, but rather just went through the motions unnoticed. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say it happened literally every game.
This is not what young men sign up for when "well he chose to play football"
Every Sunday football players choose to take the risk of being concussed, but once concussed, you no longer have the mental capacity to choose whether to re-enter the game and incur further, even more traumatic and potentially life-altering, brain damage. And I think one would be dishonest to suggest that anyone would chose risking this kind of scenario. All NFL teams have doctors, and I think the reasonable expectation of any player is that the doctors will look out for their best interests if and when they get injured in a game. But that wasn't what happened in the NFL. Once you suffer a concussion, any further brain trauma at that point -- especially within such a short proximity of time -- exponentially increases the degree and severity of brain damage incurred. I repeat this point because it can't be stressed enough. And now our growing understanding of CTE is revealing that this brain damage is quite often permanent and debilitating.
And no football player ever signed up for CTE. We didn't even have our current rudimentary understanding and evidence of CTE and its implications until just very recently ffs
Hitmandez's brain, at age 27, showed the same level of permanent damage you'd expect to see in a retired player at age 60. And he only played 3 NFL seasons. Think about that. A reasonable person can only conclude that Hitmandez was involved in at least one of these previously described scenarios of repeated brain trauma suffered within the same game. Because NFL policy was to have doctors look the other way and send him back out there. And that is criminal let alone negligent.
Whether his CTE caused him to kill anyone is irrelevant. The NFL's policy of covering up concussions and sending concussed players out to have their battered brains finished off and permanently damaged is the issue here. This isn't about Hitmandez individually as much as it's about holding the NFL accountable. It's also irrelevant whether some of his CTE was incurred prior to entering the NFL. If it's indeed so that it did, then there's a case against either UF or the NCAA or both. But all that matters for the purposes of this case is whether the described scenario ever happened in the NFL, because if it did, it no doubt either caused or further contributed to his CTE (permanent brain damage).
I hope the Hitmandez estate succeeds in its suit and wins a landmark level of damages
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He had an enormous financial incentive to continue playing. The NFL had an enormous financial incentive to keep him playing.
But i still don't get how his responsibility to himself is removed.
If I play pro football, I expect to have trouble walking in my fifties and trouble with my cognition as well.
