Irony – incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.
As an NFLPA representative on the six-member board that determined whether a retired NFL player was eligible to obtain disability benefits, Dave Duerson was often skeptical when it came to retirees’ injuries and the long-term effects of those injuries. When testifying before a Senate committee in 2007, Duerson questioned the link between head trauma and the neurological issues suffered by many retired players. According to the transcript of the Senate hearing, Duerson stated, “In regards to the issue of Alzheimer’s, my father’s 84, and, as I had mentioned earlier, Senator, spent 30 years at General Motors. He also has — he also has Alzheimer’s and brain damage, but never played a professional sport. So, the challenge, you know, in terms of where the damage comes from, is a fair question.”
On October 21, 2010, during his Voice America Sports Internet radio show, Dave Duerson lamented the rules instituted by the NFL to improve player safety, claiming the game was “protected” and he was “pissed off.” He continued, “The Big Hit has been told to turn in his pads and jockstrap. I understand they don’t want us using helmets as a weapon but this thing about devastating hits, come on. If I was playing today, I certainly would have taken my shots.”
Just four months later, Duerson – suspecting that he, too, was suffering from CTE, a disease he’d previously dismissed – put a shotgun to his chest and pulled the trigger. In a note he left behind, he asked that his brain be donated to the NFL’s brain study. At Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, researchers who examined his brain confirmed Duerson’s fears. He, too, was among some two dozen former NFL players diagnosed with C.T.E.
Duerson’s family now recognizes the toll injuries can take on a player’s body and brain. His son Tregg recently filed a lawsuit against the NFL and Riddell, charging that … Others may debate the legality, legitimacy, even the morality of such a suit. My question is this: If one of the staunchest opponents of disability – one of the strongest voices disputing a link between head trauma and neurological ailments like dementia, Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s and ALS – could have become so convinced of the link that he took his own life, shouldn’t players and coaches get the message?
While Commissioner Goodell has remained steadfast in his commitment to improving player safety and benefits and care for retired players – and NFL owners agreed in the latest CBA to invest $100 million in concussion research – a two-year investigation revealed a bounty system. As numerous media outlets recently reported, esteemed defensive coordinator Gregg Williams ran a bounty system that rewarded his defensive players for punishing hits on opponents. According to the Washington Post, for example, as Washington Redskins’ defensive coordinator, Williams presided over a weekly pre-game ritual in which he listed prices on offensive players heads – that is, how much a Redskin defender would receive for taking out an opposing team’s offensive player – from 2004 to 2007. Post reporter Mike Wise cites particularly questionable hits on Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning, who was “essentially folded in half” in a Colts-Redskins game in Indianapolis in 2006 by Redskins’ defenders Andre Carter and Philip Daniels. On the play Daniels, who admitted participating in Williams’ bounty program, hit Manning in the neck. Manning, by the way, has undergone four neck surgeries in the last two years.
Williams admittedly instituted and operated a similar bounty program as defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints, including the 2009 Super Bowl champion team. Yet he was named defensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams in January. Williams was slated to meet with NFL officials today.
In January 2009, eight months after nine-year NFL veteran Tom McHale died of an accidental drug overdose at age 45, his widow Lisa learned that he had C.T.E. The damage to his brain was such that had he lived, he would have been in full-blown dementia by age 60. At the time, McHale was the sixth former NFL player between the ages of 36 and 50 to have been diagnosed with C.T.E. – six players’ brains had been examined and all six had C.T.E.
”I’m hoping that six of six is finally going to turn people’s heads,” Lisa McHale said. ”We’re not talking about turf toe — we’re talking about a significant brain injury that has huge implications in terms of people’s health. If they can finally let players know what the risks are, it won’t bring Tom back, but it would make his death a great deal less meaningless.”
Three years later – when more than two dozen players have been diagnosed with C.T.E. – we learn that a coach with a Stone Age mindset instituted a bounty system by which players were rewarded for injuring opponents. Have the deaths of Tom McHale and the others taught us nothing?
That would be the greatest irony … and the greatest tragedy.
