▲ Quarterback Tua Taigovaloa suffered three concussions and sparked again the controversy over safety protocols in the American league.Ap’s photo
Rosalia A. Villanueva
Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday February 12, 2023, p. 2
This season revived, among other issues, the risk of the players, set on fire by the three concussions suffered by quarterback Tua Taigovaloa. For years, the NFL downplayed the issue.
Concussions in American football have stung the managers and owners of the 32 teams. They face the challenge of offering solutions to care for the integrity and health of the players; once they retire, offer them a better quality of life.
A $1 billion settlement in early 2017 contained the claims of more than 20,000 former National Football League players. Although many died – the NFL does not give official figures for deaths, either past or present – it is known that the majority were as a result of concussions in one of the most practiced sports and followed by millions of fans in the United States and in other countries. latitudes.
According to reports, for six years more former soccer players were discovered with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which put the Players Union (NFLPA) on high alert, to demand that the league more security protocols, in addition to accompanying the hundreds of relatives in the complaints filed.
In the 1,000 lawsuits, the NFL was accused of repeatedly hiding the dangers players suffered from concussions for decades, the Associated Press reported at the time.
For years, the NFL minimized the cases and instead of giving solutions they preferred to keep quiet. They couldn’t stand the media pressure anymore and began to accept the agreements of the affected families.
Players from that time ended up in the worst health conditions: Alzheimer’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), dementia, depression, aggressiveness and suicide.
Faced with what exploded in their hands, the NFL had no choice but to accept what it had silenced for years and began to carry out protocols towards the players.
In recent days, the commissioner of the League, Roger Goodell, reported that concussions increased 18 percent in the regular season and considered that the increase was due to current diagnostic measures.
“I think that’s one reason concussions have increased this year, because we have broader detection.
If you have more evaluations, you’re going to have more shocks. As long as we can change the protocols to make them safer for our players, we will. We are not afraid of being diagnosed. That’s important to us, and that’s why we encourage you to raise your hand when you have symptoms, so we can make sure we care for you properly.
he declared.
Although the NFL has taken measures for the safety of players who have suffered a head injury, sometimes these protocols endorsed by scientists, doctors, team owners and the Players Association are ignored.
Protocols in sight
The most recent and notable data of this 2022-2023 season occurred with the quarterback of the Miami Dolphins, Tua Taigovaloa, in week 3, in the duel against the Buffalo Bills. And, again, the controversy broke out.
The Hawaiian was taken to the locker room as applicable in the protocols for a head injury and, according to the team, was fit to return to the field of play on the grounds that the passer stumbled due to a back injury shortly before the meeting.
Days later, the 24-year-old was admitted to the hospital with a concussion following a week 4 game against the Cincinnati Bengals. The team decided that that same day he would fly to Miami. The NFLPA reacted and asked to open an investigation into the possible violation of concussion protocols, he said in a statement.
The worst was yet to come and it occurred in week 16 in the game against the Green Bay Packers on December 25. The quarterback for the Florida team suffered the third concussion that kept him out of the playoffs and after the Pro Bowl Games.
In early January, Tua wrote on Twitter: When one chapter ends, another begins. Proud of this last one, excited for the next one!
Hernandez and Adams
The suicides of Aaron Hernandez and Phillip Adams after committing murders rocked professional American football. Hernandez, a tight end for the New England Patriots with whom he reached a Super Bowl and scored, was dropped from the team the day he was arrested in 2013. Sentenced to life in prison, he was found hanging in his cell on April 19, 2017. He was 27 years.
The Netflix Documentary Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez reveals the dramatic and dark story of the temperamental gamer. His brain, like those analyzed by specialists at Boston University, revealed that the former Patriot had stage 2 CTE.
The same diagnosis was found in the autopsy of Phillip Adams, a former cornerback for San Francisco, New England, Seattle, Raiders, Jets and Atlanta. He retired in 2015.
After murdering five people, he took refuge in his home and shot himself in the head at the age of 32 in April 2021 in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Dr. Ann Mckee, who examined Adams’s brain, considered that his state of health he was increasingly paranoid, he was having more difficulties with his memory, and his behavior was becoming more impulsive by the day
.
The specialist at Boston University revealed to the AP, on December 14, 2021, that of the 24 (brains of) NFL players diagnosed with CTE, after dying between the ages of 20 and 30, the majority had stage 2. , like Adams.
The academic institution created in 2008, the first brain bank in CTE research, in veteran players of the league.
The first significant step in this brain disease was taken in 2002 by neuropathologist Bennet Omalu when performing an autopsy on Mike Webster, star of the Pittsburgh Steelers and whom the franchise claimed died of a heart attack.
A study spanning fifteen years revealed that the player had received blows to the head equivalent to 25,000 minor traffic accidents, as documented The hidden trutha film released in 2015 with the investigation carried out by Omalu.
