Players are responsible for concussions

[DMD]

This is a very good read and in my opinion dead on correct. Some ex-players may be trying to reach back to get some cash and there are many who are in bad health/finances who need help. But the majority of the problem with concussions and such is on the players and not the league.

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2...tml?hpt=hp_abar

 

 

 

The Dissenter: Pro football's loneliest position

 

 

 

 

(CNN) -- Never during its 92 year history has the NFL experienced anything like this: battles everywhere, but not inside stadiums. They're occurring in federal courtrooms, where more than 100 former players are suing the league for aches and pains (and, in some cases, deaths) that they claim were caused by negligence on the part of everybody from the commissioner to trainers to coaches.

 

 

 

 

Then there is The Dissenter.

 

 

 

 

The more Lester Hayes spoke on the other end of the phone from his home in Modesto, California, the more he delivered a blindsided sack to conventional wisdom. This was after I asked the former cornerback great for the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders whether coaches, team executives or even leagues are responsible for the epidemic of long-term injuries to current and former players.

 

 

 

 

Hayes responded with the speed of a blitz. Despite his lifelong battle with stuttering, he said clearly, "It's all on the players, not anybody else, because the players have the same gladiator genes that existed in Rome over 2,000 years ago. They have a love of football to the 10th power. So the players make the final call. Trust me. No matter what they are told by doctors or anybody else, they will fight to play."

 

 

 

 

Let that sink in for a moment.

 

 

 

 

Now consider that a slew of Hayes' former NFL peers disagree. Big time. In fact, Pro Football Hall of Fame runner Eric Dickerson just joined all those other retired players in filing lawsuits in federal courts alleging that the league hasn't done enough to protect players from concussions and other football-related injuries.

 

 

 

 

All Hayes knows is that, at 57 and in the midst of his decades-long run as a football youth coach in Modesto, his health is just fine after his 10 years with the Raiders through 1986. No knee or back troubles. Definitely no post-concussion woes.There also have been at least 12 suicides involving former NFL players during the last 25 years, including perennial Pro Bowl defenders Junior Seau and Dave Duerson within the last 14 months. According to the suing players, such tragedies are related to the league's negligence in fully explaining the health risk of concussions to players. Not only that, the suing players claim the league isn't allocating enough of its estimated $9 billion in total revenue each season toward the proper care of its current and former players suffering from head trauma and other football-related injuries.

 

 

 

 

Remember, too, that Hayes played during that generation of Raiders teams noted for mixing it up so much that he said the collisions "sounded like a 12-gauge shotgun blast." He contributed to more than a few of those blasts with noted enforcers for the Raiders such as Jack Tatum, George Atkinson, Ted Hendricks and John Matuszak.

 

 

 

 

Along Hayes' way to five Pro Bowls, two Super Bowl rings and 1980 NFL Player of the Year honors, he was known as everything from Lester The Molester to The Judge to The Only True Jedi.

 

 

 

 

Now just call him The Dissenter.

 

 

 

 

"Lord, have mercy. It's so much safer to play in the NFL these days than during my time," Hayes said, referring to the NFL Players Association joining former players in urging the league to make things even safer.

 

 

 

 

The league has responded. You've had NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doing everything from moving kickoffs up five yards (to reduce the number of injuries on kickoff returns) to delivering heavy fines to defenders who slam into quarterbacks too harshly.

 

 

 

 

There also are strict guidelines for teams to follow when a player has just the hint of a concussion.

 

 

 

 

Hayes chuckled, saying, "We didn't have any guidelines. You could actually lead with your face mask (as a defender) -- putting your face mask on an opposing player's face mask, without a $15,000 fine. You could throw a forearm shiver to the throat. People played with broken bones. Guys would carry smelling salt in their socks, so if you got a little woozy on the field, you'd reach into your sock for help."

 

 

 

 

Then there was the "secret room."

 

 

 

 

According to Hayes, it was a staple for the Raiders. "I don't know what other teams had, but I'm sure they had something that was similar," he said, referring to the place at stadiums that players visited on game days to receive a series of painkilling shots.

 

 

 

 

That said, Hayes said Raiders team doctor Robert Rosenfeld spent more time trying to talk him and other players out of taking the shots than otherwise.

