Sunday Morning Hits

With football season just around the corner, the proliferation of concussion talk will surely weigh heavily on sports writer’s fingers. So, I’ll weigh in on a few of the more intriguing articles. Here go.

George Will Opines on the Concussion Crisis

George Will is the leading conservative columnist, with views, which at times, go against the pompoms of the Obama Administration. He also holds a prominent position in baseball, sitting on Major League Baseball’s Competition Committee.

So when ole’ George speaks, people should listen.

He argues that the increased violence of the game is not because of the lack of rules; rather, it’s the players who are getting bigger, faster, stronger, and the human body is genetically incapable of adapting to the “game’s kinetic energies.”

The NFL’s problem, according to Will, is not so much the lawsuits, but the gladiatorial-thrill of watching the spectacle of the player’s brain being destroyed with each concussive and sub-concussive blow.

For those that are aware of the anatomical forces that are at play with each hit, the game has taken on a new visual imagery. The way I watch the game has changed dramatically, with each blow  — whether it is the lineman in the trenches or the receiver getting slammed over the middle — I picture the brain rattling around the skull, like Jell-O in a glass jar.

As a member of the MLB Rule Committee, Will says, “the problem is not the rules; it is the fiction that football can be fixed and still resemble the game fans relish.”

So take solace my NFL and CFB fans, the “most powerful journalist in America” agrees: the inherent violence of the game cannot be changed.

Though rule changes will be effective at the peewee to high school level, the NFL would be wise to take the conservative, hands-off approach, if it wants to remain the most watched sport in America.

Another Hall of Famer Will Join the Concussion Litigation Battle

Richard Dent recently told the Chicago Sun-Times that he intends to file a lawsuit against the NFL. “I think it’d be nice if all the players could go up under one and represent all the players.”

This, of course, doesn’t come as a surprise and exemplifies why more recognizable players will likely be joining the concussion lawsuits. These guys have played a team sport all their lives and some see this as one last fight to get “their little piece [of the NFL’s multi-billion dollar] pie.” Moreover, former players see their brothers suffering from degenerative brain disease, though some aren’t currently facing cognitive disorders, a growing majority fear they might be staring down the barrel of a Colt .45 some day.

So, why not try to cash that final check? The players would be wise to stick to the talking point that this is not about a “money grab.” They will have a tough time convincing a jury — who probably made a quarter of the life earnings the players have — that they deserve more money. Rather, it should be about ensuring they are provided with lifetime cognitive treatment.

Another common theme among former players is a potential emerging figure in the concussion lawsuits: the team physicians. Dent told the Sun-Times, “You look at your report, and you don’t see certain information, like meds that were given to you,” he said. “But you remember. Teams pass out [meds] and pass beer out, too.”

This is no secret. Several former players have written about the beer and pills being passed around on the plane rides home. And, it’s also no secret that the doctor-patient relationship is often a conflicted one.

However, none of the recent concussion-related lawsuits – at least yet – has targeted a team doctor, save the members of the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee. Many former players I have spoken to often ask, “Why aren’t the doctors and trainers being sued? They were the ones that told me I could return to play after I answered the three common questions, who, what and where.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers’ current theory is that the NFL was the mastermind that created “junk science” and failed to implement adequate return-to-play guidelines. In other words, the NFL dictated how the teams, doctors, and trainers would handle concussions.

Whether the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ theory should be tweaked to add the teams and team doctors is a route that some litigants should be discussing. Once, and if, a team doctor is discovered to have played a role in the alleged concealment about the risks of concussions, you can bet he’ll be added to the growing list of defendants.