League of Denial (full film) | FRONTLINE

tonight on Frontline the epic story of football's concussion crisis these players come down with dementia and in Alzheimer's and then they're gone a major frontline investigation of what the NFL knew and when it knew it the level of denial was just profound we strongly deny those allegations that we withheld any information or misled the players we don't know who is at risk for it we don't know if concussion in and of itself is what causes the abnormalities a decades-long battle between scientists players of the nation's most powerful sports league who can't go against the NFL dough squashing next League of denial the NFL's concussion crisis really wondering if every single football player does matter [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] better kitten receivers and [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] impressive dry by the Steeler [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] bird the Super Bowl jacket pittsburg for 70 years they've loved their football team the Steelers this is a tough town the people here are tough tough minded the way the Steelers play the game meshed perfectly with the people they love that hard-hitting punishing we will defense that they played they called the defensive line the Steel Curtain that just fit perfectly into the way they saw their own lives and what they had to be in order to survive and if there was one iconic Steeler it was number 52 Iron Mike Webster well Mike Webster simplified what it was like to be a player in the still city and a player in that era that for me was the greatest theme of all time in the 1970s Webster anchored for Super Bowl championship teams Mike was a legend and a hero he may have been the legend and the hero because here's that blue-collar worker or sinner who doesn't get any glory doesn't catch the touchdown passes doesn't kick the 52-yard field goal to win a game he's just in every play I just loved watching him play and Mike's favorite games were the ones that were cold and snowy and frigid and he could get up there with his short sleeves the dirtier and muddy rat God made things better then 11 years after he retired the people of Pittsburgh received some bad news at what price glory the Hall of Fame Center Mike Webster died at the age of 50 died on Tuesday he was just fifty years old he was known as Iron Mike he had heart disease the news that day would start a chain of events that would threaten to forever change the way Americans see the game of football hard to find a former pro football player whose body hasn't paid a very high price Mike Webster's body was delivered to the Allegheny County coroner's office Webster ends up in the autopsy room and the pathologist who's on call that day is this guy Bennet Omalu p'malee parked his car and walked into the office and he said what's going on and one of his colleagues said it's Mike Webster he's he's up in the in the autopsy room and amale's response was who's Mike Webster and everybody looked at me like why is he from Seifer Wallace well who is this guy who doesn't know Mike website Pitts but he's a Nigerian born incredibly well-educated guy but doesn't know anything about football a dr. Omalu was also a trained neuro pathologist from the beginning of the autopsy dr. Amato could see the effects of 17 years in the football Wars might looked older than his age it looked beat-up he looked he looked worn out he looked drained if I had not been told his age I would say he looked like 70 hermanos started at the feet and worked his way up there were cracks running the length of his feet and they were incredibly painful and so Webster would duct tape his feet as well to sort of close those close those cracks and keep him - and keep him together his feet in his legs were definitely you could just tell were destroyed now he had veins all over his leg varicose veins and stuff like that there were several herniated disks of broken vertebra torn rotator cuff and separated shoulder his teeth were falling out his body he had cellulitis he had a heart his heart you know was getting enlarged you know he was super gluing his teeth back into his head and he actually made that work I mean I think dad's the only person who could actually you know have a medical problem like that and decided to fix it with superglue then there was the matter of Webster's forehead Webster's forehead was essentially fixed to its scalp the skin on his forehead had built up almost a shelf of scar tissue that from the continuous pounding of his head and do into other other people Webster's death certificate mate Oh model suspect he may have suffered from a brain disorder when I opened up his skull in my mind I had a mental picture of what his brain will look like based on my education I was expecting to see a brain with Alzheimer's disease features so a shriveled ugly looking thing but upon opening his call Mike's brain looked normal he didn't understand why that would be but he became more and more curious it became sort of like his little private mission dr. Amato wanted to fix the brain preserve it in a chemical bath for further study I said let me fix his brain let me spend time with dissipators there's something something doesn't match and I remember the technician challeng you said what are you fixing this brain for that thing is normal and Kamala becomes very firm in that moment and he says fix the brain I want you to fix the brain what Amano could not see was that hidden inside Webster's brain was evidence of a chronic disease and that decision would change the NFL because if Webster's brain had not been examined I don't honestly think that we would be where we're at today Steve finna rule and his brother Mark Fenner owada are investigative reporters Steve has a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in Iraq mark broke the Barry Bonds steroid story for frontline ESPN and in their own book they've been investigating how the NFL has handled evidence that football may be destroying the brains of NFL players I think in the simplest form one major piece of our reporting just revolves around the simple question of what did the NFL know and when did it know it the NFL would not cooperate with the Feiner Roux brothers nor would it talk to frontline we went to New York to meet with them and say look this is what we're doing we'd like you to participate we'd like you to make available these various people and the NFL's message was sorry we're not going to help you but they continued to report the story beginning with Mike Webster's career in the NFL there's almost Darwinian quality about the NFL Webster wanted to prove to the world that he was going to be the toughest and he did anything that he possibly could to do that Webster's Sunday afternoons were spent on the line of scrimmage brutal territory known as the pit he had the violence in him he could explode into the player every every play was a fight Webster's favorite weapon was his hand well webbing would hitch with his head first and what that head had popu and that had lift on your shoulders now he'd get it on the air once you hit full speed and you're moving back wasn't here to you're gone when he would fire off the ball he's coming to block me and if I'm not ready for him you know he's gonna pancake me yeah he's gonna hurt me Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants Harry Carson went to war with Mike Webster and so I have to meet force with force all of my power is coming from my big rear end and my big thighs into my floor arm and I hit him in the face I have to stun him get my hands on him throw him off when I see where the ball is going and when I hit him in the face his head is going back he's going forward but all of a sudden his head is going back and his brain is hitting up against the inside of his skull and football one has to expect that almost every clay of every game every practice they're going to be hitting their heads against each other that's the nature of the game those things seem to happen around a thousand to 1,500 times a year each time that happens it's around 20 G or more that's the equivalent of driving a car thirty five miles per hour into a brick wall a thousand to fifteen hundred times per year for Mike Webster the head hits just kept on coming for 17 years you have to survive so you learn the methods to survive and be the best at surviving in that environment makes you put your pads on and the only one play away from getting seriously injured for Webster and others on the field physical injuries went with the territory I mean it's it's affected my life it surely has but I'm not out there crying about it I know that I went to war and I came out of the battle with what I got and you know that's the way it is that's the way Mike Webster would say it too I'm sure he would I mean we battled in there and this is what what this is the result of it right here sitting here looking at you but what Otto and others do not know is whether football has also caused injuries they cannot see the result of what they called getting their bell rung [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] in 1991 Mike Webster left football soon he and his family would come to believe those hits to the head had taken a devastating toll Mike wasn't Mike he was angry or quicker than before and didn't have the patience to have you know the kids on his lap or take a walk with the kids like he didn't have that stamina physically over the years he became increasingly confused he would forget you know which way the grocery store was which way it was to go home it was he would actually he broke down in tears in front me a couple times because he couldn't get his thoughts together and he couldn't keep him in order at home there were bouts of rage he took a knife and slashed all his football pictures they were all destroyed and gone and broken glass and they were all down you know and it wasn't Mike they'd been college sweethearts but 27 years and four children later Mike and Pam Webster's marriage ended we didn't understand what was happening you're just trying to get by in this storm I mean your money's gone your prides gone our bills are all overdue our house is getting foreclosed all the security is gone all those parameters are removed so everything's crumbling once one of Pittsburgh's greatest football heroes Webster began living out of a pickup truck I'd come outside sometimes and just see him you know sitting in the truck and it would be freezing and he'd just be sitting there just looking