Features Editor, Sports Reporter
The opening sequences of PBS Frontline’s “League of Denial” left my head ringing like an open-field tackle from John Lynch, one of those hits that rattles your skull so hard your feet get cold and your arms stiffen up.
“League,” based on a book by the same name that investigates the NFL’s role in investigating the long-term health risks of playing football, lays its viewers out hard, fast and early with sickening autopsy images of “Iron” Mike Webster, who led the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line to Superbowl victories in ’74 and ’79.
After his retirement, Webster’s life fell apart. He suffered from amnesia, dementia and depression, often living out of his truck until his death in 2002. Post mortem examination of Webster by neuropathologist Bennet Omalu found that 17 years in the NFL had ruined his body. His feet were gouged by deep cracks that he closed with duct tape. Teeth had been glued back into his head. His spine sported multiple herniated discs and a broken vertebrae.
“Mike looked older than his age,” Omalu said. “He looked beat up.”
The worst injuries, though, were entirely invisible to the human eye.
Webster was the first of many NFL players to be diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disorder which is usually caused by repeated blows to the head over a long period of time.
Boston University neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee has studied the brains of 46 deceased NFL players. Forty-five of those brains were diagnosed with CTE.
But her most troubling case never made it the NFL.
Owen Thomas, a Penn State defensive end, was 21 years old when he killed himself in 2010. He had never been diagnosed with a concussion, so McKee was surprised by what she found while studying his grey matter.
“It just floored me,” McKee said. “I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
Thomas became the youngest football player to be diagnosed with CTE.
These findings joined a growing body of evidence that the NFL is just now beginning to acknowledge and react to. There is a definite link between football and CTE. The sport as we watch it today is unavoidably destructive to the human brain
“League” makes a compelling case that the NFL has acted irresponsibly in terms of player safety and long-term health. The league’s recent $756 million settlement with litigious ex-players signals the start of a referendum against the league’s management.
But where does that leave us — the fans?
I’ve never been one to relish the bone-rattling hits of players like Brian Dawkins or James Harrison, but I’ve always enjoyed watching football.
Now, though, every snap is tinged with a vague sense of guilt. Even if no one is knocked out cold or carted off the field, every single play means dozens of subconcussive impacts, which, compounded over a lifetime of turf warfare, can lead to crippling mental disability for our gridiron heroes.
Am I not encouraging this by watching? Am I not feeding the beast? Am I not morally culpable?
A lot of fans lay blame on the players: “They know what they’re getting into,” they say.
The fact is, though, that if us fans didn’t fuel the fire, no one would get burnt. Wouldn’t Junior Seau have been better off if football wasn’t a thing? He could very well be alive and healthy and happy today if fans didn’t support the meat grinder that he dove into head first for money.
To be clear, I’m not giving up on football. I can’t. I love it too much. I’ll still watch, albeit with a small, guilty lump in my stomach. But my kids? They’re going to play soccer.
crclark2@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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