Football is back, with the American public’s talent for fast forgetting on full display. The live broadcast of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin’s near-death experience is rapidly receding into the background as the players scrimmage, fall, roll and rise back and forth. The crowds scream, the advertisers and owners rake in more big bucks, the spectacle continues.
And so does the human cost. There were a few moments of reflection in the media. One was offered by Times sports columnist Kurt Streeter, in a piece, We’re All Complicit in the N.F.L.’s Violent Spectacle, [My comments below are in bold red]:
Streeter: Too often, too many of us, myself included, watch the N.F.L. with narrow vision. We focus on what we can get out of these games, the diverting enjoyment, while playing down the risks to those like Hamlin who have steeled themselves to endure the pain and face the danger inherent to football.
It’s unclear whether Hamlin’s medical emergency was related to the tackle that preceded it. But the specter of destruction on the field, let’s face it, is part of what makes football such an American draw. That’s why the highlight shows are full of the most jarring, brutal hits.
We’ve become inured to suffering, absolving ourselves with some version of internal narrative: Whew, that guy who just got crushed and has been lying on the field for 10 minutes just gave the thumbs-up sign. He’s going to be fine! Bummer for him, but next man up. …
Will it take a player nearly dying on national television for us to widen our view and examine why and how we watch?
[It’s unlikely that would be enough. Actually, the record shows that most such events are mere blips. As Streeter admitted]:
[Streeter] Football, of course, exists at the apex of American sport. It is our great elixir, the weekly fall-to-winter festival that brings more of us together than any other sport. In a nation divided, the game remains a unifying force, a magnet drawing every race, orientation and class. . . .
[For many. Definitely not for this observer.]
[Streeter] But on the circus goes on. It must. There are billions of dollars at stake, and most fans don’t care enough about the welfare of their great gridiron entertainers. Over the course of the next few decades, many of the present-day N.F.L. heroes will be locked in a struggle against diminished minds damaged by the game they played. But by then, there will be a new crop of gladiators to distract from the ever-unfolding calamity.
Streeter left it to an outsider, guest essayist Chris Nowinski, to be more specific about the toll.
Nowinski, from: Football Is Deadly, but Not for the Reasons You Think:
Nowinski: The [Damar Hamlin] episode has focused international attention on the physical dangers of football, with many parents wondering anew if they should allow their children to play and some fans questioning whether it’s ethical to support the sport at all.
[I hope a real questioning is underway, but I’m very dubious. The league has resumed play, and Hamlin himself not only cheered for it from his hospital bed, but blessed it as God’s will. It’s fine for believers to pray for his recovery; but I find the outbursts of religiosity around the incident as more like those that go with a mass death cult. Which in my eyes is what football is.
This is what cries out between the lines in Nowinski’s piece. He lists the names, and itemizes the statistics, which make the ongoing extent of the carnage irrefutable, but like most fans, shrinks from the logical, moral conclusion, that football is a plague that should be curbed.
Responsible parents should finish their wondering, and keep their children off those fields; it’s time for fans can retrain themselves to follow safer sports; sponsors need to take their ads elsewhere; and the religious believers who worship at these blood sacrifices — they need to repent.]
Nowinski: [As] alarming as [Hamlin’s] injury was, the terrifying incident carries a secondary risk: It is focusing attention on a single, dramatic outlier rather than the chronic medical conditions that pose by far the greatest danger to players.
According to the National Commotio Cordis Registry, there are an estimated 15 to 20 cases per year nationwide, usually in sports like baseball or hockey when a fast-moving projectile connects with an unprotected chest. In football, where players wear lots of padding, an event like this is so rare at the N.F.L. level that it probably won’t occur again in our lifetimes.
Meanwhile, chronic heart disease and the long-term effects of traumatic brain injuries have robbed countless players of their health, their happiness, and even their lives, but do not receive the same medical or cultural attention because they happen away from the cameras.
Hours before the Monday night game, I learned that former N.F.L. offensive lineman Uche Nwaneri, who started 92 games at guard and center for the Jacksonville Jaguars, had died from a heart attack at the age of 38. Uche and I had been messaging on Twitter about our shared concerns about concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E.). He had struggled to find his next passion after retiring, but had recently gained a dedicated following on YouTube commenting on football and pop culture, calling himself the Observant Lineman. He is survived by his wife Michele and two young daughters.
