As much as I like the NFL, there are some things the league does in regards to maintaining its players' health that I would classify as being rather questionable in nature. I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

However, it's beginning to look like the NFL is going beyond the questionable and into the completely immoral. How so?

There's been a study going on at Boston University for a while that pretty definitively shows that NFL players can suffer brain damage commonly associated with boxers.  On Thursday, the center will announce that a fifth deceased NFL player, the former Houston Oilers linebacker John Grimsley, suffered from traumatic encephalopathy.

Grimsley died in February at 45 after he shot himself in the chest in what police ruled an accident. Subsequent analysis of his brain tissue confirmed the presence of neurofibrillary tangles that had already begun to affect Grimsley’s behavior and memory, said Dr. Ann C. McKee, an associate professor of neurology and pathology at the Boston University School of Medicine and a co-director of the new brain-study center.

In addition to the study being released on Thursday, 12 athletes, including former New England Patriot Ted Johnson, have agreed to donate their brains to the Boston University study. Johnson, you may recall, has suffered from permanent and degenerative problems with memory and depression since retiring, which he and his neurologist believe was caused by multiple concussions he suffered from 2002 to 2005 on the football field.

The evidence is incredibly persuasive that playing in the NFL can have drastic consequences, as Dr. McKee makes clear.


But guess what, the NFL is completely ignoring this medical information.

“We support all research that would further the scientific and medical understanding of this injury, which affects thousands of people, athletes and nonathletes alike, every year. Hundreds of thousands of people have played football and other sports without experiencing any problem of this type, and there continues to be considerable debate in the medical community on the precise long-term effects of concussions and how they relate to other risk factors.”

But the problem is Aiello is lying to you. There is no real debate in the medical community about this at all. Even worse, at a 2007 concussion conference, Roger Goodell pointed to the lack of concussion documentation from deceased NFL player Justin Strzelczyk's career (Strzelczyk’s suffered from traumatic encephalopathy and his brain was studied by Boston University).

Here's Goodell's exceedingly callous remark on Strzelczy.

“There’s no record he may have had a concussion swimming.” He added: “A concussion happens in a variety of different activities.”   

Ah, I see. So Ted Johnson could have suffered his concussions while he was at home relaxing in a chair during the offseason. Makes no sense.

Is it just me, or do Aiello and Goodell sound exactly like Tobacco Industry executives who continue to tell us that smoking isn't necessarily related to people contracting emphysema and that second-hand smoke doesn't harm anyone. Because it sure sounds like it to me.

The NFL is currently undergoing their own concussion study that they plan to have out in 2010, but it'll be a complete joke. And that's because the NFL is a huge money making machine and doesn't want to hurt the cash flow. Naturally, word getting out that a large number of players are suffering permanent brain damage could cause major problems.

So what do we have going on here? We have the NFL fully aware that their game is permanently affecting the mental health of their players in disasterous ways, and they're turning a bling eye to it.

I won't go quite so far as to call Goodell and the NFL evil, but they're getting pretty close.

Dozen athletes leaving brains for study on concussions [NY Times]