Aaron Hernandez had severe CTE ...

[Cowtown]

I don't think this surprises anyone. But it still doesn't change the fact he had a lot of baggage coming into football. Bad combination, it would appear.

Hernandez's lawyer: Brain had 'severe' case of CTE - Article - TSN

 

[Briancuse]

That would explain some of his behavior, but many people who grew up with him claimed he was a bad guy long before he made it to the Nfl.

 

[Day2]

Forget about his criminal behavior. He was 27 and already had severe brain damage. That's my takeaway. Only played three years in both college and the pros. (And never played a full season in the NFL.)

No one should be playing this deadly sport.

 

[two3zone]

Forget about his criminal behavior. He was 27 and already had severe brain damage. That's my takeaway. Only played three years in both college and the pros. (And never played a full season in the NFL.)

No one should be playing this deadly sport.

What's crazy to me is the statistic of 110 out of 111 former players have CTE.

At this point, if you choose to play the sport there needs to be accountability on the players who choose to play.

I'm not a parent but if I was there's no chance they'd be playing football.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

I don't think this surprises anyone. But it still doesn't change the fact he had a lot of baggage coming into football. Bad combination, it would appear.

Hernandez's lawyer: Brain had 'severe' case of CTE - Article - TSN

The NFL's conduct has been disgraceful. Ignore, deny and then ignore and deny some more...Meanwhile, ex-players' lives were falling apart and committing suicide..

However, it would not surprise me at all if, one day when they can check live tissue for CTE, that people who never played football also have it.

Hernandez played less than 40 games in the NFL...

I don't doubt that football is either a cause and/or an exacerbater (is that even a word?) - no way repeated blows to the head can be healthy for anybody.

But, as with many things, it would not surprise me at all if people were also genetically pre-disposed to it...

 

[Melancer46]

We're still so early in learning more about CTE that it's hard to really draw any concrete conclusions from these studies in my opinion.

For example, these studies have revealed that even NFL kickers/punters and MLB players suffer from CTE; these guys are hardly ever taking trauma to the head. It seems to me that CTE may just be very easy to develop (ex: Ryan Freel, who was noted for being hit in the head with a baseball once and colliding in the outfield with a player once) suffered from CTE. If suffering just one or two hits to the head is enough to develop CTE, there is simply nothing that the NFL, NCAA, or high schools will ever be able to do to prevent it.

What's crazy to me is the statistic of 110 out of 111 former players have CTE.

At this point, if you choose to play the sport there needs to be accountability on the players who choose to play.

I'm not a parent but if I was there's no chance they'd be playing football.

To be fair, those 111 former players were studied because they believed they were at risk of CTE, so it naturally skews the data towards a positive diagnosis.

I'm no neuroscientist (I was actually really interested in it and tried to take neuroscience courses at Syracuse, but I literally got a zero on my first multiple choice exam and dropped the class shortly thereafter), but I take this stuff very seriously. It seems like there's a lot of relatively easily fixable issues with the way these studies have been conducted.

 

[Cowtown]

We're still so early in learning more about CTE that it's hard to really draw any concrete conclusions from these studies in my opinion.

For example, these studies have revealed that even NFL kickers/punters and MLB players suffer from CTE; these guys are hardly ever taking trauma to the head. It seems to me that CTE may just be very easy to develop (ex: Ryan Freel, who was noted for being hit in the head with a baseball once and colliding in the outfield with a player once) suffered from CTE. If suffering just one or two hits to the head is enough to develop CTE, there is simply nothing that the NFL, NCAA, or high schools will ever be able to do to prevent it.

To be fair, those 111 former players were studied because they believed they were at risk of CTE, so it naturally skews the data towards a positive diagnosis.

I'm no neuroscientist (I was actually really interested in it and tried to take neuroscience courses at Syracuse, but I literally got a zero on my first multiple choice exam and dropped the class shortly thereafter), but I take this stuff very seriously. It seems like there's a lot of relatively easily fixable issues with the way these studies have been conducted.

Seems to me the public's sense of a close association between football and CTE arose around the time of the movie, "Concussion." Which arose in popular culture because the greedy NFL owners denied any connection when questions were first asked, refused to investigate on a meaningful level, and simply declined to move from that position. The NFL owners brought the negative publicity of today on themselves.

 

[Hoo's That]

Seems to me the public's sense of a close association between football and CTE arose around the time of the movie, "Concussion." Which arose in popular culture because the greedy NFL owners denied any connection when questions were first asked, refused to investigate on a meaningful level, and simply declined to move from that position. The NFL owners brought the negative publicity of today on themselves.

For a lot of folks, like me, it started with the PBS Frontline documentary "League of Denial" on the CTE study findings and the NFL's adoption of the Big Tobacco defense strategy which lead to the filming of "Concussion".

 

[br801]

Seems to me the public's sense of a close association between football and CTE arose around the time of the movie, "Concussion." Which arose in popular culture because the greedy NFL owners denied any connection when questions were first asked, refused to investigate on a meaningful level, and simply declined to move from that position. The NFL owners brought the negative publicity of today on themselves.

I think a lot of people sat up and took notice when Mike Webster's story came to light, and it really picked up as various former players began taking their own lives.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

The NFL's conduct has been disgraceful. Ignore, deny and then ignore and deny some more...Meanwhile, ex-players' lives were falling apart and committing suicide..

However, it would not surprise me at all if, one day when they can check live tissue for CTE, that people who never played football also have it.

Hernandez played less than 40 games in the NFL...

I don't doubt that football is either a cause and/or an exacerbater (is that even a word?) - no way repeated blows to the head can be healthy for anybody.

But, as with many things, it would not surprise me at all if people were also genetically pre-disposed to it...

Why does no one try to also hold the union accountable. It's the union's job to look out for the best interest of it's members. The union could have been pro active in this area, long before it became reactive.