Comments on: New imaging technique spots evidence of potential brain damage in living football players

By: vikesfan320

vikesfan320 — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:54:59 +0000

Honestly, I don’t know how much these findings will change the game as it is now because the players now do not care. They do not see the long term, they see the short term.

What I mean is, most of the players would rather live lavishly and deal with the effects later than give up football and work a 9-5 job. It’s not going to be until they hit their 50′s and can’t string together complete sentences that they’re going to think “Maybe I should have worried about this more 30 years ago.”

I know the players love the game, but money is a driving factor in this.

By: matt14gg

matt14gg — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:45:39 +0000

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion, but all these CTE studies are flawed. Until someone does a controlled study of the same sample, minus the football career, we cannot accurately know how much different the effects of football are from the effects of the average male of the same basic demographic.

By: greymares

greymares — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:06:51 +0000

once again want less head injuries ? take off the helmets.

By: askcoachjay

askcoachjay — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:27:14 +0000

@ghjjf the brain is remarkably resilient. It’s not the impacts alone. It’s the repetition. Hit after hit after hit. Boxers may get hit several times in a night. But they’re really only taking hard shots once or twice a year. The brain has plenty of time to heal. Football is an almost daily 5-6 month grind with continual incidents of head trauma. I’ll never believe the game cannot be played safely, but the potential for chronic head injury is much higher in football than other sports.

By: tdshouldbeinthehall

tdshouldbeinthehall — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:23:45 +0000

fuglyflorio says:
Jan 22, 2013 2:14 PM
For a lot of these players just finding a brain would be tough enough.
——–
Raheem Moore!!!!!!!

By: badintent

badintent — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:07:10 +0000

OK, we got Racing Cars drivers going 200 MPH with helmets, We got 2 football players going 25 MPH hitting each other =50 mph. Why isn’t their helmet as well made as the racing car driver ? Does Riddell have the Commiss on the company payroll ? And the NLFPA director too ? If you can keep driving race cars after big time crashes, why can\t you have a helmet that protects NFL players ? I can’t wati till they do this study on pro ruby players , they wear a little leather cover or no helmet. Of course, most NHL players have no brain to look at in the first place

By: patssteelersorgiants

patssteelersorgiants — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:54:30 +0000

Somebody get Suggs hooked up to that machine STAT.

By: ghjjf

ghjjf — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:44:39 +0000

How come boxing doesn’t have this problem with concussions that the NFL seems to have?

By: swagger91

swagger91 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:00:19 +0000

Im all for players safety but I think by 2018 the nfl will be a flag football leauge…i hope not but they wanna soften the game so dat may be the last resort

By: mydroopysack

mydroopysack — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:57:35 +0000

People still say that professional athletes are overpaid, but the football players are literally trading years of their lives away for their paychecks. When you put it in that perspective, they don’t seem as overpaid anymore. Maybe slightly.

By: youknowwhatsgoodforshoulderpain

youknowwhatsgoodforshoulderpain — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:35:21 +0000

Player career life-spans will be greatly shortened by this, but hopefully it will save some people some serious pain and suffering.

By: hedleykow

hedleykow — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:06:40 +0000

Why waste money on state of the art brain imaging equipment, when all you really need to do is read a few NFL player tweets to understand the severity of brain damage in the NFL.

By: sabatimus

sabatimus — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:01:07 +0000

At least now there appears to be something tangible that living players can look at to see just how they’re affected. This might cause players to think twice about playing. On the other hand, if people like Brian Urlacher repeatedly lie about getting concussed, it seems the culture and the desire to play and win will override health.

By: hooterdawg

hooterdawg — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:00:15 +0000

How important is this with the Superbowl on the horizon?

By: mantiteo

mantiteo — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:53:49 +0000

Tau proteins? Wait a second…

By: infectorman

infectorman — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:38:48 +0000

@ patskrieg.com

Hammer? Meet Nail Head.

What a classless comment by a clueless whiny coach.
You witness a player exhibit all the signs of a concussion and still, hours later, don’t have enough of tact to mitigate your ridiculous stance on it.