miserable he said you know the worst thing is is I'm actually getting to the point where sometimes or if I don't have my medicine he said I'm I'm cold and I don't realize that I can fix it by putting a jacket on Webster was often unable to sleep he had a lot of painting and he and he has a slap for day so he asked me says Sonny can you taste me I'm like what does that mean so he pulls out the stun gun in his room I'm like Mike that's not healthy he said but I haven't slept nothing he say all you got to do is tease me right here and I'm like okay uh-huh you know he's my hero I'm gonna do whatever he tells me so I tease them and he goes goes to sleep I'm like wow depressed the story of Webster's decline was revealed on ESPN and then the local newspapers I think he was embarrassed he was a leader on the team he was Mike Webster and then to be down to a place of poverty a place where you know your brain can't function to finish a sentence without some help from Ritalin or or whatever you need to function for a short period of time for Iron Mike TV interviews became impossible no I'm talking about no I'm just trying to find yeah will trump everybody watch your trauma as a kid I've got to say that I was different than that I'm just saying the things we do to one another okay hell I don't know what I'm saying I'm just tired and confused right now that's why I say I did I can't really I can't say it the way I want to say it I get out if I could Saget answers it's really easy at other times but right now I'm just tired maybe the saddest I ever heard him say was when someone saw my dad and aren't you Mike Webster and he said I used to be I think that was really hard cuz he really was he wasn't the same person it was it was like you know a picture of him that was just shattered into a million pieces nearly broke homeless and losing his mind Webster decided football had hurt him and the NFL was going to pay for it in 1997 he went to see a lawyer the thing that struck me the most was how intelligent Mike was and the problem was that he just couldn't continue those thought patterns for longer than a 30 second period or a minute or two minutes he would just go off on the tangents at that point it was pretty obvious actually the first interview that that he had some type of cognitive impairment attorney Bob Fitzsimmons drew up a disability claim against the NFL he began to assemble a case with Webster to basically say that that Webster had suffered brain damage as a result of his 17-year career in the NFL Fitzsimmons pulled together Webster's complicated medical history so I took the binder of Records got four doctors together four separate doctors oh asking them does he have a permanent disability that's cognitive and is it related to football Webster's final application for disability contained over 100 pages and the definitive diagnosis of his doctors football had caused Webster's dementia his claim for disability was filed with the National Football League's Retirement Board the disability committee is part of the NFL the head of the disability committee is the Commissioner himself so it's very much a creature of the NFL from the beginning the league's board was skeptical reluctant to give Webster money they were fighting it from the beginning against just a common sense of you know here's this guy look at him you know he played for nearly 20 years and a brutal and punishing sport and you know this is what's going on with him why would you fight that what possible motive the league had its own doctor review Webster's case the NFL had not only hired an investigator to look into this they also hired their own doctor and said hey we want to evaluate Mike Webster dr. Edward Westbrook examined him dr. Westbrook concurs with everything that the four other doctors have found and agrees that absolutely there's no question that Mike Webster's injuries are football related and that he appears to have significant cognitive issues brain damage as a result of having played football the NFL Retirement Board had no choice they granted Webster monthly disability payments determined that mr. Webster is currently totally and permanently disabled and buried in the documents a stunning admission by the league's board football can cause brain disease that his disability is the result of head injuries he suffered as a football player the NFL acknowledges that repetitive trauma to the head in football football can cause a permanent disabling injury to the brain the admission would not be made public until years later when it was discovered by the fainter brothers and that was a dramatic admission back in 2000 and in fact when you talk about that later with Fitzsimmons he describes that as the sort of proverbial smoking gun it was now in writing the NFL's own Retirement Board linked playing football and dementia at the time it was something the league would not admit publicly and Webster felt he'd never received the acknowledgement that his years in the NFL had caused his problems Mike would call this his greatest battle he'd say it was like David and Goliath over and over because it was he was taking on something that was bigger than him he took on this battle for the right reasons he was the right person to do it unfortunately it cost us everything just two years later in 2002 Mike Webster died the first broadcast of Monday Night Football in 1970 marked a turning point in the game's popularity and its revenues I think the NFL has done an incredible job at marketing itself and turning itself into a spectacle a sort of cultural part of our lives it fit the personality of society that became more violent that became faster wanted instant gratification football from the opening kickoff it's full go a Monday night games were always among the highest-rated television broadcasts [Applause] Monday Night Football it's not just for football fans commentators it became an entertainment show [Laughter] it became a happening [Music] the glory and the violence of football was beamed into tens of millions of American living rooms during primetime about it friends drop in on Monday night time people like the violence you watch pro football game and naturally the biggest years are for the touchdowns but the second biggest cheers are for a nasty hit and I describe it as the moment of impact the moment when you actually have to go tackle somebody it's really a game of will the actual logo of Monday Night Football is showed elements hitting together and it became part of the popular jargon you know he knocked him silly knocked him to the moon [Applause] there's no question the NFL marketed that violence that's what we'd love about the game the NFL's own the highly crafted film productions celebrated the violence and the spectacle on this down-and-dirty dance floor huge men perform a punishing pirouette [Music] the meat will never inherit this turf [Music] because every play is hand a hand and body to body combat NFL Films captures the essence of football itself that tension between the violence and the beauty [Music] there is more violence per square foot than anywhere else in sport [Music] a sense of football as something powerful and elemental and mythic and epic when you talk about big hitting safeties beagles buying Dawkins always what the NFL would do was they would market tapes of crash-course moment of impact a search-and-destroy in the context of describing the the brutal nature of the violence of the NFL but away from the glamorized hits there was a darker side super-agent Leigh Steinberg saw it firsthand I watched athletes I represented play with collapsed lungs I watched them completely fight with doctors at every time to get into the game I watched players deceive coaches on the sidelines when they were injured and run back into a game the inspiration for the movie sports agent Gary McGuire Steinberg was a powerhouse alongside the new NFL he was very much a creature of this expanding juggernaut of the NFL he ends up at one point representing 21 quarterbacks in the end of twenty one starting quarterbacks the NFL one year in the early 1990s Steinberg represented one of football's top stars Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman [Music] in 1994 during the NFC Championship Aikman took a knee to the head took a knee to the head you see it's right here it's Dennis Brown coming in you see the need right there knee right on his helmet Eggman's concussion was bad enough that he could not return to the game Aikman was taken to a local hospital I went to visit Troy who was sitting in a darkened hospital room all alone the room is dark cuz Aikman can't even stand looking into the light it's you know it's this sort of surreal scene where the city is celebrating and the quarterback who won the game is in the hospital with his agent and he looked at me and he said Lee where am I and I said well you're in the hospital and he said well why am I here and I said because he suffered a concussion today and he said well who did we play and I said the 49ers and he said did we win yes he won did I play well yes you played well did what is that and and so what's that mean it means you're going the Super Bowl five minutes later they're sitting there they continuing to hang out and Aikman suddenly turns to Steinberg and says what am I doing here and the next thing you know they're reliving this conversation they'd had five minutes earlier per minute I thought he was joking and I went through the same sequence of answers again and his face brightened and we celebrated again maybe ten minutes past and he looked at me with the same puzzled expression and asked the same sequence of questions it terrified me to see how tender the bond was between sentient consciousness and potential dimension confusion was [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 49ers quarterback Steve Young was another one of Lee steinberg's clients a site that is the last thing in the world the 49ers would want to see it looks as almost as if he's out cold now I've been there [Music] and there he is he's up that's a good sign what I like is he wants to get up off the ground look at this it looks like he's out cold and now he's walking off I remember thinking those are the sidelines this is it's not good you know oh this is just not the right thing to happen it was Young's 7th concussion that's a sight we thought would be impossible Steve Young apparently knocked cold knocked out cold walks off the field he would never play again if my knee is hurt everyone knows it and I know it and we can go deal with it and