 

 

 

 

"It was 1985, and I had never missed a game, and me and Dr. Rosenfeld were going at it -- back and forth, and I'm begging him, just pleading and screaming at him, 'Doc, I've got to play. Give me the shot,' " said Hayes, recalling what was a lengthy shouting match at the time on how to handle his strained calf muscle.

 

 

 

 

"The Doc is telling me, 'Lester, take a few days off. I don't like shooting muscle.' But it's going back and forth, with me yelling. And God rest his soul, he wouldn't back down, not until I just forced him to do it. He always showed a lot of love and compassion."

 

 

 

 

I encountered Rosenfeld, who died in 1994, as a Raiders beat writer for the San Francisco Examiner during the early 1980s, so I know Hayes speaks the truth -- for some Raiders.

 

 

 

 

As for others, not so much.

 

 

 

 

While offensive lineman Curt Marsh blamed the amputation of his right foot on a misdiagnosis by Rosenfeld, defensive end Pat Toomay once told ESPN that the typical response of Rosenfeld to most injuries was, "You're OK. It's just a bruise."

 

 

 

 

Hayes said in response, "Listen, I'm waiting there outside of the secret room, observing, listening to Doc tell players, 'Sit out. Sit out.' They wouldn't do it, because they were gladiators, and Mr. Davis had instilled such a will of winning into each of us that we had to get out there."

 

 

 

 

That is Mr. Davis, as in the late Al Davis, the notoriously hard-driving owner of the Raiders from 1963 until his death in October. His motto was "Just win, baby," which makes you wonder.

 

 

 

 

"No, no, no. Mr. Davis never pressured us to play," Hayes said. "He never, never did. It was always the player's call. You can't blame Mr. Davis, and you can't blame the doctors, because a lot of guys see stars (as in being physically dazed) on the field, but that gladiator gene takes over. I never saw Dr. Rosenfeld apply pressure in the secret room, except to try to put us in street clothes on game days."

 

 

 

 

The Dissenter laughed, adding, "In the 21st century, I don't know if secret rooms still exist."

 

 

 

 

If we knew, they wouldn't be secret.

 

 

 

 

[flemingd]

But that's not really the issue. The bulk of the claim isn't that they got concussions, it's that they didn't know about just how devastating the long-term effects were, and that the NFL did but didn't tell them. I don't think they can prove it, but if they can it's a decently compelling argument.

[godtomsatan]

This is a very good read and in my opinion dead on correct.

 

It's Lester Hayes vs. over 2,200 plaintiffs in over 80 complaints. Why is this the correct one?

[Bronco Billy]

If players were serious about preventing concussions, they'd wear mouthpieces on every single play, as well as all the pads that high schoolers do. Then they'd stop tackling by leading with the top of their helmets and tackle properly. Those are all things in control of the players and would reduce concussions substantially. Until that happens, the players talking about safety is posturing.

[Clubfoothead]

The fact that Lester Hayes is able to get himself back on the field despite Dr. Rosenfeld's expert medical opinion strikes me as another example of an organizational problem. It sure as heck isn't a defense against one.

[MTSuper7]

The league could actually intervene and be the ones with the doctors as opposed to having the teams have doctors themselves. It wouldn't be surprising if maybe that's the direction things head. Still, I see Hayes' point. How often are guys out there on the field putting themselves at risk for the love of the game? The idea that someone would play hurt and then blame someone else because their quality of life suffers as a result of permanent issues stemming from playing hurt is ridiculous. It's like eating McDonald's every day then suing McDonald's 10 years later because they made me fat / gave me health problems. People know the harmful effects of poor nutrition. They know eating fast food is bad for them. They also know that playing hurt is a risk. Or maybe I'm giving the general population too much credit?

[DMD]

But that's not really the issue. The bulk of the claim isn't that they got concussions, it's that they didn't know about just how devastating the long-term effects were, and that the NFL did but didn't tell them. I don't think they can prove it, but if they can it's a decently compelling argument.