Young former N.F.L. players, mostly linemen, die from heart attacks or heart disease nearly every year.
In addition to Uche, Shane Olivea died in March at age 40. Max Tuerk, age 26, died in 2020. Taylor Whitley, age 38, 2018. Jeremy Nunley, age 46, 2018. Nate Hobgood-Chittick, age 42, 2017. Rodrick Monroe, age 40, 2017. Ron Brace, age 29, 2016. Quentin Groves, 32, 2016. Damion Cook, 36, 2015.According to a 2019 study from Harvard University, N.F.L. players are 2.5 times more likely to have cardiovascular diseases listed as an underlying or contributing cause of death than Major League Baseball players.
Scientists believe N.F.L. players are at greater risk of heart disease because of the weight they gain, even when it is mostly muscle. Once players retire, it’s extremely difficult to lose the football weight, partially due to chronic pain from injuries suffered playing. (N.F.L. players ages 25 to 39 have about three times the rate of arthritis than the general public.)
These men’s untimely deaths were a tragedy to their loved ones, friends, and former teammates, but the public was largely unaware.
Neurological disorders are also uncomfortably common among former N.F.L. players. Uche had recently invited me on his podcast. We planned to discuss how football players should interpret data from the Boston University’s C.T.E. Center study showing that around 90 percent of the more than 300 N.F.L. players they have studied since 2008 have had C.T.E., a neurodegenerative disease that is linked with the development of dementia and is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries.
While it is unlikely that those 300 N.F.L. players studied are representative of the total N.F.L. population, a separate analysis has suggested the minimum prevalence in N.F.L. players is 10 percent, more than 10 times what it is in the general population. Uche wanted his brain tested for C.T.E. upon his death, and his family is following through on his request.
Neurological damage from repeated head trauma may be behind the findings that N.F.L. players are three times more likely to die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and 3.5 times more likely to die of Parkinson’s disease than Major League Baseball players. Death certificates tend to undercount dementia, but a survey published last year found that N.F.L. players in their 50s are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than the general population.
The risks N.F.L. players incur are not limited to their years on professional teams. C.T.E. risk is partially determined by the length of a player’s career — the longer one plays football, the more head impacts and traumatic brain injuries they are likely to suffer, the greater their risk.
Therefore, this risk is also shared by college football players, high school, and even youth players, all of whom are exposed to the risk, the vast majority without any financial upside — and in the case of children, without informed consent.
I hope the football safety conversation that Damar Hamlin has inspired makes the game safer for young players who consider him a hero and want to follow in his footsteps. I also hope the public will focus on what we can influence, including how we manage risk factors for heart disease and when we introduce our children to tackle football.
[Yes and no. Public focus on the long-term carnage is crucial: but in my view the best time for parents to “introduce” children to football is, or should be, never. There are many other, safer sports.
Why should this exodus begin with kids? Because, as Nowinski shows: the physical damage starts with them, and is nationwide in scope]:
Nowinski: According to a study by the C.D.C., youth tackle football players average 389 head impacts a season. Perhaps we should Stop Hitting Kids in the Head and push for only flag football before high school.
The N.F.L. requires on average 30 medical professionals at each game. But while the risks do not end on the field, the medical care often does. . . .
[The damage done by football, as Nowinski knows, doesn’t begin in the NFL, but long before, and wherever football is played. There are scattered encouraging reports suggesting that increasing numbers of parents are beginning to get the message links. They’re not much; but I hope they mark the beginning of a rising trend.]
Chris Nowinski is a behavioral neuroscientist and founding C.E.O. of the nonprofit organization Concussion Legacy Foundation [which has started the Stop Hitting Kids in the Head campaign.]
An All-Ivy defensive lineman at Harvard University, he joined WWE, but his professional wrestling career was cut short by concussions.
The “solution” to NFL carnage is basically simple, cost-free and in your hands. Two steps:
- Change your streaming to another sport. And
- Keep your kids and grandkids away from it.
Yeah, I know . . . .
Chuck, you may want to look at John Gleeson’s new book “The Quakerly Gridiron Brothers,” which is a history of football at George School. As someone who is included in the list of GS players over ten decades (p. 291) The game I experienced was not a death cult but a life long lesson in the importance of grit and teamwork. Most football programs are not like George School’s, which is currently at risk of being canceled, but Gleeson’s thorough account shows that it that it can be done, Swedenborgian opponents not withstanding.