By: gochargersgo

gochargersgo — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:31:12 +0000

Schedule Titus Young and Tim Brown ASAP.

By: jrdnrnsm

jrdnrnsm — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:24:08 +0000

Get better brains.

By: tryandthink

tryandthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:23:06 +0000

Someone send Tim Brown To the doctor now

By: northshorejag

northshorejag — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:22:52 +0000

The technique is called – Looking

By: kurmudge

kurmudge — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:18:17 +0000

Given that every person with Alzheimers has abnormal tau proteins, I’d like to know more about how they did the study. An NFL retiree who volunteers to be imaged is likely to be showing signs- were they self-selected? Was there a control group? How many exhibited tau anomalies, out of how many examined? What was the rate compared to those who were subject to head knocking?

This could be a big deal, it could be fluff with a insignificant sample size or relatively normal rates of occurrence. We don’t have enough information to know at the moment- but we should keep doing the research.

I always remember back to the Harvard risk analysis of second hand smoke, where they determined that those who lived with a smoker were more likely to have lung diseases- except that they didn’t control for whether the person living with the smoker was also a smoker (a re-work of the data caused the “significant” finding to disappear).

It’s unlikely that repeated head trauma will not have long term effects (if you need an example, check out Muhammad Ali). But we need to do the studies right. Is impact worse at age 10, 20, or 26? Big blow versus many small blows. Etc.

By: wfmulder

wfmulder — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:17:08 +0000

kingdm8 says:
Jan 22, 2013 2:47 PM
I played football from 6th grade all the way through my junior year in college, then played a couple more seasons in a mens’ league after that. I know a few guys that played in the league and a couple that still do. I an tell you, from a player’s perspective, that I would want to know without a doubt if my brain had a chance of being permanently injured. My knee can get scoped, my shoulder can get rehab. My brain isn’t going to get better. Honestly, as someone who played for that many years and has spent the years since coaching football, I wonder if I would ever let my boys play footbal

————————————————–

Then don’t. That’s great, but please leave it alone for the rest of us who dont have the same concerns as you.

By: SilentMajority

SilentMajority — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:07:33 +0000

Here’s how this will work. The NFL will want annual testing of its players, so they can cover their butts from class-action lawsuits, but the NFLPA will allege that the NFL only wants testing because they want to skimp on salaries, and so nothing will happen…

Cool technology though!

By: mightymightylafootball

mightymightylafootball — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:06:32 +0000

“…the (existence of the) proteins don’t necessarily prove the existence of or predict the development of Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy”.

I’m with you in spirit, Florio – believe me, really I am.

But you of all people should know that, until the causal relationship between the protein and the disease is demonstrated, the lawyers will crush any potential litigation based on these scans like an egg.

Here’s hoping that science can do that…

By: questionableprovenance

questionableprovenance — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:06:15 +0000

a) re: players already know they are doing damage to their brains. There is a big difference in deterrence between knowing that smoking is dangerous, and the doctor showing you the suspicious spot on your lung x-ray.

b) this might end up a tremendous insurance headache [pun intended] for the NFL and players. Who is going to cover a player with demonstrable damage? Sort of like a person with pancreatic cancer applying for life insurance.

c) re: the carcinogenic potential of the scans. It appears that these are MRIs or more likely PET scans [haven't seen the original article yet], not CAT scans, so – no x-rays, and no known carcinogenic potential.

By: thegregwitul

thegregwitul — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:05:53 +0000

Can we get Tim Brown in for an appointment, ASAP?

By: deepcynic

deepcynic — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:01:17 +0000

No one in the press is looking into the role of antidepressants, painkillers etc. in these incidents? Why?

By: questforthesixthnotthelast2013

questforthesixthnotthelast2013 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:58:50 +0000

All those people with all thos initials after their name makes my Tau hurt!

By: demolition510

demolition510 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:53:30 +0000

Ruh-roh!!!

By: FoozieGrooler

FoozieGrooler — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:53:24 +0000

You actually need a machine for that?
Hell, I can spot brain damage a mile away in most people…