 

 

The notion that the NFL had doctors that were fully informed of the long term effects of a concussion (which no one knew and we are only now starting to understand) and were instructed to hide that from a player so he could go out and play is ludicrous. With player movement throughout the league and those that accessed doctors outside of the team physician, there is no way that there was a league wide conspiracy to intentionally allow players to play while concussed or rack up multiples. How could the NFL have access to information that apparently the rest of the entire medical industry was unaware? Did coaches knowingly force players to the field against their wishes and/or by withholding medical information as a league wide practice? Really?

 

How do you prove that the NFL had access to information (that did not exist at the time) and that no one else had? It makes no sense. What is the benefit to the league to have done that? It isn't like they ever ran out of players or that a concussed player is better than a nonconcussed one. The players already complain about the measures to bring about safety and the league has made changes when they discovered they needed to. The long term effects of CTE are still being researched and while serious and deserving of all efforts and attention, it was not a secret somehow known by the NFL and wihtheld until the medical community could catch up now. With 80% or more of NFL players having nothing to show for playing within five years (I think that was the statistic), I imagine there are plenty of ex-players more than willing to try for some free money.

[flemingd]

The notion that the NFL had doctors that were fully informed of the long term effects of a concussion (which no one knew and we are only now starting to understand) and were instructed to hide that from a player so he could go out and play is ludicrous. With player movement throughout the league and those that accessed doctors outside of the team physician, there is no way that there was a league wide conspiracy to intentionally allow players to play while concussed or rack up multiples.

 

I mostly agree, which is why I said I don't think they can prove it. However, 60 years ago it was equally ludicrous to think tobacco companies knew smoking was hazardous to health and hid it. 40 years ago it was ludicrous to think car companies knew how many lives they would save by installing seat belts but chose not to. This fits that general profile. "Oh CHIPS AHOY!, these players' brains are going to be mush in 30 years." "Shhh, no one will care about them by then, and we're making millions at this. Let's get funded first and solve this later." We've seen stranger things.

[detlef]

In general, I agree with the logic that supports the notion that players would go out and play regardless of the risk. Unless every poll that I've heard of over the years that asked young, elite athletes if they would be willing to die young if it meant they'd be at the top of their game for 5 or so years and showed plenty would is total BS, then there's at least that segment. Add to that the "it won't happen to me" logic that is certainly more wide-spread than willingly dying for your sport and there's basically the rest.

 

And the vast majority of these guys are looking for a way out poverty, so again, they'd likely do it again. There's no shortage of ways that plenty are taken advantage of along the way, where people profit on young men hoping to cash in at the end, but maybe we should be worried more about that. Looking into the unscrupulous behavior of those who run some youth, HS, and college programs. And, hell, if we're going to take someone to task for not warning players, why are we going after the only ones who actually paid them and paid them well for the risks they were taking?

 

I'm all about requiring industries to provide a safe work environment and would expect the NFL to have to do what it can to make the game as safe as possible. I think a useful and meaningful program that penalizes obvious reckless hits is a fine place to start, but it's hard to determine what else they can do.

 

My guess is that the NFL will continue to play lip service to what is really sort of a silly demand, that being telling people what they should effing know and seemingly don't care about. Meanwhile, there will be a movement towards other sports among our youth. Certainly many affluent and engaged parents of gifted athletes are going to push them towards non-contact sports like soccer, b-ball, and baseball, and I'm guessing the trend will eventually reach down to others once the cache of those sports reaches that of the NFL. Hell, if the kids knew the kind of money top soccer players get overseas, they'd already be putting Johnny in AYSO instead of Pop Warner already.

 

With that in mind, predictions made by Troy Aikman may end up happening. It just may take a generation or so to happen. And, by the way, when that does, we're going to end up housing everyone in the World Cup. There's no country with the massive talent pool of amazing athletes that we have, it's just that so many of them happen to play sports that other countries don't care about.

[godtomsatan]

 

Here is a blog that has the documents for all the current cases.

[DMD]

 

... Looking into the unscrupulous behavior of those who run some youth, HS, and college programs. And, hell, if we're going to take someone to task for not warning players, why are we going after the only ones who actually paid them and paid them well for the risks they were taking?

 

...

 

 

 

Simple enough like all things. The NFL is the only with the big money to go after.

