Frontline's League Of Denial Analysis
Frontline’s League of Denial explains how the glorification of violence plays a role in head injuries in the NFL. The National Football League’s chronic brain injury rates are increasing very quickly, causing the league to increase protocol to provide better protection for the players. It is hard to find a football player today whose body hasn’t paid a very high price; the love of the game may be destroying the brains of NFL players.
Some evidence that football causes CTE is Mike Webster’s medical experience. Mike Webster’s death started a chain of events that threatened to forever change the way American’s see football. Doctor Omalu, who studied his brain after his death, right away could see the effects of seventeen years of the football
battles. When he observed his brain Omalu said he looked beat up, worn out and drained. The skin on his forehead was fixed to his skull with built up scare tissue from continues pounding to his head and other people. Over the years Webster was becoming increasingly confused and had little to no patience including problems with anger. To function properly in society, he needed ritaline, which he became so depend on that he was forged nineteen prescription slips to get it. Eventually, he decided that he needed to take action claiming that football caused him dementia. Webster hired a lawyer and a group of doctors who proved his case to be true. When brought to the NFL hired their own doctors to evaluate Webster and they found that no doubt his disability was football related with significant cognitive issues. Then after, the NFL acknowledges that football can cause a permanent disabling injury to the brain. The admission wasn’t made public until years later when it was discovered by the Fainaru brothers.
Steve and Mark Fainaru are investigative reporters who have been investigating how the NFL has handled evidence that football has been destroying the brains of NFL players. The NFL would not cooperate with the brothers, but they continued to report the story beginning with Mark Websters career. In football, in almost every play and every practice, the players hit their heads against each other. That’s the nature of the game. Doctor Robert Stern claims that that happens about 1,015 times a year. Each time that happens it’s about 20 G’s or more, that’s equivalent to driving a car at 30mph into a brick wall. It seems impossible for football players to not face some kind of head damage from this kind of impact consistently.
NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said he was skeptical about the risk from concussion. He called the controversy the result of PACT journalism. He claimed there is no concision issue and blamed journalism for bringing up this issue. Created Mild Traumatic Brain Injury group (MTBI) and were notoriously making the claim over and over that there is no relationship, and even hired people who weren’t neuro doctors to help support and write sixteen research papers backing up there claims. The NFL doesn’t want to admit that football has a link with CTE because there is more liability on them and they can get into trouble for not providing the players with proper protection both body and head to help prevent injuries down the road. Today, they can admit the link between football and CTE and take the proper precautions to prevent and properly take care of injured players on the field and restrict them from playing when they need to be.
The NFL still markets violence. NFL films capture the essence of football itself, the tension between the violence and the beauty. The film claimed there is more violence then in any other sport. The NFL would market tapes of moments of impact in the context of describing the brutal nature of the violence of the NFL. Football can be a very dangerous sport and is never marketed as a noncontact sport because it’s not. The NFL needs to make provisions to keep its players protected
Some evidence that football causes CTE is Mike Webster’s medical experience. Mike Webster’s death started a chain of events that threatened to forever change the way American’s see football. Doctor Omalu, who studied his brain after his death, right away could see the effects of seventeen years of the football
battles. When he observed his brain Omalu said he looked beat up, worn out and drained. The skin on his forehead was fixed to his skull with built up scare tissue from continues pounding to his head and other people. Over the years Webster was becoming increasingly confused and had little to no patience including problems with anger. To function properly in society, he needed ritaline, which he became so depend on that he was forged nineteen prescription slips to get it. Eventually, he decided that he needed to take action claiming that football caused him dementia. Webster hired a lawyer and a group of doctors who proved his case to be true. When brought to the NFL hired their own doctors to evaluate Webster and they found that no doubt his disability was football related with significant cognitive issues. Then after, the NFL acknowledges that football can cause a permanent disabling injury to the brain. The admission wasn’t made public until years later when it was discovered by the Fainaru brothers.
Steve and Mark Fainaru are investigative reporters who have been investigating how the NFL has handled evidence that football has been destroying the brains of NFL players. The NFL would not cooperate with the brothers, but they continued to report the story beginning with Mark Websters career. In football, in almost every play and every practice, the players hit their heads against each other. That’s the nature of the game. Doctor Robert Stern claims that that happens about 1,015 times a year. Each time that happens it’s about 20 G’s or more, that’s equivalent to driving a car at 30mph into a brick wall. It seems impossible for football players to not face some kind of head damage from this kind of impact consistently.
NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said he was skeptical about the risk from concussion. He called the controversy the result of PACT journalism. He claimed there is no concision issue and blamed journalism for bringing up this issue. Created Mild Traumatic Brain Injury group (MTBI) and were notoriously making the claim over and over that there is no relationship, and even hired people who weren’t neuro doctors to help support and write sixteen research papers backing up there claims. The NFL doesn’t want to admit that football has a link with CTE because there is more liability on them and they can get into trouble for not providing the players with proper protection both body and head to help prevent injuries down the road. Today, they can admit the link between football and CTE and take the proper precautions to prevent and properly take care of injured players on the field and restrict them from playing when they need to be.
The NFL still markets violence. NFL films capture the essence of football itself, the tension between the violence and the beauty. The film claimed there is more violence then in any other sport. The NFL would market tapes of moments of impact in the context of describing the brutal nature of the violence of the NFL. Football can be a very dangerous sport and is never marketed as a noncontact sport because it’s not. The NFL needs to make provisions to keep its players protected