The NFL has been one of the WORST SPORTS in the world with its players safety. Don’t believe me? Ask Brett Favre about his ‘1,000 concussion claim’.
Brett Favre has recently come out and told TMZ that he suffered “thousands” of concussions during his NFL career. Now, normally, I wouldn’t believe a word that comes out of the former Green Bay Packers quarterback’s mouth.
He’s not exactly been a credible guy in recent times (ie: The Mississippi Welfare Scam, Charging $400+ for 1-minute Cameo talks). It takes a whole new level of greed to force someone to pay you over $400 just to say hi, wish them happy birthday, tell them how appreciative you are of their money…ehem…support, etc. Especially when you do it in under a minute.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Brett Favre is a little scummier than I originally thought.
Anyway, I do believe Favre when he says that he has received nearly 1,000 concussions.
Alright, let me clarify that a bit. I don’t believe him saying he received 1,000 concussions as he would almost certainly be dead by now if that’s true. Nevertheless, I do believe that he has gotten at least two dozen of them during his time in the NFL.
When he says, “You get tackled and your head hits the turf, you see flashes of light or ringing in your ears but you’re able to play. That’s a concussion,” I have to agree with him. That is the classic textbook definition of what a concussion feels like. And Favre said that happened to him every time he went down from a sack…which happened quite a bit.
And that’s a big problem for the NFL. The league hasn’t been able to protect its athletes from damaging, debilitating head injuries that cause horrific long-term diseases and mental disorders.
Sadly, we have already seen the terrible side effects of said injuries.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE): a progressive brain condition that’s thought to be caused by repeated blows to the head and repeated episodes of concussion (NHS). This is the three-letter acronym that is threating the very foundations and ethics of the NFL.
Too many NFL players have suffered and are continuing to suffer from this horrible brain disease caused by constant head trauma (ex: tackling, head hitting, blocking, etc.).
In 2017, a Boston University study showed that 99% (33/34) of studied NFL player brains (which were acquired from players who passed away but allowed their brains to be used for research) had advanced stages of the disease. That list includes players like Ken Stabler, Junior Seau, and Aaron Hernandez.
And, with the death of former Broncos WR Demaryius Thomas and the discovery of CTE in his brain, his name can also be added to that list.
Unfortunately for these players, a vast majority of them died in a violent way. Some of them committed suicide outright (Seau), while others committed horrible acts of violence before taking their own life (Hernandez).
The common trend between these players, whether they committed acts of violence against themselves or others or just simply died from complications of CTE, is the disease itself. It is far too prevalent. And that is a MAJOR problem.
Something needs to be done about this concerning trend.
As for Brett Favre, although I don’t particularly like him too much, I also would hate to see anything bad happen to him because of CTE. No person deserves to suffer from this dreadful illness.
There needs to be changes in the NFL uniform code around helmets. It is vital for NFL players to wear helmets that protect their brains from internal, traumatic head injuries each time they are tackled. It doesn’t matter if they look “dumb” or “stupid” from a broadcasting perspective. As long as they work, they should be implemented.
If they aren’t, then I fear for the future of the league. There can’t be a 99% CTE rate of NFL players getting the disease. That’s just too high a rate to justify playing the sport of football.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Wikimedia Creative Commons License/Author: Paul Cutler) (File:David Martin82 Brett Favre4.jpg – Wikimedia Commons/Paul Cutler, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Other Sources: (TMZ) (Brett Favre Says He Suffered ‘Thousands’ Of Concussions In NFL Career (tmz.com))
(Yahoo) Brett Favre named in $24M Mississippi welfare funds lawsuit (yahoo.com))
(Boston University Study) (BU Researchers Find CTE in 99% of Former NFL Players Studied | The Brink | Boston University)
(NHS) (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy – NHS (www.nhs.uk))
