Those who put concussion onus on the players aren’t thinking clearly

HOUSTON -- I keep hearing from people who say former NFL players knew what they were getting into when they started playing football, so significant brain injuries are just part of the game and they should get over it.

Seriously?

Even as one who thinks there are too many lawsuits over some perceived mistreatment, I believe that is a ridiculous, almost indefensible position to take in this discussion.

People who so casually say such things are ignorant.

The recent talk about concussions has felt like overkill, and overkill can make you think things that just aren’t true. If you spend enough time on Facebook or Twitter (or listening to clowns on talk radio), you’d think Kate Upton is the most beautiful woman EVER and a 10-second dance she did is the hottest thing EVER.

Wrong and wrong.

Similarly, talk about concussions (and jealousy over the money athletes make) has some people thinking anyone who ever played professional football had to know about concussion issues before he started playing, so he deserves little sympathy for health issues he might have at the age of 40.

I’m not saying it is all on the NFL, but to put it all on the players makes little sense.

First, consider that when NFL players began playing football, when they were 7, 8 or 9 years old, nobody asked them if they were willing to suffer brain damage that might lead to significant health problems after their careers were over.

If your child’s pee wee football league holds such a discussion before letting children play, please get in touch with me, I’d like to attend one of those meetings. Will that stop boys from wanting to play football?

I doubt it, but I bet more parents won’t let them.

Secondly, people who think players knew what they were getting into act as if we have been having these brain-injury discussions for 50 years. We really haven’t. People know what boxing can do to the brain.

The NFL has always maintained that helmets kept that from happening in football. End of discussion.

The first case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a professional football player wasn’t detected in a retired football player until 2002. That was only 10 years ago, in 50-year-old Steelers Hall of Fame center Mike Webster, who suffered from dementia and depression.

Dr. Bennet I. Omalu, who studied Webster’s brain and many others, believes there is a direct link between repeated blows to the head and permanent brain damage. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Well, he had trouble getting the NFL to agree.

Dr. Ira Casson used to be the co-chairman of the NFL Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee (don’t you love how the league put mild in front of traumatic?), which was formed in 1994. Each time an independent study such as Omalu’s was introduced, Casson slammed it as being inconclusive.

I’m not saying Casson is wrong, but he is out on a limb darn near by himself. You don’t think the NFL wanted him to lean a particular direction in his findings?

In a way, the NFL has been telling us over and over that players have nothing to worry about.

The league didn’t even start studying retired players until 2007. And then all it did was a phone survey with 120 former players.

Even in that small sample, the league found that those players suffered from dementia and other memory issues at a rate significantly higher than the non-football playing population.

What was Casson’s (thus the league’s) stance?

“What I take from this report is there’s a need for further studies to see whether or not this finding is going to pan out,” he said.

This, while several studies involving brain tissue analysis were already showing evidence of brain damage in former football players.

Just two years ago, Casson, who didn’t resign from the NFL post until the end of 2009, testified before Congress that he still wasn’t convinced football causes brain damage.

“My position is that there is not enough valid, reliable or objective scientific evidence at present to determine whether or not repeat head impacts in professional football result in long-term brain damage,” he said.

Again, as crazy as it sounds, Casson could be right in saying that we still don’t know what we know. So we’re still waiting for the NFL to say concussions can cause long-term problems.

Does that mean the league should be sued by every guy who ever put on a uniform?

Hardly. But to say players knew what they were getting into is simply not true.

So please, stop.

Jerome Solomon can be reached via e-mail at Jerome.Solomon@chron.com.