[keggerz]

The notion that the NFL had doctors that were fully informed of the long term effects of a concussion (which no one knew and we are only now starting to understand)

 

 

To me this is the most important part...in the not so distant past there are times when players were thought to have just gotten their bell rung....no blood or broken bones and it is hard for people to "see" the injury...a torn ligament, twisted ankle or pulled muscle it is easy for people to see the player is hurt, but get your "bell rung" and just stand there on the sidelines and people (probably coaches and players too) wonder why a guy isn't on the field.

Edited June 2, 2012 by keggerz

[detlef]

Simple enough like all things. The NFL is the only with the big money to go after.

 

There's no money in college ball?

[DMD]

There's no money in college ball?

 

 

Depends on the player.

[Chargerz]

If players were serious about preventing concussions, they'd wear mouthpieces on every single play, as well as all the pads that high schoolers do. Then they'd stop tackling by leading with the top of their helmets and tackle properly. Those are all things in control of the players and would reduce concussions substantially. Until that happens, the players talking about safety is posturing.

 

I agree. I was always coached to tackle with the shoulder/chest and then use my arms to wrap them up. Leading with the head only spells trouble.

[DMD]

I agree. I was always coached to tackle with the shoulder/chest and then use my arms to wrap them up. Leading with the head only spells trouble.

 

 

I was always taught that and when I coached peewee for their initial years I made VERY sure YOU HAVE TO SEE THEM TO TACKLE THEM. Keep your head up and to the side and use a shoulder and arms. I think it is in college where defenders start to just launch themselves into ball carriers with absolutely no arm wrap-up. They just try to bash into them and hope they knock them down.

[Hugh B Tool]

Happens all the way back to Youth and HS ball. Case in point, me. In HS we are playing a major rival, San Fernando. Charles White, Kevin Williams. Kenny Moore and company. First play of the game on kickoff, I get lit up on ST's by a blindside block as I was busting a wedge. Knocked clean off my feet into next Wed. Boy did I see that in films the next week. Smelling salts and a few plays later, I'm playing DE and playing great against the option from hell. White was FB! "Woke up" on the bench late in the second quarter, look up at the scoreboard and we are down by 10. Look over to my nose tackle sitting next to me and ask him what happened? He looked at me like I was crazy. Says if it wasn't for an interception return by Moore we would be only down 3. Adds our DL is dominating. Played the rest of the game, ended up with 9 tackles, 3 behind the line of scrimmage and 3 assists. We lose by 6 to the eventual Calif State Champs and I have one of my best games, half of which was on pure instinct and mind numb. Looking at film the next week, you couldn't tell I was in left field at all really. Played every game the rest of that season and many more to come including Rugby. I truely think the corti shots in my back and knees to keep me in games hurt a lot more in the long term that did the shots to the head, but one never knows. I do have a habit of going Dinky Dow every once in awhile out of the blue

 

ETA should I sue my Pop Warner, HS and College coaches et all for letting/keeping me play/ing in games I absolutely would've given anything to play in at the time? Maybe, but just not my style. Looking back, the total love and devotion to sports is what kept me going.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Hugh B Tool

[Bronco Billy]

Coaching as a varsity D coordinator and at Boys Club, the tecnique I taught was always the same: when you can line the guy up, drive your facemask through the football, bend at the knees, wrap under the butt, keep your legs moving, and drive to the ground. Simple. Over and over again in practice. And putting the facemask on the football not only forced the shoulder into the midsection and made wrapping simple, but caused a surprising numbers of fumbles as an additional benefit.

 

Not sure why pros can't do this and instead place themselves and the ball carriers at much greater risk of injury by lowering their heads and driving the top of the helmet through the mass of the body, or worse through the opponent's helmet.Oh, and mouthpieces and full pads were required and check by refs as well as coaches. Players found to be without them or not putting in mouthpieces were sent off the field until they complied.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Bronco Billy

[stevegrab]

Another good discussion, and I basicaly agree. The notion that the NFL (doctors, coaches, management, league officials) knew about the long term affects of repeated concussions (ahead of the rest of the medical world knowing, and they're still just figuring things out) is pretty far fetched.

