Thread: Aaron Hernandez update

Originally Posted by Northman

You know Shane, i dont know how accurate it is but someone posted a comment about the initial article on Hernandez that someone who smokes to much chronic can develop CTE. Is that at all accurate or just someone talking jibberish? (serious question)

sounds like jibberish. Because Cannabis acts as an anti inflammatory on the brain. So it in fact would reduce swelling and brain damage from concussions.

Which is why many players want it removed from banned substances.

Originally Posted by BroncoWave

You're completely missing the point here. GEM actually made a great analogy that I hadn't thought of to explain why your argument is bad. Someone who has a dangerous job (like in her example, working on power lines) knows going in that their job is dangerous, but the employer still has the responsibility to keep the employee as safe as possible.

Same with the NFL. Just because players know the risks doesn't completely absolve the NFL from being obligated to try to keep their employees as safe as possible. And if it's found the NFL has been negligent in that regard, then yes, players do deserve to sue them and win. Just as if any other employer were being negligent in looking after the safety of their employees.

They give them helmets and make rules against hitting in the head, what the **** else are they supposed to do?

Tight Ends/ LBers and Linemen will have the worst cases of CTE

Due to blocking. Hitting your head against each other by blocking, or trying to shed a blocker.

I believe a CTE study pointed this out, as smaller repeated head blows is far worse then the big concussion, like Fowler had falling to the ground on Sunday.

Originally Posted by BroncoWave

It's currently impossible to test for CTE in someone who is still alive. That's why you never hear about these players having CTE until after they are dead and their brains are cut open.

Thanks. I was unaware there wasn't a test for this. Makes my posts moot.

Originally Posted by ShaneFalco

sounds like jibberish. Because Cannabis acts as an anti inflammatory on the brain. So it in fact would reduce swelling and brain damage from concussions.

Which is why many players want it removed from banned substances.

Let'em have their doob.

The P*tri*ts should do right by this little girl and cut TB12.

Originally Posted by Northman

Its not insignificant but i dont think that the sole blame should go on the Pats or the NFL. I mean, is the family planning on suing the University of Florida as well? I also dont think that the family should be rewarded for the crime that Hernandez committed which is what this would be doing.

Huh? How would winning a suit filed against the NFL and NE* over HIS CTE "reward" his family for him committing murder? Moving on....

People are only legally and morally accountable if both rational and in control of their behavior. That's not just some PC psychobabble: It's a longstanding legal standard. We're talking about an injury that CHANGES HOW PEOPLE THINK. Permanently. Not only that, but in addition to impairing memory it also makes victims IRRITABLE and IMPAIRS THEIR JUDGEMENT. So there's good reason to doubt whether Hernandez would've become a murderer if he hadn't had CTE.

Crime and other wrongdoing isn't about whether someone is tempted to do something wrong; EVERYONE faces some degree of temptation: The question is whether someone submits to the temptations we ALL face, and CTE in turn is all about that.

Originally Posted by GEM

I should have prefaced to say....I think it's all a bunch of mularkey because players make a choice to play football. But just like an electric lineman chooses to work on poles with high voltage electricity, there is some level of responsibility of his employer for his safety. If he gets injured, he most likely will have his injuries covered. The problem is that the NFL ignored it for so long that they built this against themselves.

The difference is that electric utilities didn't know about the risk for half a century yet respond by simply putting out falsified "scientific reports" by people with NO medical training and destroying the careers of ACTUAL medical professionals who dared publicize the risk. The best analogy remains one the NFL hates: Tobacco companies from the '60s-'80s aggressively denying serious health risks of which they were well aware long before anyone, while continuing to promote their lethal product to kids on whom they depend to replace their rapidly dying current customers.

Originally Posted by Davii

I didn't, but that's my point. If the NFL is solely responsible for Aaron Hernandez' CTE then they are then open to lawsuit for anyone who has CTE that played football, whether they played for the NFL or not. At most the NFL is 25% responsible, and probably much less and he most likely had CTE before he ever joined the league.

Don't forget how heavily the NFL subsidizes and promotes youth football precisely because it provides the next generation of pro players and fans. If the NFL wants credit for things like Play60, it must also accept the blame for CTE caused by its youth football programs (which could explain why it's all NFL FLAG football now.)

Originally Posted by ShaneFalco

Tight Ends/ LBers and Linemen will have the worst cases of CTE

Due to blocking. Hitting your head against each other by blocking, or trying to shed a blocker.

I believe a CTE study pointed this out, as smaller repeated head blows is far worse then the big concussion, like Fowler had falling to the ground on Sunday.