shoulders and there's only one place in your body that you really don't understand and people always say the brain is the last frontier for Steinberg there was a growing recognition of just how dangerous the sport was the damage was occurring every week and I had people who I loved and cared for and I intuitively knew that this was not just a football issue that it was happening to football players in the pros that was happening in college he was happening in high school it was happening to every player in every collision sport so not only was an issue for my clients it was a huge societal issue we have put football injuries on the American agenda tonight playing with pain increasingly the price of life in the National Football League we've heard so much recently on the danger of concussions in sport this year injuries in the National Football League may be out of control by the mid-90s the concussion crisis had made its way to NFL headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City the long-term effects of taking hits to the head on the football NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue orchestrated the league's response competition Tagliabue had begun his career as a lawyer people have suggested strongly to me that he picked up a lot of techniques about how to aggressively defend in things that could turn out to be class actions and the NFL has had this strategy of going nuclear on every time it goes to court because the first time you ever lose you open up the floodgates to potential billions of dollars of damage and Tagliabue said he was skeptical about the risk from concussions once calling the controversy the result of pack journalism concussions I think is you know one of these pack journalism issues frankly there's no increase in concussions the number is relatively small the problem is it's a journalist issue this is the Commissioner of the NFL saying that there's no concussion issue if it was ignorance they should have known they should have known because the issue is so critical still Tagliabue created a scientific committee the mild traumatic brain injury committee the MTBI delete it he chose Elliot Pellman the New York Jets team doctor a firm believer that concussions were not a serious problem and said you had this behind-the-scenes this you know that's dynamic going on where you had a guy Elliot Pellman who very clearly believed that this wasn't a problem it just wasn't a big problem for the NFL to outsiders the choice of Pellman was unusual he was not an expert in Neurology and had no background in brain research he went to a school in Guadalajara dr. Pelham is not a neurosurgeon he's not a neuro anything he's a Rheumatologist you know putting a Rheumatologist in the head of a committee that arguably was going to have more influence over brain research you know than any other any particular institution in the country at the time you know was was I think a lot of people felt surprising most of pellman's committee was made up of NFL loyalists nearly half the members were team doctors if you're going to put together a blue-ribbon committee to study brain trauma it should have as his chair somebody who has that as a background either a neurologist neurosurgeon neuro pathologist preferably a clinician for years Feldman's committee would insist they were studying the problem but the danger from concussions was overblown the way the NFL handled this was for 15 years to do research that looks awfully like it was designed to say that the league was okay in doing what it was doing which wasn't much to protect players from the dangers of concussions pellman's committee began writing a series of scientific papers and in 2003 got the first of them published in the medical journal neurosurgery those initial studies from the NFL were notorious in telling the world over and over and over again no there's no relationship between hitting your head in football and later life problems no there's no relationship the papers downplayed the risk of concussions football are not serious injuries insisted that players could return to the same game after suffering a concussion return to play does not involve a significant risk of a second injury denied players suffered any long-term problems from concussions sustained while playing football there was no evidence of worsening injury or chronic cumulative effects of multiple mtv is in and in one of the papers even suggested their research might apply to younger athletes despite the fact they had not studied high school or college players it might be saved for college high school football players to be cleared to return to play on the same day as their injury they were making comments which were greatly at odds with prospective double-blinded studies done at the college and the high school level that just weren't finding the same things and that just didn't make sense to anyone this is scientist dr. Robert Cantu edited the journals Sports Medicine section the papers were published despite his objections the papers that started to make statements about multiple head injuries were not a problem in the NFL if they went back into the same contest with a concussion it didn't matter if they got knocked out and went back into the same contest it didn't matter and there were no long-term biol a long-term psychological problems or cognitive problems in these athletes in essence saying it wasn't a problem dr. Kanter says he took his concerns to the journals editor-in-chief dr. Michael Apuzzo Apuzzo was also a consultant for the New York Giants I said that I really think this data is flawed I really think it shouldn't be published he's the one that made the decision to publish papers no matter whether the reviewers felt they should be published or not no matter what of the section editor felt they should be published or not mark Lovell was a member of the committee and an author on some of the studies he now admits there were problems with the research I look back on some of the papers yeah I think I could have done it I think the fault of the paper was it was maybe too early to be making those statements based on a fairly small sample of players which is the major criticism of the study which i think is a valid one the NFL committee published 16 papers neither dr. Apuzzo dr. Pellman nor commissioner Tinubu would speak to front-line about the papers but in those articles the league had issued its definitive denials the closer you look the less this holds up but it did establish you know this kind of impressive looking set of findings which which pushed off the day of reckoning for the league that's really what is happening here right during this whole run of research is being published the day of reckoning where the league has to answer to somebody about what it's doing about concussions just keeps getting pushed off and pushed off and pushed off in Pittsburgh at just about this time Mike Webster's brain tissue was being examined dr. Bennet Omalu was studying the microscopic samples I put the slides in on look world I blue I have to make sure this lights work Mike Webster slides I looked again I looked again I saw changes that shouldn't be in a 50 year olds man trains and also changes I shouldn't be in a bring that look normal he saw collections of tau protein collections which shouldn't be there in some one of Mike Webster's age then this is what jumped out at him as he looked at it through the microscope dr. Romano believed he saw physical evidence of the long-term damage playing football could have on the brain it was a scientific first and I thought looked at it over and over and over and over I was convinced this or something it was a disease never previously identified in football players chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a disease a progressive neurodegenerative disease where the end stage leaves tau protein deposition in distinctive areas of the brain in distinctive locations that separate this disease from any other like Alzheimer's or some other dementia for some reason the repetitive brain trauma starts this cascade of events in the brain that changes the way this tau looks and behaves it goes awry and it starts destroying the integrity of the brain cells the tau is effectively closing in around the brain cells and choking them and it's impacting the way the brain is working and ultimately erupting and issues around memory agitation anger omalo shared his evidence with leading brain researchers who can firmed his findings then he submitted a scientific paper on the Webster case to the one journal that seemed to be most interested in head injuries in football neurosurgery and doctor Apuzzo accepted it long as the junior pathologist in the Allegheny County coroner's office but the people he published with were one of the leading Alzheimer's disease experts in the in the country one of the leading neuro pathologists in the country one of the most well known coroner's in the country it was the first hard evidence that playing football could cause permanent brain damage certainly we knew that if you got hit on the head so many times maybe you had a 20% chance of having dementia pugilistica if you were a former professional boxer but we didn't really relate that in a modern sport like football in a helmeted sport that it could lead to that and that was the big discovery I think dr. Romano believed the National Football League would want to know about his discovery that was what I thought in my naive state of mind but unfortunately I was I was proven wrong that it wasn't meant to be that way in a letter to the journal neurosurgery doctor Pellman and other members of the NFL's MTBI committee attacked dr. Romano's paper B statements are based on a complete misunderstanding of the relevant medical literature they even questioned whether Mike Webster was suffering from neurological problems there is inadequate clinical evidence that the subject had a chronic neurological condition the league officials the doctors and scientists serving on the MTBI committee not only disputed those findings they went after dr. ma Lu with a vengeance they publicly said he should retract his findings the NFL doctors insisted dr. Omalu was misunderstanding the science of brain injury we therefore urge the authors to retract their paper is an extraordinary move under any circumstance it's like you don't try to get a paper retracted unless there's unless there's evidence of fraud or plagiarism or something like that oh ma Louie dolls description of chronic traumatic encephalopathy is