 

As far as the way that players in college or pros tackle, I don't think that they cannot do it the right way, just that it isn't as cool, doesn't make the highlight films, etc. Or maybe they are being taught different techniques than some of you say are proper, and there's some reason for that (perhaps reducing other injuries to the hands/arms).

 

Lester Hays is surely not the only player who feels this way, he's just the only one (so far) who has come forward to speak his mind. No doubt the NFLPA is not happy with him

[Square]

If players were serious about preventing concussions, they'd wear mouthpieces on every single play,

I don't know if that is really a fact. The little bit of reading I've seen on the subject doesn't show that standard (boil & bite) mouthpieces do anything to protect against concussions. I would wear one (and did) during football, but I don't think it is a real protection against concussions.

[Bronco Billy]

Dr John Stenger created a 1964 report based upon 5 years of study which was based upon blunt force applied to cadavers showed that a custom fit (boil and bite) mouthguard when properly fitted reduced pressure of a blow to the chin by 50%.

[bushwacked]

Dr John Stenger created a 1964 report based upon 5 years of study which was based upon blunt force applied to cadavers showed that a custom fit (boil and bite) mouthguard when properly fitted reduced pressure of a blow to the chin by 50%.

 

 

I'm not going to be convinced until I see a study from the 1800s.

[Square]

Dr John Stenger created a 1964 report based upon 5 years of study which was based upon blunt force applied to cadavers showed that a custom fit (boil and bite) mouthguard when properly fitted reduced pressure of a blow to the chin by 50%.

Really?

 

The first is by Stenger et al, who claimed benefit for both head and cervical spinal injuries by mouthguard use. The authors reported their experience of a season of gridiron football by the Notre Dame University team. In this paper, they anecdotally reported five cases of their experience in which mouthguard use had abolished the symptoms of Meniere's disease, cervical nerve root compression, chronic “burners” (cervical radicular syndrome), dizzy spells/low back pain, and, in one case, repeated concussion. They also noted that there were “six or seven” players within the team who required cervical traction before matches and that the need for such traction was abolished by regular mouthguard use. In the football season, there were a total of 10 cases of concussion and four dental injuries, providing insufficient data for statistical analysis of protective effect.

 

I think you are incorrectly referring to Dr. Hickey's work who examined the cadavers.

 

The second paper often cited is by Hickey et al. (1967). This study did not even examine living people, but instead used mouthguards fitted to cadavers (also known as dead people). The author showed that mouthguards could reduce forces applied to the head after a blow to the jaw. This was then used by later authors as evidence that mouthguards reduce concussion risk in living people, although Hickey et al. never made such a claim. The problem is that this is obviously a huge generalization which does not provide any direct proof of reduced concussion risk in living humans. In addition, the degree to which a cadaver’s skull responds to trauma is different from how the skull of a living human would respond.

 

 

Review of the evidence

 

The most comprehensive scientific review on the topic of mouthguards and concussions was conducted by Knapik et al. (2007). Their conclusion was as follows: "However, the evidence that mouth guards protect against concussion was inconsistent, and no conclusion regarding the effectiveness of mouth guards in preventing concussion can be drawn at present.”

 

 

It should not come as a surprise to anyone keeping up with the research literature on this topic that there is no conclusive evidence that mouthguards prevent concussions since McCrory addressed this very topic in 2001. In that paper, McCrory noted that, “The ability of mouthguards to protect against head and spinal injuries in sport falls into the realm of ‘neuromythology’ rather than hard science.”

[Bronco Billy]

So your position is that because Hickey couldn't disprove Stenger's conclusions; that mouthpieces are useless against concussions?

Edited June 4, 2012 by Bronco Billy

[White lightning]

So your position is that because Hickey couldn't disprove Stenger's conclusions; that mouthpieces are useless against concussions?

 

 

No, I think his position is pretty clear. Square pointed out that: 1) Dr. Stenger's 45 year old report detailed the effect mouthpieces had on cadavers, not on living people; 2) that Dr. Hickey's 1967 report did not conclude that mouthpieces prevented concussions on living people; 3) and that subsequent studies in 2001 and 2007 found that it was inconclusive as to whether mouthpieces could reduce concussions.

Edited June 4, 2012 by White lightning