Head And Spine Committee: A Case Study

The Ongoing Concussion Crisis and the N.F.L’s Head, Neck, and Spine Committee Almost all of America has seen or heard of the popular sport Football. Football stands on the objective to get the ball across to the opponent's goal. As a way to protect the opposing team from scoring, the players can tackle the opposing team. Tackling an opponent can lead to many serious injuries injuries, including concussions. Concussions consist of forceful collisions against the head and can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy or C.T.E, a degenerative brain disease. As a result of football being dangerous the N.F.L, the National Football League, created the head, neck, and spine committee to help diagnosis, prevent, and treat players with sports related
injuries. However, the committee has accomplished very little since the N.F.L created it. The committee has also continuously denied and tried to influence the research on the connection between football and head related injuries, resulting in many people trying to voice their opinions on the issue and how it needs resolving. By voicing against the procedures of the committee, it connects to Albert Hirschman's theory of voicing against a failing enterprise. According to Hirschman, “voice meant to stay on the job but speak out publicly for change of direction” (Dyson). In this case, the job represents the need to prevent the concussion crisis from continuing, and the people continue to voice to change the direction in which the committee handles the crisis. While many people will disagree, it is time to question the failing value system of the league’s head, neck, and spine committee because they have not been following their original intentions resulting in the concussion crisis continuing and people needing to stop the committee from trying to influence the research on concussions; if the community doesn’t speak up on these issues football players will continue to become affected by concussions. People of the community should voice against the N.F.L’s head, neck, and spine committee because they have not been following their original intentions and have accomplished little to putting an end to the concussion crisis.
The N.F.L created the head, neck, and spine committee with the intention of diagnosing, preventing, and treating any N.F.L football player that sustains an injury, including concussions. However, concussions remain a major issue happening in the football world and players continue to remain affected by them. In fact during the 2015 pre and regular season games, 271 players sustained concussions, making it a 31.6 increase from 2014 (Breslow). This set of statistics proves that the concussion crisis continues to increase because each year more players continue to become affected by concussions. Furthermore, it tells people that concussions don’t only happen in regular games, but during pre season games as well. In addition concussions regularly occur in highschool and little league football. As a matter of fact, around 47% of concussions occur in high school students (Sports). Which represents one of the highest percentages among other high school sports. This again proves that concussions do not only happen in the major leagues. The N.F.L also plays a major rule in these outside leagues. The New York Times stated, “the league’s public position could influence other levels of football because many college, high school and youth leagues take their cues
from the N.F.L” (Schwarz). In other words, if these other levels experiencing a high rate of concussions, it is a result of the N.F.L’s head, neck, and spine committee. The committee determines multiple factors of a player’s health in the game. If the committee doesn’t pass reliable laws or protocols for the game, it will not only affect the N.F.L, but all the other levels of football. It is important that the committee fixes the concussion crisis, because concussions are not a small issue and can lead to severe long-term effects. Receiving multiple concussions leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy or C.T.E, which is a degenerative brain disease. C.T.E leads to many severe symptoms such as, “memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, suicidality, parkinsonism, and eventually progressive dementia” (Frequently). Many of these symptoms have often lead former players to commit suicide, become abusive to others, and many more actions that they would never do before the disease affected them. In addition, seeing many of these symptoms occur in younger people is very uncommon, other than in retired football players. C.T.E often occurs around 40’s, while other disease like Alzheimer’s disease occurs around 60’s. Unfortunately, symptoms of C.T.E often start to appear decades after the player received the brain trauma and C.T.E can be diagnosed after the player has died. Making it all the more important that the N.F.L’s head, neck, and spine committee tries to find different ways to approach the issue, other than to keep denying and influencing it. There have been numerous cases against the N.F.L and its head, neck, and spine committee for influencing the research on the connection between football along with concussions, and how concussions can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
However, the N.F.L’s head, neck, and spine committee has continuously denied these accusations, even though they have been proven true. the New York Times stated, “The N.F.L. has been found to mismanage concussion research, dating to the league’s first exploration of the crisis when it used deeply flawed data to produce a series of studies” (Branch). This statement acknowledges that the N.F.L previously has mishandled the research on concussions and giving flawed data out to the public to hid the fact that a problem existed. The committee even tried to discredit two reports of C.T.E by Dr. Omalu who found signs of C.T.E in retired football players. They even blamed the players receiving concussions from outside activities. Mr. Miller stated, “A concussion can happen in a variety of different activities” (Schwarz). This statement shows that the committee tries to change the subject of the situation of the players developing C.T.E, and blaming it on other activities so that people will not know how dangerous football came be. One of the main reasons on why the committee previously tried to influence the research is because they want people to continue playing the game. The N.F.L has even gone as far to spend millions of dollars to try