completely wrong they went after him with missiles I mean like it like a nuclear missile strike on a guy's reputation they basically told him to go away and never come back and that was just for starters in the end dr. Romano's paper was not retracted and now a Malo had another case a second Steeler had died very long committed suicide by drinking antifreeze and dr. Romano received his brain I came to work one morning and everybody that said hey we have another case for you I thought what are you talking about said Oh Terry long died I'm like who's Terry long said oh he's another NFL player he died long was an offensive lineman with the Steelers for eight years he battled in the pit alongside Mike Webster he like Webster his life had sort of fallen apart in a lot of ways he had issues certainly during his career he was a steroid user he had been involved in some serious financial problems and so ultimately he committed suicide by drinking antifreeze as he had for Webster dr. Romano sectioned part of Long's brain and again had it stained he ran the same test same stains found the same splotches CTE in this brain - now - former Steelers who had gone crazy about the same time when I saw Terrell Owens case I became more convinced that this was not just an anomaly a statistical anomaly amano submitted another paper to neurosurgery this one about Terry long that caused the MTBI committee to say this is preposterous this is this is not good science this is this this is still not something that we're we're buying into if you read Palpa made statements like what I practice is not medicine it's not science they insinuated I was no practicing medicine hours practicing food would do the NFL would not publicly sit down with dr. Romano but one night in a private meeting he brought his CTE slides and finally met face to face with one of the NFL's doctors and the NFL doctor at some point said to me Bennett do you know the implications of what you're doing I looked he was on my left I said yeah I think I do said no you've done so we continued talking talking at some point he interrupted me again Bennett do you think he know the implications of what you're doing I said I think I do I don't know he said no you don't so we continue talking again then at that time he interrupted me and I'm talking to him I said okay why don't you tell me what implications are said okay I'll tell you he said if 10% of mothers in this country would begin to perceive football as a dangerous sport that is the end of football for the most part people didn't want to believe it's true they didn't want to admit to themselves or anybody else that our beloved sport probably our most popular sport could end up with brain damage I didn't want to admit it to myself either it was a hard message a difficult message a bad message but it appeared to be true then in New York a change in the NFL's top leadership in September of 2006 Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepped down his second-in-command and closest aide Roger Goodell took over Goodell had grown up in Washington the son of a United States Senator from New York early in his career he worked as former Commissioner Pete Rozelle 's driver he basically got his job by writing to the Commissioner and saying please I'd like to work in the NFL it took Goodell 24 years to work his way to the top he was chief operating officer when the league's scientific committee sent those controversial papers to the journal neurosurgery here's a guy who spent more than half of his life in the NFL and more than anyone should be acutely aware of sort of the dangers that are lurking in this problem now Goodell was fully in charge of the league's handling of the concussion crisis he soon replaced the rheumatologist dr. Elliot Pellman and promoted the neurologist dr. IRA Casson dr. IRA Casson who is an expert but an abrasive person who is contemptuous of the arguments the concussion can cause damage Cassin had once joined Pellman in attacking Amano's work now one of castles first moves a public denial of Amato's conclusions IRA Casson leads a team of NFL doctors who did a study of several hundred active players and reported that the concern over head injuries is overblown is there any evidence as far as you're concerned that links multiple head injuries among pro football players with depression no dr. IRA Casson ends up with this sort of very famous exchange that earns him the nickname doctor now with dementia no with early onset of Alzheimer's no and IRA Casson was asked repeatedly is there any link between trauma head trauma and the kind of dementia we're seeing in these players and he says no no no no is there any evidence as of today that that links multiple head injuries with any long-term problem like that in NFL players yeah no then just one month later in Chicago a dramatic gesture from Commissioner Goodell at an airport hotel the league gathered the top NFL brass team doctors and trainers the NFL convenes a summit in the summer of 2007 about 200 people are gathered there and running the show is IRA Casson the stakes for the NFL are obvious it's huge business if the business is potentially lethal then that's going to have major implications for the game on this day the Commissioner would take a front row seat to listen to the best medical minds in the league all the teams are present all the teams had to send doctors and trainers and the the LEAs concussion people are there they had even invited outside scientists who had become some of the league's biggest critics but one person was missing dr. Omalu is excluded just underscoring how they don't want to do business with him I was not a well but nobody ever told me dr. Bailes called me and said the NFL is putting together a conference on CTE but you were not invited he is shunned I mean it was it was allowed just no not you yes you're the guy with all the research you're the guy who's published the papers you're the guy who's got the brains but no you're not coming former Steelers team doctor and neurosurgeon Julian Bailes had become a true believer in CTE and omalo they were now research partners he offered to present a models work to the group so I presented and showed our data which was four or five cases at that point besides Mike Webster and Terry long Omalu also found CTE in the brains of Andre waters and Justin strelzyk bales delivered Amano's message playing football could cause permanent brain damage it wasn't met with any broad acceptance to say the least Julian Bailes got up and talked about amale's work and while he's up there Casson is off to the side and he's rolling his eyes he's clearly distressed by what he's hearing and that was basically the idea that was conveyed by the NFL in a moment there was skepticism there was dismissiveness on his part there was a great doubt as bales left the meeting he ran into New York Times reporter Alan Schwartz I remember Julien being furious absolutely furious at how they had been treated in that room and there was clearly among the NFL committee there was just a very steadfast belief that this is not a problem you guys don't know how to do research the way we do and thank you for coming I was not the bearer of good news probably in many people's minds this this was not something that I made up this was showing what the findings were earlier Goodell had watched his mentor taglio Buu downplayed the concussion controversy now he had heard firsthand how serious some respected scientists thought the issue was Roger Goodell is on notice the NFL has a serious issue around the question of concussions on around the issue of brain trauma on the on the rising suggestion that there is a link between football and neurodegenerative disease amongst its former players and that there is a growing body of science that clearly establishes this link outside the conference's closed doors the new Commissioner insisted that the NFL had the problem under control the evidence is that our doctors are making excellent decisions that's proven by the six-year study that we have and the research that's been done that and looks at that issue intensively the head of gödel's concussion committee dr. IRA Casson took on the critics anecdotes do not make scientifically valid evidence I'm a man of science I believe in empirically determined scientifically valid data and that is not scientifically valid data Cassin insisted there was no evidence that football players were at risk for CTE in my opinion the only scientifically valid evidence of a chronic encephalopathy in athletes is in boxers and in some steeplechase jockeys dr. Carson declined to be interviewed by frontline [Applause] and as the team's took the field just a few months later in the fall of 2007 the league's definitive statement on brain injury was given to every single player in a pamphlet the cover says what is a concussion question mark it said you know if I get a concussion am i further at risk for four long-term problems and the answer was and I'm virtually quoting research has not shown that there are any long-term consequences to concussions in NFL players as long as each injury is treated properly the message was that football was safe to your brain that was the message don't worry about it a commissioner and the league had successfully held the line denying the dangers of football they refused to listen to people who didn't share their opinions about the research and it was very much you know putting a stake in the ground saying everybody else is wrong and that's what they did shunned by the league bruised by the struggle and looking to make a change dr. Omalu left Pittsburgh he moved to Lodi California he ends up in the Dust Bowl of North Central California and he's working as a medical examiner there as far removed from the NFL as anybody could be and trying to figure out how to sort of stay in it I wish I never met Mike Webster CTE has dragged me into politics of science to politics of the NFL you can't go against the NFL they'll squash you I believe sincerely wished I didn't cross my path of life seriously [Applause] the brains are precious cargo we have to get the brain usually within hours of the death [Applause] but you have a brain that's intact it's been removed from the upper spinal cord [Applause] it is the brain of a former football player this says a process that is awe-inspiring in in the old-fashioned sense of the word you have the responsibility of actually possessing somebody's brain which is probably the best representation of who they were you know you really treat it with the