CTE Could Mean the End of Football
Graphic by Connor Lane
I was raised on football. I love the game. My family watched it, lived it and breathed it. The very same game that gets America glued to either a couch or bleachers Friday, Saturday and Sunday may very well be coming to an end – or at least as we know it.
Football has come under fire due to the dangers of concussions and the infamous Chronic Trauma Encephalopathy, better known as CTE.
According to the Mayo Clinic, CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma.
CTE scares people. It scares players, fans and parents.
With the July 25 New York Times article about a CTE study, fear of concussion rippled through the football world once more. The study showed that 110 out of 111 donated brains of players from the National Football League showed signs of CTE — over 99 percent.
And while that study had major issues with selection bias, the Times even said that the donated brains were often donated by family members who had suspicions that the player had the disease, it should still be considered worrying to fans and players alike.
Football players have been openly worrying about the effects of concussions on their future lives for years now. The early retirements of John Urschel, at 26, Jordan Cameron, at 28, Chris Borland, at 24 and Sidney Rice, at 27, because the threat head injuries show the great concern players have for their futures.
An Oct. 28 CNN article chronicled the fears and effects caused by past brain trauma on former Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre.
“(Favre) can't remember his daughter participating in youth soccer one summer, even though she played several games,” the article said. “That, and other memory lapses, have worried him. ‘For the first time in 44 years, that put a little fear in me,’ (Favre) said. ‘God only knows the toll.’”
Former Chicago Bears Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jim McMahon has also had his fair share of issues since retiring from the league.
In an article by the Chicago Tribune on June 17, 2014, McMahon talked about his battles with depression and suicidal thoughts since his diagnosis of early onset dementia in 2012.
“I try to stay as close as I could to (girlfriend Laurie Navon) because she would keep me from doing something stupid,” McMahon said in the article. “I am glad I don’t have any weapons in my house or else I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be here.”
While technology and knowledge of the issue are now greater than they have ever been, it is still up to individual teams to implement the techniques required to play the game safely.
Players for the Razorbacks seem to not worry as much about the long-term effects of these injuries. While they have changed their techniques in the trenches of the football field to keep themselves and others safe, they cannot afford to think about injuries at all times.
“I know concussions are a big deal, but you can’t think about (it) when you’re playing ‘Oh, concussions, concussions,’ because that’s how you get hurt,” said sophomore defensive lineman McTelvin Agim. “You can’t play scared.”
Freshman offensive lineman Shane Clenin said he has adjusted his techniques to better protect his head. He also said that the coaches emphasize that to protect their players.
“I mean obviously I try not to lead with my head, you know, the coaches teach that a lot,” Clenin said. “We’re wearing the new pads on our helmets during practice to try and help with that, too.”
Clenin said that CTE does worry him, however.
“I mean, obviously it’s something that’s probably a little frightening at times, but I just try to kind of put it aside,” Clenin said.
Fans and parents seem to react differently than current players to CTE. It seems the further away someone gets from actually playing the sport, the more it worries them.
There are dozens of think pieces out there asking the question “should your child play football?”
This is the issue that could spell disaster for the sport.
Youth participation numbers have fallen significantly, as have the numbers of parents willing to let their child play, according to an article by NY Daily News.
“Though the poll also showed 79 percent of all adults and 75 percent of parents would let their child play if they wished,” the article said. “Those numbers are still down from 85 and 87 percent in 2013.”
Doctors and even football greats like Favre say they do not recommend football at such young ages.
“It’s a violent sport, and for two reasons I don’t know if I’d let him play,” Favre said. “The pressures to, you know, live up to what your dad had done, but most importantly the damage that is done by playing. I don’t know if I would let him play.”
This brings up the final question: should we still play football?
If such a large number of players who play the game the way it was meant to be played end up with a degenerative disease that will eventually kill them, that sport should not be continued as-is.
Football will most likely not survive the current risk factors. Either the NFL cripples itself through settlements on the more than 4,500 CTE-related lawsuits, or there are no more kids left to make the journey to the NCAA or the NFL, or both.
There is a bright side. As such a big-money industry – the NFL pulled down around $14 billion in 2016 – football isn’t going to go away without a fight.
Like many other things, the first step is admitting you have a problem.
Much of football’s elite continues to vehemently deny the scarring effects of concussions.
Even Arkansas’ own Jerry Jones, owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, doubts a link between data and CTE. His most recent denial came on March 22, 2016, just a week after the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety policy, Jeff Miller, told Congress that there is definitely a link.
“We want to continue to be safer and want to continue to support any type of research that would let us know what (the) consequences really are,” Jones said “In no way should we be basically making assumptions with no more data than we’ve got about the consequences of a head injury.”
But the last bastion of resistance in the NFL seems to be falling now, as more and more people come around to the truth: CTE is real, and it is deadly.
Whether it is through rule changes or equipment changes, football will get safer. That safety will inevitably lead to more kids coming back into the fold, and the game will most likely continue.
But, that does mean that change is coming.
I, for one, welcome that change. I’ve never been much of a traditionalist, and if changes to the sport that I love can save that sport, I’m all in.