Brain Injuries And Legal Battles: The Nfl’s Persistent Problem With Cte

On Monday evening, a man brandishing an AR-15-style firearm walked into nan eastbound midtown Manhattan agency building wherever nan NFL is headquartered and killed 4 people earlier turning nan weapon connected himself.

Authorities opportunity nan man, 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura of Las Vegas, traveled to New York days earlier nan incident, and surveillance footage from nan Park Avenue reside showed him arriving successful a suit and necktie that concealed assemblage armor.

Though nan motive for nan shooting remains unclear, constabulary found a three-page note successful Tamura’s pouch successful which he railed against nan NFL and blamed shot for giving him CTE, an incurable encephalon disease. The shooting – which earnestly injured an NFL employee, according to a unit email sent by commissioner Roger Goodell – marks a caller section successful nan league’s decades-long history of denying concerns astir semipermanent effects of caput injuries successful nan sport. “Study my brain, please,” sounds Tamura’s note. “I’m sorry.”

Whatever nan truth that yet emerges from Tamura’s aesculapian problems, his statement is judge to reopen nan existential statement that astir stalled football’s surging fame during nan 2010s.

Short for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE is simply a progressive illness associated pinch beingness interaction that causes nan encephalon to bang against nan wrong of nan skull. In CTE cases, a macromolecule called tau overdevelops successful nan brain, choking disconnected humor vessels and nan neural pathways that abet representation and impulse control. Some nonstop effects of CTE see temper disorders, cognitive impairments and behavioral changes; often, it results successful dementia. Crucially, CTE tin only beryllium diagnosed posthumously.

CTE was identified almost a period agone successful boxers who exhibited representation loss, impaired gait and different symptoms of neurological decline. (They called CTE “punch-drunk” syndrome backmost then.) And while nan illness has since emerged successful hockey, shot and different full-contact squad sports, it’s shot that holds nan top imaginable for CTE. Many subordinate nan crippled pinch its large hits, but nan repeated collisions successful betwixt (often characterized arsenic mini-car crashes) person conscionable arsenic overmuch chance to lead to CTE complete time, if not much so.

Helmets, contempt what manufacturers and nan convention itself whitethorn claim, connection scant protection. The longer 1 plays, nan greater imaginable location is to go afflicted pinch CTE – which makes nan risks especially acute for competitors who commencement young for illustration Tamura, who played successful precocious school. Starting successful 2018, a number of authorities lawmakers would present authorities that would prohibit children nether nan property of 12 from playing tackle shot – but fewer of those proposals would make it retired of committee.

The NFL has agelong been alert of nan caput wounded threats to its players, forming a committee specifically to reside mild traumatic encephalon wounded (MTBI) arsenic early arsenic 1994. Eight years later, fans were blindsided by nan decease of Mike Webster, a cornerstone of nan Pittsburgh Steelers 1970s-era dynasty.

In retirement, Webster was diagnosed pinch amnesia, dementia and depression. He lived retired of his pickup motortruck and electroshocked himself to sleep. Following Webster’s decease astatine property 50, he became nan NFL’s first CTE lawsuit aft nan forensic neuropathologist Bennet Omalu examined his encephalon tissue. Omalu and his adjacent neurospecialists published investigation linking shot to CTE, highlighting Webster and Terry Long – a Steelers teammate who besides suffered from slump and died by termination astatine property 45. But erstwhile Omalu’s findings were presented to Goodell astatine a league-wide concussion acme successful 2007, Ira Casson, nan Long Island neurologist who co-chaired nan NFL’s MTBI committee, flagrantly dismissed them.

The NFL’s CTE casualties would only equine from there. In particular, 4 players had their brains posthumously donated to Boston University’s CTE Center, nan foremost database of its kind, and nan findings ratcheted up concerns astir nan disease’s effect successful master shot to an unprecedented level. Dave Duerson, a Chicago Bears leader who recovered much post-retirement occurrence successful nan business world, sent texts instructing family members to donate his brain to subject earlier shooting himself successful nan thorax successful 2011. Junior Seau, a hallway of fame linebacker for nan San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots who was renowned arsenic nan NFL’s happy warrior, killed himself successful much nan aforesaid manner successful 2012.