utmost respect from a scientific perspective there is this secret that's being unlocked you take it out we weigh it we photograph it all the external surfaces the attitude is so careful about that this is a person that's being delivered into their care I never forget that the brain is a human being I feel very privileged that someone has trusted me with this with this this office duty in 2008 dr. Ann McKie was a leading Alzheimer's researcher this is what I do I look at brains I'm fascinated by it I can spend hours doing it in fact if I want to relax that's one way I can relax then one day she received a phone call from a Boston University Medical School I called her and said are you interested in looking at the brains of former football players and she didn't drop a beat and said are you kidding I had no idea that she was a super football fan I was born with football my brothers my dad I played football when I was a kid I mean you know it was part of life it's a part of growing up it's you know it's a way of life so I get it now dr. McKee was joining a team of researchers to build undocked Romano's discovery she's learned a little bit about the work that had previously been done in this issue by Omalu and others and she's eager to find some brands McKey and colleagues from Boston University were determined to examine as many brains as they could and this man knew how to get them Chris Nowinski shows up and says look I'll find the brains for you I'll bring them to you and they're gonna be football players are you interested and she says absolutely you know she describes his like the greatest collision on earth for her for Nowinski the issue of CTE is personal he worries he has it I'd be a fool not to worry about CT personally and I took as much brain trauma as anybody I think I have more than enough reason to believe that I'm finally gonna be fighting this myself I am fighting him at Harvard Nowinski was a punishing tackler he suffered countless head injuries then instead of the NFL he became a professional wrestler he ends up with the nickname chris harvard' the persona of this sort of snobbish wrestler who's smarter than all the fans for chris harvard' the performance often ended with a blow to the head this harvard landed on has had quite a bit you know as much as wrestling as performance there's a very very small margin of error and especially when you're learning the thing you know you fall on your head a lot Alinsky began to have violent nightmares and migraine headaches as I said there's something really wrong with me and I never the headache didn't go away for five years brain trauma became an obsession what motivated me every day was the fact that my head was killing me and I knew that I felt awful and I knew that I wasn't the only person but I was a person in a position to make a difference he would take on the task of finding brains of former football players for dr. McKee they call him like the designated brain chaser like that's his job to go out and get the brains Nowinski made the hard calls asking families to donate the brain of a deceased loved one at the beginning when I first kind of got up the nerve to do it yeah I wrote down a script and I and I prepared I practiced mentally preparing myself for wandering twosomes life like this almost right away Nowinski secured a portion of the brain of a 45 year old former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Tom McHale Tomic l was a brilliant guy went to Cornell had been playing football since a kid his brilliance intellectually was matched by being an incredible athlete Tom and Lisa McHale had three sons once his career was over McHale ran a successful chain of restaurants but then uncharacteristically trouble restlessness irritability and discontent described tom to a tee today but no way is it anywhere near the man I had known and the man I had been married to for years the change was so diabolical they became a drug addict he became depressed he became you know he had irate moments of you know violent temper Mikhail's addictions spiraled out of control painkillers cocaine I remember so clearly him looking at me and this is going back you know in the final months of his life and saying Lisa when I look in your eyes all I see is disappointment and I honestly don't know whether he was seeing my disappointment or whether it was his own disappointment that he was seeing reflected back but it pains me to think of how much that hurt him died of an overdose dr. McKee had read dr. Romano's research but she wanted to see for herself wejust sect and section his brain do a whole series of microscopic slides look at it with all sorts of different stains for different things and then come to a conclusion about what the diagnosis is what she saw was that telltale protein tau this is a 45 year old with terrific disease I mean he had florid disease he has Tao in all these regions of his brain dr. McKee had examined thousands of brains but the location of the damage from CTE was different I remember my feeling I was scared I was really scared it really was a turning point it was a new understanding that hey you know this might be bigger than we think dr. McKee soon had three brains old with CTE but rather than just published in scientific journals Chris Nowinski was determined to get the word out Nowinski who is not a scientist says there are people getting hit here if we speak up now we may be able to if not save lives at least prevent the damage that we are seeing on an McKee's table no insky decided to take on the NFL in a very public way at their biggest event the 2009 Super Bowl all right what a night it's finally here Oh Sunday's kicking into high gear the glitz and glamour of the NFL production machine was in full gear developed over decades highly choreographed a national event with a carefully crafted story [Music] in Tampa before the big game Nowinski and the key tried to crash the festivities by holding a press conference this is the genius of Nowinski really I mean right I mean we're gonna present her findings where do we want to announce that oh let's go to Tampa Bay where the Super Bowl is about to play out or there's 4,000 media members who are there waiting to watch this is not a normal part of Aging this is not something you normally see in the brain they were saying football cause this this is a issue I think McKee uses the word crisis she says this is a crisis and anybody who doesn't believe it is in denial also on the panel Nowinski 'he's other star Lisa McHale eight months ago I lost my best friend my college sweetheart and my husband of 18 years Lisa McHale had decided to go public with her husband's story I never hesitated to be public with Tom's findings because I was so fully blown away to know that Tom could have had the kind of injury he had to his brain and that it could have been caused by football I said my god of course this is information that I would have liked to have had and after her husband's death McHale decided to become an advocate for dr. McKee's research he is now the sixth confirmed case of CTE among former NFL players and bearing in mind that only six former NFL players have been examined for CTE I find these results to be not only incredibly significant but profoundly disturbing but that day there were few reporters listening there were thousands of reporters across the street and probably two dozen we're willing to walk across and learn about CTE that that was the shocking part you know here we were in the midst of everything and this potentially giant story was being told and virtually no one was there no in Sookie's press conference was no match for the show the NFL was putting on across town [Applause] then one of the most watched television broadcasts in history of 30-second air sold for three million dollars [Applause] [Music] it was the crowning event for a year in which the NFL earned almost 8 billion dollars the league is this massive force financially the super balls expect a call TV is paying huge money to televise the sport the NFL is broadcast over five networks ESPN where we work their new contract with the NFL is worth almost two billion dollars a year so they're basically paying around a hundred and twenty million dollars per gam that's like the budget of a Harry Potter movie every week weekend week out here to present the Vince Lombardi Trophy the Commissioner of the National Football League Roger Goodell well some say that we could not top last year's Super Bowl but the Steelers and Cardinals did that tonight presiding over it all the most powerful man in sports and all the Steeler fans congratulations on your six world championship he sat atop a multi-billion dollar empire that he was determined to protect one of his mantras was to protect the shield the NFL shield to protect the integrity of the game but now the league might face huge lawsuits and a tarnished image if dr. McKee's findings about CTE held up not long after her trip to Tampa dr. McKee received a phone call I was called by IRA Casson and I remember thinking why is IRA Casson calling me she's intimidated from the start because she she knew enough about IRA Casson she said to know that he wasn't necessarily a friend and he wanted me to come to the NFL office and present the data that may make--and Nowinski arrived at NFL headquarters we head on up to a very very fancy conference room like wood paneling jerseys and trophies in the glass and and it was probably 15 members of the committee and one of the first things Mickey notices is that that there's only one other woman in the room and it's not a doctor it's a lawyer a lawyer is not there to offer medical advice and a lawyer is not there to offer competitive athletic advice either a lawyer is there to figure out what the league needs to do to defend itself against a storm that may or may not come but the league has to be ready to to fight I'm up against a lot of doubters I'm up against people who don't think that any of this holds any water so fine I'm just going to show them what I have and they kept interrupting dr. IRA Casson and others on the committee expressed their skepticism that playing football was the cause of CTE very very quickly she got serious pushback from IRA Casson and the rest of the committee Indianapolis Colt team physician dr. Henry foyer was one of the NFL doctors at the meeting I I just have a problem and mckee she cannot tell me where it's starting we don't we don't know the cause and effect we don't know that right now we don't know the incidence the committee members believe