January 27, 2015

I emailed my two judges, Dr. Rossetti and Dr. Cook, the final presentation schedule.

I'm looking at recent news in my field to understand the direction the concussions crisis is headed. I finally found clarification with the NFL's concussions lawsuit.

 In August 2013, the NFL and players reached a $765 million settlement in all lawsuits over allegations that the NFL did not warn ex-players of the dangers of concussions despite prior knowledge of the harm that could come from head injuries. Players could choose to opt-in or opt-out of the settlement by Oct. 14, 2014.

So the settlement was reached in August of 2013 and the monetary value was constantly tinkered with up until maybe July of 2014 when $765 million was the set number. Players than had the option of opting in or out of the settlement. Opting in would mean receiving a fixed amount of money from the guidelines in the settlement. Some families have decided to opt out on the basis that their injuries deserve more compensation (individual lawsuits).

This is a quote I found very interesting and alarming by Houston Texan's owner Bob McNair:

“It was about protecting the brand," McNair told GQ. "Do we want the brand attacked on this for the next ten years? Or do we want to go ahead and take the high road? In effect, we don't think most of these concussions referenced even occurred in the NFL, but we're not going to complain about it."

"Take the high road"?! How is giving money to the thousands of NFL players who have suffered from brain damage "taking the high road"? He is completely right about how the settlement was all about "protecting the brand." Roger Goodell and the NFL will do everything in its power to protect the game of football in its current form.

I watched a video by SI titled "Have concussions stalled football's popularity at the youth level?"

http://www.si.com/more-sports/video/2015/01/20/concussions-stalling-football-popularity

I'll list some key facts from the video below:

1.  The head of the Texas Youth Football association said they had a 35% increase in youth football enrollment 
2. Participation nationwide, however, participation is down\ (one Texas league was gone)
3. Mike Ditka, NFL legend, would not let his son play football
4. Discussion now on how young is to young to play tackle football

I watched this AWFUL video about this one youth league called "Friday Night Tykes".

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/friday-night-tykes-coach-injured-767445

In the video, these youth players play with aggression and anger. The running back for one of the teams was tackled hard and went down to the ground in what to me looked like a concussion. The coaching staff literally said to the injured player "You alright" "Get up" "Don't quit on my now". So instead of caring about the player's safety, the coaches cared about the game. The opposing team's coach told his players to "keep sticking it to him" in reference to the injured player, that way they could render him a complete non-factor. This is just disgusting, and I will take this information into account when I write up my proposed changed to youth football legislation. Plain awful.


Next class I'll be looking into these articles:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/concussion-watch/#players_2014

http://hub.jhu.edu/2015/01/26/nfl-players-concussion-research

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969996114003325

http://kjzz.org/content/94028/nfl-concussions-down-20-percent-2014-season

http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_27243298/nfl-concussion-protocol-hit-players-safety