San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau during an NFL crippled against nan Washington Redskins astatine Qualcomm Stadium successful San Diego, California, connected 09 September 2001. Photograph: Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Aaron Hernandez – a preternaturally talented receiver who was tied to nan execution of 3 people, one of them a friend – killed himself successful prison successful 2017 astatine property 27 and was later diagnosed pinch the worst lawsuit of CTE ever recovered successful a young person. (He took up nan crippled astatine 5 years old.) In 2021 Phillip Adams, a seasoned of 5 NFL teams who changeable and killed 5 group successful his South Carolina location municipality earlier shooting himself, was recovered to person had CTE each complete his frontal lobe – nan portion of nan encephalon responsible for decision-making, impulse power and different executive functions.

OJ Simpson besides astir donated his encephalon to Boston University, but he yet backed distant from comments he made successful 2018 expressing curiosity complete whether he had CTE and was ultimately cremated. Of nan 376 erstwhile NFL subordinate brains that nan halfway has examined since 2008, it has recovered CTE successful 345 cases. By contrast, BU researchers recovered only one lawsuit of CTE successful a 2018 study of nan wide public, and moreover that sample came from a erstwhile assemblage shot player.

BU researchers would further sound nan siren connected nan caput wounded dangers that tackle shot poses to kids whose processing brains, necks and bodies are not yet fresh to sorb specified impacts. In 2019, a precocious schoolhouse shot subordinate named Wyatt Bramwell, who killed himself months aft graduating precocious school, became nan youngest subordinate to beryllium diagnosed pinch precocious CTE. While galore past CTE cases person been associated pinch convulsive behavior, there’s no conclusive proof of immoderate nonstop links.

The operation of Seau’s decease successful 2012, nan 2015 merchandise of nan Will Smith movie Concussion (which focuses connected Omalu’s quest to clasp nan NFL accountable for caput injuries) and much than 4,500 players filing suit against nan convention for concealing caput wounded dangers would propulsion nan NFL – nan world’s biggest and astir profitable sports convention and an American taste institution – into full-blown situation mode.

To stanch nan driblet successful viewership and combat a rising disinclination among parents to motion their kids up for shot (a move galore salient erstwhile players endorsed), nan NFL legislated immoderate collisions retired of nan crippled and beefed up information protocols while ramping up its promotion of emblem shot – to nan constituent of successfully lobbying a spot for nan non-contact type of nan athletics connected nan Olympic programme for nan 2028 LA Games. In 2013, nan convention agreed to a landmark $765m settlement pinch erstwhile players that included payouts but, crucially, nary admittance of liability and constricted compensation for CTE-claims.

It wasn’t until 2016 that nan convention finally acknowledged nan nexus betwixt football-related caput injuries and CTE – and, still, nan ineligible battles continued arsenic nan convention outright denies claims while punting nan work for aesculapian attraction to individual teams. Meanwhile, retired players, who were near to negociate their wellness problems successful nan background, could only telephone retired nan convention for prioritizing profits and scold nan game’s incumbent procreation of stars for not doing capable to see their forebears successful corporate bargaining. The deeper nan NFL digs, nan much it gives assemblage and precocious schoolhouse leagues support to do nan aforesaid and consequence tragedies for illustration nan 1 that unfolded wrong nan very building wherever nan convention is headquartered.

Tamura ne'er played successful nan NFL, but he did carve retired a respectable precocious schoolhouse profession astatine Los Angeles county’s Granda Hills Charter, distinguishing himself arsenic a moving backmost and footwear returner. Those 2 positions, high-impact successful some their imaginable for scoring and for encephalon injury, would person surely accrued his vulnerability to CTE – particularly if Tamura took up nan crippled earlier precocious school. He seemed to recognize thing astir himself was off, too.

In nan statement he near behind, Tamura suggests he whitethorn person moreover taken up Long’s wont of drinking antifreeze to header pinch imaginable CTE symptoms, and resigns himself to emotion powerless to return connected nan NFL. Since covering nan first news of nan onslaught astatine office connected its website connected Monday, nan league’s charismatic media channels person moved backmost to search nan latest developments from squad training camps.