dr. McKie could not answer two important questions causation did football caused CTE and prevalence how many players had it she was seeing only those that were in trouble and we know that there are thousands roaming around that are not having problems so you know I think that's where we had an we may have had an issue I think we're very early in the evolutionary understanding of CTE of certain percentage of the individuals diagnosed with this have had steroid abuse alcohol abuse other substances abuses we don't know the concussion history in many of these and there may be other confounding factors in terms of the genetics that we simply don't understand they were convinced it was wrong and I felt that they were in a very serious state of denial I remember at one point one of the NFL doctors asking you know couldn't you be miss diagnosing this as these all look like they could be frontal temporal dementia and Ann said well actually I was on the NIH committee that defined how you diagnose that disease so know they're definitely different diseases it's like she had the experience they didn't and according to dr. McKee there was something else something familiar about the way the NFL committee was acting I don't want to get into the sexism too much but sexism plays a big role when you're a doctor of my age who's come up in the ranks with a lot of male doctors sex is part of my life and getting in that room with a bunch of males who already thought they knew they need all the answers more sexism I mean you know it was like oh the girl talked now we can get back into some serious business I you know I don't know why she feels that way I thought that she presented herself as I recall and there's been several years that that there's something something in her manner and and I think she's a brilliant woman she's done a great great job it's just something just about the way she said it and and not that everybody was looking down you know it was just [Music] dr. Feuer insists dr. McKie is mistaken about how she was treated if we for some reason coming it came across as being disrespectful then I would say that everybody else we interviewed for the over the 15 years must have felt the same way that's all I can say about that and I feel strongly about that too we would just we would listen and and thank you and and that's it whether she wanted us to start yeah you know I don't know where she's coming from on that the meeting had changed nothing [Music] just a few blocks from NFL headquarters the Commissioner had another problem in a midtown Manhattan restaurant an internal NFL research document was leaked to a reporter documents were passed to me as Smith & Wollensky 'he's in Manhattan in an envelope I mean he was it was great it was very deep throat by somebody who shall remain nameless but he literally slid it across the table in an envelope it was a scientific study of former players commissioned by the National Football League itself at the bottom of page 32 there was dementia and they had asked players or their representatives their wives have you been diagnosed by a physician as having Alzheimer's dementia or any other memory related disease what it showed was that former NFL players seemed to have memory related disorders at a much much higher rate than people in the regular community and here is a study that the NFL supported and it came out not looking too good for the NFL it was the people who the league hired to find out the answers to these questions giving them the answers and that's what they were and so you knew that this was going to be big the study went to the heart of the prevalence question in this case it showed the prevalence of brain disorders was far higher among football players than the NFL anticipated so now Swartz calls up the NFL to get a response and what he gets from Greg Aiello the league spokesman is more denials they're now denying their own study Aiello insisted the study's design was flawed but now the NFL's concussion crisis was again national news and so it's becoming almost impossible for the NFL to ignore at the same time another force was also causing trouble for the NFL and the commissioner the wives and widows of players with CTE I don't think anyone else but the wives sisters mothers daughters and Ann McKie could have forced this issue into American consciousness Eleanor perfetto was one of them her husband Ralph Wenzel had played for the Pittsburgh Steelers as the disease progressed he went from being ill but fairly functional to getting to the point where he could no longer you know dress or feed himself and in in the last year and a half to two years before he died he couldn't even walk anymore she'd spent years trying to get help from the NFL and its Players Association then perfetto took matters into her own hands she showed up uninvited to a League meeting about caring for retired players there's gonna be a meeting that the Commissioner is holding with former players and you know her husband suffering you know from dementia obviously can't be represented there by anybody but her and she's told she's not allowed to enter the room it was the Commissioner himself who kept perfetto out I said I'd like to attend this meeting and he said no you can't attend it's only for players it's not for anyone else and I said but but my player my husband is a player who's severely disabled and he can't be here right now nevertheless the Commissioner said no as the concussion story received more attention the coverage helped spark interest in the nation's capital looking into the long-term impact of concussions Congress saw it was a way to put the NFL's concussion policies on trial that's in the court of public opinion the Commissioner arrived like a celebrity a star attraction at the hearing and the focus of all the cameras Goodell was asked point-blank if he stands by the idea that concussions don't hurt pro football players let me address your first question I can answer you're obviously seeing a lot of data and a lot of information that our committees and others have presented with respect to the linkage and the medical experts should be the one to be able to continue that debate I just asked you a simple question what's the answer the answer is the medical experts are no better than I would with respect to that but his consistent response to questions was I am NOT a scientist and any questions about the long-term effects of concussion our head trauma and NFL players are better addressed to scientists one of the time committee members went after Goodell we've heard from NFL time and time again you're always studying you're always trying you're hopeful I want to know what are you now the NFL sort of reminds me of the tobacco companies pre 90s when they kept saying though there's no link between smoking and damage to your health or ill health effects the last thing the league wanted to be dealing with in that moment was the analogy to big tobacco there's nobody America doesn't know what that means that means denial you have the Commissioner the NFL who's being hauled before Congress to answer why his own research arm has been denying since 1994 that football causes brain damage when everybody from the New York Times to former NFL players to the respected research scientists are saying in fact the opposite is true back in New York with the pressure mounting the Commissioner decided to make some dramatic changes all teams to adhere to a new policy for hey Ron they just gonna haul before Congress and him the Commissioner was embarrassed by Linda Sanchez they've been compared to Big Tobacco and they were trying to fight back the Commissioner initiated a series of new rules designed to protect players from concussions it's quite obvious what they were doing they're in the middle of a major damage control operation from now on teams should consider a concussion a game-ending injury dr. khazzan was out dr. Kayson resigned from the NFL's concussion committee and a new concussion committee would be formed led by two prominent neurosurgeons and there was one other surprise I read on the wire that the NFL had given a million dollars to Boston University what and so I called up Chris Lee what the hell's going on he didn't know what was going on he's like what are you talking about the answer was I don't know what you're talking about this is this doesn't sound right at all CBS reporter wanted to know what I thought of the gift of a million dollars that was first I heard of it I was like floored I'm good l offered dr. McKee's something she needed even more than money brains they get a letter from the league it says you guys are now the NFL's preferred Brain Bank and that the league will help with efforts to direct families to donate the brains of former players to Boston so that they will be studied for CTE as the story of the deal broke the NFL spokesman Greg Aiello received a call from reporter Alan Schwartz while we were talking he said it's clear that there are long-term consequences to concussions and NFL players now that kind of statement don't make news if anybody else says it but this time it was the league saying it Schwartz stops you know he knows that the NFL has not only been denying this for years that they've never come close to uttering anything even remotely close to that and I said Greg you realize that's the first time that anyone associated with the league has made that connection and I remember he was a little I don't what's the adjective annoyed he was annoyed the times now suddenly has a huge story that the NFL has acknowledged a link between brain damage and football and sure enough stripped across the top of the time sports section the next day is that very story a dr. McKee's research lab thanks to the NFL's endorsement the brain bank business was booming there were NFL players out there they were talking to their wives and saying I think this might be something you know I'm experiencing some problems that I I'm thinking I should donate my brain to this to this work by 2010 dr. McKee had looked at the brains of 20 NFL players she had found CTE in 19 of them it was during that time that a brain arrived that would dramatically raise the stakes Owen Thomas to me was a critical case here we have a 21 year old who was a hard-hitting lineman from the age of 9 on and then seemingly out of nowhere he decided to take his own life I've never been diagnosed with a concussion never had a problem in the world oh and Thomas had hanged himself in his off-campus apartment Chris Nowinski secured his brain for dr. McKee without