to limit the fear with the parents over football’s physical toll. The reason may be because fewer people played organized football as a result of the parent’s worry about brain safety in 2013. Mr. Miller the N.F.L.’s senior vice president for health and safety even acknowledged that “the league was concerned” (Schwarz). The league became concerned about the fewer children playing football. If fewer children played football ,the N.F.L would have a harder time finding talented players because the rate of children joining organized football continues to decrease. Even though many people agree that it is time to question failing value system of the league’s head, neck, and spine committee because they have not been following what their original intentions resulting in the concussion crisis to continue, many others disagree with this decision. They believe that the head, neck, and spine committee remains an essential part of the league and that they are doing their job of diagnosing, preventing, and treating the N.F.L’s football players by passing certain laws and protocols. The New York Times acknowledged one protocol in particular. They acknowledged that Mr. Miller from the N.F.L, managed to enact the league’s “concussion protocol”. In the article, Mr. Miller described the protocol, “directs how teams handle injured players and later clear their return to action” (Schwarz). This protocol represents a positive sign of the committee and that they are trying to do some good to help insure the safety of their players after receiving an injury. By clearing the players return to action, it helps ensure that the player has fully recovered from the injury. However, 33% of high school athletes who sustain a sports concussion report two or more in the same year (Sports). Meaning that even though the committee passed the “concussion protocol”, the players are still receiving concussions more often than they should if they used the protocol. It also shows that not only do the players receive one concussion but two in the same year. Despite placing the protocol into action, many football players continue playing even though they sustained a concussion. One former high school football player named James Carroll from the Boston Globe stated, “Despite being woozy, I was desperate to get back in the game. When I answered the question — it was Ike — Coach slapped my shoulder pads and sent me in on the next play” (Carroll). In this statement, James is talking about how after he got tackled especially hard, the coach made sure that the player could continue to play and followed the concussion protocol. In James’s case the protocol consisted of asking who the president was, and when he answered the question right the coach put him back into the game. However, even though he answered the question correctly, didn’t mean that he was ok because he sustained a concussion. This example shows that even though the coaches may follow the “concussion protocol” it doesn’t always mean that their player ready to return to action and might have sustained a serious injury. James also acknowledged that most players like himself, wanted to continue playing because it showed their integrity to the game. James states, “knew that more honor was to be had in playing through an injury than in the few passes I actually ever caught” (Carroll). James's point is that by continuing to play in the game even when injured, is more meaningful to the team then anything else in the game. This shows that the “concussion protocol” not always works because many players like James will do anything to get back into the game including lying to the coach. Many people also believe that the head, neck, and spine committee is needed, because they make laws needed to protect the safety of the players. One example of this would be when the New York Times Stated, “the N.F.L lobbied many state legislatures to pass laws that require any youth athlete who sustained a concussion to return to play only after being cleared by a medical professional” (Schwarz). By passing these laws, it helps students affected by a concussion and to get the proper care they need. It will also help them from receiving any further brain damage, because they can’t continue playing with a concussion. Unfortunately this isn’t always the case and almost over half of the players that blacked out, were immediately put back in the game. This shows that even the N.F.L has passed a few laws and protocols to protect the players, they are still sustaining concussions and in many cases the players can find a way to continue playing after receiving a head injury. In the end, it is time to question the failing value system of the league’s head, neck, and spine committee because they have not been following their original intentions of diagnosing, preventing and treating their players resulting in the concussion crisis continuing. In addition, the committee previously tried to influence the research on concussions. Meaning that it is time for people to start voicing against the committee so that it starts to do more to help its players. However, if they don’t voice, many future football players could become affected by C.T.E. All in all, it is time to voice against the N.F.l’s head, neck, and spine committee in order to protect the active football players and to make sure that the N.F.L no longer tries to influence the research on concussions.