Last week, in a well-publicized event, star NFL 49ers rookie Chris Borland announced his retirement from the NFL. After only one year of play at a job that is the ultimate dream to many, Borland gave it all up, citing concern for “neurological diseases down the road” due to repeated head trauma from the game. He’s even giving back three quarters of his signing bonus.
This development seems like the inevitable next step in the commotion surrounding the NFL’s treatment of concussions. As the before-unknown dangers of repeated head trauma become public knowledge, pressure on the NFL to ensure player safety has never been higher. Thousands of former NFL players suffering from brain debilitations have been suing the NFL in a class-action lawsuit. Even the NCAA, as The Cavalier Daily has previously reported, is rushing to reel in the concussion crisis. The important thing, however, is that we don’t understate this problem. These debilitating head traumas aren’t injuries. They aren’t broken bones and sprained ankles. They are afflictions.
John Urschel, a Ravens linebacker with a bachelors and masters in mathematics, recently wrote an article expressing solidarity with Borland. “I envy Chris Borland,” he says. His point is that he, being a published mathematician who enjoys chess and spectral graph theory, has a lot to lose by playing football — perhaps more than Borland. But he loves the game too much. He loves the feeling when you “lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you.” Just as a thoroughbred must run, or a bird fly, a man as massive as Urschel just needs to hit people. But the insidious myth that Urschel is perpetrating is the idea that you just lose a few IQ points from suffering brain trauma. He implies throughout his article that there is indeed a possibility that one day he will wake up and not be able to advance the field of mathematics as he was once able to. What he’s not recognizing is the possibility that one day he will wake up severely depressed and suicidal, unable to remember very much of his childhood. He’s not recognizing that Borland isn’t afraid of not being able to do complex math.
The idea that large salaries compensate players for brain trauma is ubiquitous. We can look at the ex-NFL player who walks stiff-kneed and arthritically and say, “That guy knew what he was getting into.” My fellow columnist Nate Menninger made this point back in January. Players are “willingly putting their health at risk when they sign contracts granting them millions of dollars,” he argues. They “should not beg for pity when injuries occur.” And the NFL certainly does compensate players for injuries. Such a ruthless game, with its high-impact hits, is obviously going to leave its players somewhat damaged, but you can’t possibly compensate somebody for the effects of repeated, severe concussions. You don’t bounce back from brain injury. It’s never as good as new, or just a bit less functional. Tear your rotator cuff and sure, your shoulder will never be as flexible as it once was, but the brain simply doesn’t work in the same way.
The nation’s largest brain bank released the results of a study last year indicating that “just under 80 percent” of players who played football in high school, college or professionally had brains with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Caused by repeated head trauma, CTE restricts blood flow in the brain, causing patients with less severe forms of the disease to “suffer from mood disorders, such as depression and bouts of rage, while those with more severe cases can experience confusion, memory loss and advanced dementia.” Although the study recognized some issues, namely that those who donated their brains may have already suspected disease, the results are alarming. We can see effects of CTE in the NFL and NCAA. Many players have committed suicide in connection with the depressive effects of CTE. Jovan Belcher, the Chiefs linebacker who murdered his girlfriend and then killed himself, had CTE. Ronney Jenkins, a former NFL player, twice attempted suicide and battled “serious cognitive issues: a memory that is feeble at best, crushing depression and rage he can neither understand nor predict” in connection with head trauma. These stories are everywhere.
The fact is, Borland isn’t retiring so he can save a bit of intelligence; he’s retiring so he doesn’t end up depressed and suicidal, forgetting the names of his children and the details of his childhood. You can’t compensate somebody for that burden. Nor can you call it an injury. Injuries you can live with; CTE is a curse. The game of football is an inherently gladiatorial and violent sport. Hopefully in the coming years we will make strides toward player safety, but in the mean time, let’s not say these players are reimbursed for their head trauma. Compensating somebody for an injured body is one thing, but a diseased mind is impossible to compensate. Players who suffer from severe CTE live their lives in agony. They effectively aren’t the same people. You can’t communicate that risk to somebody at a contract signing.
Brennan Edel is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.edel@cavalierdaily.com.
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