any history of diagnosed concussions it seemed unlikely he had CTE I was fully prepared to see nothing I remember late at night looking at the brain and thinking just gonna knock this one off and it just floored me it just I just couldn't believe what I was seeing such an advanced case of CTE had never been found in such a young person in like 20 spots in his frontal lobe he's 21 he's so young you know the that changes the game to me because he'd never had a diagnosed concussion dr. McKee suspected Thomas might have gotten CTE from the everyday sub-concussive hits that are an inherent part of the game those sub-concussive hits those hits that don't even rise to the level of what we call a concussion or symptoms just playing the game can be dangerous the key is saying look this is very much an issue at the core of the game of offensive lineman a defensive lineman pounding the crud out of each other on every single play on every single down at every single practice and there's no getting around that it was a controversial theory that raised fundamental questions about the way the game was played the human body was not created or built to play football when you have force against force you're gonna have injuries and I'm not talking about the knees and that you know all of that stuff is a given but from a neurological standpoint you're gonna have you you're gonna have some brain trauma Harry Carson has been studying the matters since he retired 25 years ago you know most people are keyed in on the big hit but a little many concussions are just as dangerous because you might be sustaining six to ten maybe a dozen of these hits during the course of a game and you know if you're going up against top-flight players who are able to perfect those skills of hitting you upside the head or you know getting hit with a elbow or it's one of those things that at some point you're gonna pay for it down the line you know I really worry about my linemen brothers I really worry for my runningback brothers I mean that's the truth you talk about a nefarious injury one that you never feel until it's too late so that's the that's just I look back over 30 years of association football that's the thing that's most alarming to me the way the game is played I don't see how you can eliminate all of those routine hits that linemen make every play how do you eliminate them with and have the game still be football back in the lab McKee had seen another surprising case we had been able to get the brain of an 18 year old who died 10 days after suffering his fourth concussion playing high school sports it was the brain of 18 year old Erik Pelle a high school senior a straight-a student he'd played multiple sports his dream was to play for the Steelers no one I'd think would have thought that you were going to find chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a high school athlete I was shocked to find that in the brain of this 18 year old there were little tiny spots little tiny areas in the frontal lobe that looked just like this disease you have an 18 year old with chronic traumatic encephalopathy that just shouldn't happen I had an 18 year old at that time it you know that that brain is supposed to be pristine the fact that it was there and he was only playing high school level sports I mean I think that's a cause for concern for dr. McKee and others it raised the obvious question how safe is it for children to play football from a physical risk standpoint you know what you are doing when you sign your kid up that he can hurt his knee okay but what you should know now is your child could develop a brain injury as a result of playing football it's not just on the pro level that's on every level of football the question is do you want it to be your child for dr. McKee's colleague dr. Kent to the controversial answer was that no one under 14 should play tackle football with what we know about the youth brain compared with the adult brain that it's more easily disrupted than the adult brain the youth brain is lighter in weight so it has less inertia to put it in motion so you tap a youth head and it's brain moves much quicker than an adult brain that's heavier and therefore has more inertia so I think we should be treating youth differently and for the B you advocate Chris Nowinski it was a danger the NFL helped to create as long as the NFL dismissed this that meant that parents were signing their kids up to go play football believing that there was no risk and you know that wasn't fair to those kids or those parents but especially those kids dr. McKee who had grown up loving football has struggled with her feelings about the sport I don't feel that I am in a position to make a proclamation for everyone else if you had children who were 8 and 10 and 12 would they play football 8 10 12 no they would not why because it the way football is being played currently that I've seen it's dangerous it's dangerous and it could impact their long-term mental health you'd only get one brain the thing you want your kids to do most of all is succeed in life and be everything they can be and if there's anything that may infringe on that that may that may limit that I don't want my kids doing it Maki's warnings about the danger of the game have made her the subject of sharp criticism she's a lightning rod because people see her as the woman out to destroy football as we know it probably the most hurtful charge has been leveled against her is that she's crossed a line from scientists to activists a number of prominent scientists believe she has overstated the dangers of playing football there's a kind of polarization in the BU group but clearly the advocates for CTE research but it's not the only issue you know there are other issues that we've got to look at and how common is this how many brain traumas do you need to get this is this something that everybody will get if they have enough brain trauma or is it the result of steroid or drug abuse in a small number of NFL players we don't know these are questions not statements of fact some researchers say dr. McKee has examined only a limited sample of players and too few brains to justify her conclusions there's been a sense of fear that's been put into parents that maybe I shouldn't let my kids play sports having said that I still think it's something that we need to be concerned about we just need more information on it in terms of you know what exactly is the incidence in the risk nobody knows that at this point in time it's still being debated depends on who you listen to those that have been conducting the autopsies are working with what had to work with I think that we need to learn more about these former athletes learn more about them during their living years so that we can better understand what their neurocognitive function is like what their emotional status is like we just have to be careful not to say that this causes that and be able to connect those dots without having more prospective analysis I'm not surprised that people don't believe me they don't have they don't look at they haven't done this work they haven't looked at brain after brain after brain I just feel that I guess the more cases we get the more we persevere the more they hear eventually they'll change their mind still McKee and her colleagues at BU acknowledge there are limits to her research not everyone who hits their head gets this disease and so critical question is why does one person get it and another person doesn't there must be really important variables genetics things about the type of exposure to brain trauma people get we need to figure those things out dr. McKee admits she's seeing only a small sample I think to be truthful even a selection bias in an autopsy sample even if the family of an individual who's affected is much more likely to donate their brain than a person who had no symptoms whatsoever given that we have still been just ridiculously successful in getting examples of this disease dr. McKee has now examined the brains of 46 former NFL players 45 had CTE we have an enormous Lehigh hit rate I mean you know that would be extraordinary with any other disease to be able to pull in that many cases just that we're suspected so I think the incidents and prevalence have to be a lot higher then then people realize to her it may be the beginnings of an epidemic I think it's going to be a shockingly high percentage I'm really wondering where this stops I'm really wondering on some level if every single football player doesn't have this and then another DEATH linebacker Junior Seau died today in an apparent suicide entirely death our juniors say how is provoking questions as the news broke the question emerged did CTE play a part in Junior Seau's death he had used his body and his head for 20 years in the NFL number 55 was a hard-hitting linebacker pain and injury were his specialty even bragged about it once on an NFL film perfect hit is when you're faced upcoming one on one and you hear them go just a little he talked about the price he was willing to pay you have to sacrifice your body you have to sacrifice years down the line when we are 50 40 years old we probably won't be able to walk that's the sacrifice that you take the plate esteem and it had paid off sale made millions he was a philanthropist beloved in his community but then a familiar story his life fell apart was arrested for domestic violence in Oceanside California early on Masayo accused of hitting his 25 year-old girlfriend her junior Seau's drove his SUV right off a cliff in California former pro football star has apparently fallen on hard times at 43 his business empire had imploded he'd lost millions of dollars gambling he wasted everything we didn't know why he was detached or forgetting or why he would bark at us for nothing or we didn't know the past two years have been the roughest and for a couple months at a time I wouldn't hear from him at all and that would scare me we got really close and you know I feel like it's turning around okay he wants to be part of my life and then all of a sudden I wouldn't hear from he's truly a legend and sale was one of the most popular players and out of the lead for only two years his brain became the most sought-after ever about a half-dozen prominent researchers immediately began immobilised to try to get their hands on this brain tissue I can understand where certain groups are saying wow this guy's played for 20 years this is this would be a perfect candidate for us to study and see if he had it I spent time making calls