D.o.S. wrote:The difference is that the NFL absolutely concealed the evidence of longterm damage from the players, and tried to suppress the release of that same evidence.
They're following the footsteps of the tobacco companies' initial resistance to the evidence that smoking is bad for you.
So, yes, while its all right to say that these guys should be aware of the risk (and now, they are), it doesn't change the fact that a lot of the guys who are now suffering from dementia/Alzheimers/etc. are the guys who were straight-up lied to about the health risks of their profession. It's an obfuscation of employee health risks by an employer, and that's not cool--professional sport or otherwise.
Exactly. Elliot Pellman and Paul Tagliabue are responsible for deliberately misleading their employees and the fans of the game by releasing biased studies that denied any long term effects. While to some extent, these athletes signed up for a lifetime of bum knees and achy shoulders, we're just now coming off of a decades-long glorification of turning someone's father's brain to custard. It's hard to break that habit of getting pumped up by a big hit, but they didn't sign up for early cases of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
The "they're millionaires" argument doesn't realize the fact that many, many of these young men are fringe players, who spend 3-5 years bouncing around the league (nevermind the college players who never even make it in the league), trying to make themselves stick by throwing themselves as hard as they can at each other on special teams, in practice, in preseason, for what? An inconsistent paycheck and ending in the inability to fully function in every day life.
While we are much farther along in understanding the nature of this beast, we still are learning more and more every day. It's an area where I can make a difference in someone's life, and as a sports medicine professional, I have no problem with making the best, most well-informed decision for a high schooler, or collegiate athlete in such a case, especially when we haven't disproved the existence of Second Impact Syndrome (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-impact_syndrome).
As I said, a few years down the road, we may have gleaned all we can from these various research studies, and know everything we possibly can about the nature of repeated concussions, and at that point, sure, we may be comfortable enough to say that the decision is up to the player to continue through these injuries. But right now, when we're still learning, it's better to play it safe. If that was your son on the field, playing a game for god's sake, wouldn't you rather we protect him until we fully understand what we're up against?
In the end, I think it's kinda screwed up to say somebody "signed up for" a lifetime of pounding headaches, memory loss, and other neurocognitive dysfunctions. While I understand the viewpoint against the rule changes, as we've spent so long glorifying the big hits, I can't really fault the fans that hate the rule changes and I don't think it makes the fans bloodthirsty assholes by any means (though Urban Meyer may literally be bloodthirsty), I respectfully disagree.
