110 N.F.L. Brains
nytimes.com
110 N.F.L. Brains
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Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#2There's always been the possibility of selection bias in finding CTE in football players' brains. Many of the brains are studied at the request of the family of the deceased player, presumably because they had noticed symptoms of mental degeneration. And there are cases where the player themselves requested the scans in their will. Junior Seau didn't leave behind a suicide note, but he did kill himself in a way that left his brain physically intact.
The NYT piece notes that even if none of the other ~1,300 NFL players (who have since died since this research began) have brains affected by CTE, "the minimum C.T.E. prevalence would be close to 9 percent, vastly higher than in the general population.".
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#3[deleted]
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#4Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in American football has been getting lots of media attention over the past few years, and the counterpoints to whether or not this is a serious issue will rely mostly on emphasizing the survivorship bias of those who enjoyed a high quality of life despite possibly (or assuredly) suffering such injuries, but in many ways almost all athletic sports represent feats of corporeal risk to the player, and I don't think the face of the game, or its popularity will change very much.
In many sports, people face death itself, and pay the ultimate price for competing. CTE, while made plain by studies such as this, might only change youth and amateur level competition. Professional leagues will probably continue apace, even amid full disclosure of well-known hazards.
This particular hazard wasn't previously well understod, but now it is, so, like boxing, it's still an improvement to the sport, to have players enter competition properly informed of the risks they are undertaking, so that they understand the choice they are making when they decide to play this game.
tl;dr The point of any given sport is usually to step into harms way, on some level, in a controlled arena and to test your abilities against other people in a contest of skill and endurance. That's how this works.
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#5There's always been the possibility of selection bias in finding CTE in football players' brains. Many of the brains are studied at the request of the family of the deceased player, presumably because they had noticed symptoms of mental degeneration. And there are cases where the player themselves requested the scans in their will. Junior Seau didn't leave behind a suicide note, but he did kill himself in a way that…
Isn't that still selection bias? Presumably CTE sufferers have a higher risk of dying — their healthy peers may still be alive and thus not included in that 1,300.
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#6Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in American football has been getting lots of media attention over the past few years, and the counterpoints to whether or not this is a serious issue will rely mostly on emphasizing the survivorship bias of those who enjoyed a high quality of life despite possibly (or assuredly) suffering such injuries, but in many ways almost all athletic sports represent feats of corporeal risk to…
>might only change youth and amateur level competition. Professional leagues will probably continue apace, even amid full disclosure of well-known hazards.
You don't see a direction link between the grassroots levels to the pro level? If you kill the interest, or participation at the grassroots level, there will never be a compelling pro league to source from.
Good riddance to a lame game of consisting of mostly low skilled athletes
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#7Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in American football has been getting lots of media attention over the past few years, and the counterpoints to whether or not this is a serious issue will rely mostly on emphasizing the survivorship bias of those who enjoyed a high quality of life despite possibly (or assuredly) suffering such injuries, but in many ways almost all athletic sports represent feats of corporeal risk to…
>might only change youth and amateur level competition. Professional leagues will probably continue apace, even amid full disclosure of well-known hazards. You don't see a direction link between the grassroots levels to the pro level? If you kill the interest, or participation at the grassroots level, there will never be a compelling pro league to source from. Good riddance to a lame game of consisting of mostly low…
Football is only 5th on this list of dangerous sports: https://www.thetoptens.com/most-dangerous-sports/ The real issue is that football trauma has effects over longer time periods and the long term effects are discounted in the near term.
>Good riddance to a lame game of consisting of mostly low skilled athletes
Having played up to college, it's tremendous fun and has roles for a range skillsets. While not necessarily very intelligent, everyone is very skilled.
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#8Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in American football has been getting lots of media attention over the past few years, and the counterpoints to whether or not this is a serious issue will rely mostly on emphasizing the survivorship bias of those who enjoyed a high quality of life despite possibly (or assuredly) suffering such injuries, but in many ways almost all athletic sports represent feats of corporeal risk to…
>might only change youth and amateur level competition. Professional leagues will probably continue apace, even amid full disclosure of well-known hazards. You don't see a direction link between the grassroots levels to the pro level? If you kill the interest, or participation at the grassroots level, there will never be a compelling pro league to source from. Good riddance to a lame game of consisting of mostly low…
I have to strongly disagree that American football is a "lame game consisting of mostly low skilled athletes", I think the athleticism and skill involved is tremendously high across all positions.
But I will agree with you otherwise and say that the NFL has a strong incentive to dissuade youth, amateur, and semi-pro football players from adjusting their play to avoid CTE and dangerous play. The game is more physical now than ever, the players are bigger, they run faster, they hit harder, and that contributes to the popularity of the sport.
If the NFL can figure out a way to regulate dangerous hitting out of the game and preserve the appeal of the game, that would immediately trickle down to all levels and make the game safer.
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#9I think people take for granted now how good the Times is at these interactive, zine-like layouts for their feature articles. I just want to say another job well done on this one. Each one of these I see is a work of art that clearly took a lot of time across the team.
Re: 110 N.F.L. Brains
#10There's always been the possibility of selection bias in finding CTE in football players' brains. Many of the brains are studied at the request of the family of the deceased player, presumably because they had noticed symptoms of mental degeneration. And there are cases where the player themselves requested the scans in their will. Junior Seau didn't leave behind a suicide note, but he did kill himself in a way that…
Isn't that still selection bias? Presumably CTE sufferers have a higher risk of dying — their healthy peers may still be alive and thus not included in that 1,300.
The NFL isn't a 10 years old league, there's plenty of players who passed away. If anything there would be more examples since equipment was worse before and there were less rules that protected players, especially top/crown helmet leading tackles which started getting penalized with 15yd only in 2013.