That was the first thing that leapt out at me during the original Frontline episode on CTE in the NFL, and they did finally get there:

How the HELL are linemen supposed to avoid CTE when the research shows that even non-concussion "microtrauma" causes it? Like, a G or DT is supposed to line up for 50+ snaps a week 16+ weeks a year, plus all the practices, charge forward into the opposition at every snap, and NEVER get hit in the head? Even though a three-point stance put their head closer to their opponent than anything just about anything else?

The NFL's understandably TERRIFIED of the growing amount of researchs consistent undeniable results, for several serious reasons.

1) As others have noted, brains still developing and PHYSICALLY GROWING are particularly vulnerable to CTE, and more and more parents are consequently refusing to sign injury waivers as they discover that, which is a mortal threat to the NFLs pool of future players (i.e. productive workers) and spectators (i.e. paying customers.)

2) The threat to CURRENT revenue is already so great that the NFL offered three quarters of a BILLION dollar one-time settlement to end all the Leagues past, present and future liability—and even after the NFLPA accepted the JUDGE threw it out on the grounds she didn't think it was enough money to cover all the medical costs of all surviving affected players. The NFL's the world's most profitable sport, but when a billion dollars isn't enough to make your problem go away, you've got a BIG problem.

3) The original point: Is tackle football even POSSIBLE without a substantial degree of head trauma inflicted on most, if not all, participants? If the answer is "Of course not, what kind of stupid question is that?" that magnifies the first two problems to a perhaps insurmountable degree.

I've always said that I don't watch any blood sports, whether cockfights, bear baiting or boxing. Now it looks like the key difference between football and boxing is that boxing promoters don't deny the sports routinely leaves veteran fighters "punch drunk," and certainly doesn't set out to destroy the careers of doctors who dare publish the truth. Boxing's still legal, of course, but not nearly as central to the American experience as half a century ago.

One thing of which I'm 100% certain: Concrete physical FACTS don't magically change just because of how a bunch of people "feel" about (nor profit from) them.

Originally Posted by BroncoJoe

Oh please. They've made huge leaps in equipment specifically designed to help players safety as much as possible. Helmets, shoulder pads, thigh pads, knee guards, etc. It's not like they've ignored it.

Which is why going forward the litigation will get harder and harder because now they do know. But before they didn't even know what CTE was.

Youth football numbers are significantly down. My sister won't let my nephew play, a lot of friends and acquaintances won't. I admit to having little knowledge of the significant long term dangers of my boys each playing 8 years. I'm honestly terrified of my 16 year old daughter playing soccer again as her concussion last year was the scariest situation I've seen her in. The Dr explained that you don't have separate concussions, your actually repeatedly reinjuring the same brain trauma, each time causing more long term damage. Reports out now that kids shouldn't even start playing football until after at least 12 years.

Our beloved NFL won't be the same in 10 years as there will be far less crop to get players from.

Originally Posted by ShaneFalco

Tight Ends/ LBers and Linemen will have the worst cases of CTE

Due to blocking. Hitting your head against each other by blocking, or trying to shed a blocker.

I believe a CTE study pointed this out, as smaller repeated head blows is far worse then the big concussion, like Fowler had falling to the ground on Sunday.

Yes, the lineman 's scans show far more damage than others.

Originally Posted by chazoe60

They give them helmets and make rules against hitting in the head, what the **** else are they supposed to do?

It's the amount of time it took for them to actually do anything that is the issue and how hard they tried to cover it up that is the issue. That period of times players have a case. Players today, not so much because now they are actually doing what they should have been doing then.

Originally Posted by GEM

Youth football numbers are significantly down. My sister won't let my nephew play, a lot of friends and acquaintances won't. I admit to having little knowledge of the significant long term dangers of my boys each playing 8 years. I'm honestly terrified of my 16 year old daughter playing soccer again as her concussion last year was the scariest situation I've seen her in. The Dr explained that you don't have separate concussions, your actually repeatedly reinjuring the same brain trauma, each time causing more long term damage. Reports out now that kids shouldn't even start playing football until after at least 12 years.

Our beloved NFL won't be the same in 10 years as there will be far less crop to get players from.

My supervisor is South HS football coach, and he's having a hard time finding players. South use to be a power house.

My oldest played from 3rd grade till senior year. My youngest son played from 3rd grade till junior year....only reason he stopped playing was because he was hit by a pitch and fractured his face. My daughter is starting volleyball this year.

I dont really keep up with Boxing or UFC fighting but has there been any fighters (dead) who were found to have been diagnosed with CTE?

The NFL lied decades ago and told the players that concussions/etc would not cause long term damage to their brains.

Now they have done things and made rules to try and make the game and equipment safer, but that wasn't always the case.