I had you know a lot of we had a lot of mutual friends spoke to people at his event this foundation and just said you know we would like every other case we would like to review this case if you want at the same time far from the action another researcher had received word of Seau's death so what Junior Seau died just like every other case people called me I don't follow football so I said who's Junior Seau I said oh that's like Mike Webster you don't know genius on my count driver said oh he's it won't be goddamn Mike Webster I said oh he just died he committed suicide dr. Romano had been looking for a chance to get back in the game in a big way he telephone sales son Tyler to get consent to take his father's brain we did everything spoke to his son he gave us verbal consent a new medical examiner requested that I come down they've never had such a big case before I'm an expert in this field to help them know he gets the first flight out the next morning when he arrives at the medical examiner's office he's telling people that he has the verbal consent from Tyler sow harvest the brand and it was so Malo who actually removed sales brain I assisted a deal topside check out the print process to print just as they're finishing up the autopsy the chaplain comes walking into the room and he says literally houston we have a problem and that problem is that he had just gotten off the phone with Tyler sale and according to Tyler the NFL informed him that a Molly's research is bad and that his ethics are bad that he's essentially unethical people started saying things about a model of some kind of telling me the kind of character that he has and you know I got a long email about it but at that point I was just kind of you know I don't want to hear all these things the next thing he said he doesn't want me touching his father's Brandes at that point there's nothing else to do except believe I mean he just walks out of the room and he takes his empty brain briefcase and he gets back on the plane and he goes back to to San Francisco without having any success so I was writing more lives but I remember there was people did not just run out of got into the car I was coin [Music] Jr sales brain was sent to the National Institutes of Health the NIH the NFL very directly worked not only to get the brain tan IH but in this case to keep it away from a malas group or McKee's group by speaking badly about them NFL doctors say the decision was made purely in the interest of science getting it in the hands of good science is there that the goal there so yes I think that was probably what was driving the suggestion that let's have NIH get involved the final diagnosis in sales case was national news he had CTE CTE chronic traumatic in the months following sales death the NFL went on the offensive the commissioner helped to promote a youth football safety initiative the heads up program the league donated 30 million dollars to the NIH to study sports injuries including joint disease chronic pain and CTE good PR is one part of the NFL's strategy but the other piece of it is if the NFL wants to come off as being very forward-looking the NFL wants to keep pushing these questions into the future keep the disc ITA's discoveries going make it seem like these questions that still need to be resolved are things that the league is working with doctors and researchers on it was a message the Commissioner himself delivered granting a rare TV news interview the morning of the Super Bowl question because some widows of some NFL players have asked me to ask you do you now acknowledge that there is a link between the game and these concussions that people have been getting that's some of these brain injuries that's why we're investing in the research so that we can answer the questions what is the link what causes some of the injuries that our players are still dealing with and we take those issues very seriously though the league previously through Greg Aiello acknowledged a link there's no more acknowledging a link exists there's the science is still emerging and we're really going to try and do long term Studies on this and we're going to figure out whether there's a link we're gonna let the medical individuals make those points we're going to give them the money and dance that science in the meantime we have to do everything we can to advance the game and make sure it's safe and he he said he's almost identically to what he had said before Congress back in 2009 which was you know we're gonna let the medical people decide that that was studies have shown almost two decades after the NFL founded its first scientific committee to research the issue the league continues to insist the evidence of a link between CTE and football is unclear sure looks like a wizard just a relentless and endless delaying action year after year after year at crisis after crisis after crisis the concussions committee and its members assured the public that the league was looking into this you know the league actually never got around to looking at it in any kind of valid way we're talking in the year 2013 this committee was founded in 1994 maybe there should be better evidence by now as the concussion crisis deepened the Commissioner faced yet another challenge a lawsuit brought by more than 4500 retired players the threat to the NFL from this litigation was existential the threat was that the league was going to have to pay out in the billions with a be not millions with an M about one third of NFL veterans including some of the biggest former stars claimed the NFL had fraudulently concealed the danger to their brains the main allegations here are it's very simple there was a very severe hazard that was present in professional football and it was a little secret the NFL knew it but the players certainly didn't know it on the other side the NFL's lawyers they insisted the league had done nothing wrong we strong we strongly deny those allegations that we withheld any information or misled the players and if we have to defend this suit as Paul was alluding to we will do that and be able to make those factual allegations but we absolutely denied those allegations but away from the cameras the two sides were engaged in tense court-ordered negotiations the players initially they were requesting around two billion dollars or a little more than two billion dollars and what we've been told as the NFL was offering virtually nothing they were offering peanuts as one person said the players believed they had significant leverage a threat to the NFL the threat was that the doctors and trainers neuropsychologists maybe owners maybe commissioners and ex commissioners we're going to have to testify under oath as to what they knew and when historic settlement today with the NFL then with football season about to begin a surprise settlement the league agreed to pay 765 million dollars to resolve the lawsuit as it appears as if it ties it up quite nicely you know the two sides figured out that that was fair and they were okay with it and so the image of the situation to most fans is that the NFL got taken to task for the concussion problem okay but the settlement left one big question unanswered there's no admission whatsoever of guilt by the league the league makes it very clear they're not admitting any guilt that there's no acknowledgment of any causation between football and the possibility of long-term brain damage and that was you know that was a prominent part of the settlement I don't think we needed a trial to know that the NFL conducted a lot of shoddy research and it wasn't hypothetical it wasn't a supposition what what what the trial would have done was bring out that evidence you didn't need the trial to know that there was something wrong there but the details of how they went about it that's what's gonna stay locked away one week later the Commissioner made the league's position clear the league would not have to answer those tough questions about what they knew and when they knew it we've reached an agreement here that resolves these issues and we'll move from there I think everyone now has a better sense of what damage you can get from playing football and I think the NFL has given everybody 765 million reasons why you don't want to play football [Music] for now the future of the league in the game of football seem secure but fundamental questions remain about how the game will be played and who will play you've got the most popular sport in America basically on notice you've got the very real question being asked of whether the nature of playing the sport exposes you to brain damage and lots of science that suggests that it can and that raises all sorts of questions for guys who are playing in the league guys who played in the league moms kids all of us who love football it's pretty scary that's a big deal [Applause] you frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you thank you and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting major support for frontline is provided by the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation committed to building a more just verdant and peaceful world more information is available at macfound.org additional funding is provided by the Park foundation dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues the wind coat foundation and by the frontline journalism fund with a grant from scott nathan and laura de bonus [Music] for more on this and other frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org slash frontline [Music] frontlines leak of denial is available on DVD to water and is it shot PBS Donovan you are call 1-800 play PBS Frontline is also available for download on iTunes [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,335,658

Rating: 4.7316523 out of 5

Keywords: league of denial, espn nfl, junior seau, cte nfl, nfl concussion, concussion, nfl, concussion movie, iron mike webster, will smith concussion, bennet omalu, bennett omalu, brain damage, watch documentary online, watch documentary free, concussion symptoms, signs of a concussion, concussion protocol, concussion definition, what is a concussion, football brain injury, sports concussion, roger goodell, rodger goodell, superbowl

Id: SedClkAnclk

Length: 113min 56sec (6836 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Nebraska1208]

Excellent documentary.

[u/Tulanol]

Yep it’s so frustrating as an EX college player. I have head trauma I know how common it is.

And the NFL has done so many crappy things to cover this issue up and lie to players etc.