The perception of football and CTE is doing more damage than necessary

The perception about football and CTE is doing more damage than necessary—especially until we know all of the facts.

With all the protest distraction this past weekend, the NFL’s issue with CTE took a back seat. Unfortunately this was short lived as new CTE information was released this week that has the concern back on the front page.

This week, scientists announced they may have found the key to being able to diagnose CTE in the living. Today the only way to diagnose someone with the brain disease is to dissect their brains after they have died. But scientist have discovered a protein found in brain tissue and spinal fluid that is higher in in patients with CTE.

With early diagnosis testing scientist could gain an incredible amount of useful information. Scientist could use many patients to find out exactly how the disease works. How does it progress? How quickly does it progress? How does it affect different types of individuals? Once science can solve all these questions, they can come up with treatments and advice for people who are at risk.

Unfortunately science does not work as fast as we all would like. This test is months, possibly even years away. It would then take years of tracking the test information to get a sample size large enough to have definitive answers to the above questions. As good as it is to hear about the advances science is making, it’s important to remember the answers are still a long way away.

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Until we have all the answers it’s best to understand what we know to be facts today. What we know now is getting hit in the head thousands of times is not healthy. It’s even more unhealthy to get hit in the head by 250-pound men running at you full speed over and over. With what we know for sure, it is safe to assume that many veteran NFL players likely have some level of CTE.

It’s important to note that this is all we know right now. We do not know what the actual affect CTE has on the brain. For example did CTE cause Junior Seau to take his own life, or was he going to do that anyway? Was the sad downfall of former Kansas City Chief Mike Webster due to CTE or other factors? If you are one who wants to say those where all about CTE, then why is it not affecting Mike Singletary and Dick Butkus in the same way?

The biggest issue we still do not know is how many hits it takes to cause the disease. This is the question keeping parents from allowing their kids to play football. Many parents see the news about football causing CTE and automatically assume that it means any kind of football will lead to it. Thus participation in youth football is dropping an average of 15 to 20 percent nationwide. It’s hard to argue that the biggest issue for the drop is anything but safety concerns related to CTE. When the subject is so mainstream that Will Smith makes a movie about it, people are going to take notice.

To me the mainstream media has blown this issue out of proportion without enough information. They’ve basically told every mother out there that football will give their baby boys brain damage. In reality the facts that we know today only say that football can increase the risk of CTE. We still do not even know the full effects of CTE on the brain or how much football increases the risk. With the facts we know today, soccer has the possibility to be as dangerous as football. Yet no one is suing MLS and there are no movies with characters demanding that soccer be banned. 60 Minutes or CNN don’t have guest on to discuss the correlation between the MLS and CTE.

This to me comes off as more of an attack on football than discussion about a disease. Football can be a dangerous sport; this is nothing new. The brain injury stuff isn’t anything new when you actually think about it. Getting hit in the head repeatedly is unhealthier than not being hit in the head. The harder you get hit in the head, the unhealthier it is. I know most parents think of football and CTE and picture James Harrison destroying Ryan Fitzpatrick. To those parents I say you don’t understand football and the hits that cause these issues.

Does getting knocked out cold by James Harrison hurt your brain? Well, of course it does. But watch the offensive and defensive lines every snap next time you watch a game. Watch how many times they bash their helmets together and the force they do it every play. Watch linebackers take on blocks and watch the helmets collide. Now go to your local high school game and watch for the same things. It is barely even the same game. The hardest hit you see in a high school game is about what an NFL offensive lineman feels every play of his career.

Yes football is a dangerous sport, as it always has been. Is CTE a disease that needs to be studied? Of course it is. But until we have these studies, I think people need to pump the brakes on the panic surrounding the issue. I think the media also needs to do the same on the reporting that leads to that panic. I have no issue with saying that this is an issue that needs studied for greater awareness. Report not only what we do know, but report all the questions we don’t know. For every report on Webster or Seau, do a report on men like Butkus or Singletary. If you can’t give the topic the equal treatment that parents of young kids need to make an informed decision, than just leave the topic alone.

The perception about football and CTE is doing more damage than necessary—especially until we know all of the facts.

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