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Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

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Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#121

Post by jdelaney »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #110
joshuagrgt wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYTimes article said that they tested over 200 brains, half were college or high school players only. 87% came back with CTE. One would hope that it is untenable for institutions of higher learning to profit off of giving their students long term brain damage.

That study was a bit misleading in that they only tested brains that were suspected of having CTE in the first place.

Dr. McKee, the study's author, acknowledged that and addressed it:

> But 110 positives remain significant scientific evidence of an N.F.L. player’s risk of developing C.T.E., which can be diagnosed only after death. About 1,300 former players have died since the B.U. group began examining brains. So even if every one of the other 1,200 players had tested negative — which even the heartiest skeptics would agree could not possibly be the case — the minimum C.T.E. prevalence would be close to 9 percent, vastly higher than in the general population.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#122

Post by heyheyhey »

trowawee wrote: post #101
fullshark wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soccer has worse concussion problems? I've not heard that. What's the source?

It's not true. They're both bad, but football has higher rates of concussion. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

It's a start but USSoccer limits heading up to age 13:http://www.ussoccer.com/about/recognize-to-recover/concussio...

"Eliminating heading for children 10 and under

Limiting the amount of heading in practice for children between the ages of 11 and 13"

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#123

Post by QuotedForTruth »

paulddraper wrote: post #117
aresant wrote: post #65

A few colorful facts to the story here: 1) 3 years of service vests into NFL pension plan, he just hit qualification - value pegged at $21,360 a year for life (3) 2) He has not publicly commented on his retirement or reasons for it. 3) He has a hugely awesome secondary option - doctorate of math at MIT 4) He was at end of his rookie contract, next year would be the "in the money" year for him so he is clearly leaving…

> after tax is 7 figures but still not a lot What exactly is "a lot of money" (and how much do you think MIT professors are paid)? I think point #6 is more relevant than point #5.

I think the point is he isn't "set for life" like some may expect NFL players to be.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#124

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

troisx wrote: post #62
CurtMonash wrote: post #39

I abruptly stopped being a football fan last November. The immediate reason was Bill Belichick staking his own reputation on Donald Trump's assaults on the media, in a close state in a close election. But CTE was making it hard to remain a football fan anyway.

So players killing people, players beating their wives and kids, and players breaking the law constantly didn't make you stop being a fan. But one coach exercising his political rights did. Fascinating.

Politics is the new religion, at least in America right now.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#125

Post by learc83 »

trowawee wrote: post #101
fullshark wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soccer has worse concussion problems? I've not heard that. What's the source?

It's not true. They're both bad, but football has higher rates of concussion. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

In addition to concussions, football players are also believed to receive repeated microtrauma from running into each other repeatedly.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#126

Post by grasshopperpurp »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #70
ineptech wrote: post #34

Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe? If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be…

Do kids face the same risk factors as professional NFL players? Someone who plays in high school isn't necessarily going to play football for their entire life; do four years of football from ages 14-18 significantly increase risk?

The study found that, on average, there are 4 direct fatalities and 8.2 indirect fatalities among high school and college players per year, making indirect fatalities more than twice as common as direct fatalities.

I don't know about younger kids, but high school players die every year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_issues_in_American_foot...

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0363546513478572

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#127

Post by prostoalex »

mikeash wrote: post #43
ambulancechaser wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a study showing 99% of NFL players had chronic brain issues (Cte) Just to quibble but I understood that the study revealed that 99% of the group inspected had CTE. The group was not intended to be cross-section of the general population of NFL players. Not to trivialize the results but I think you extended them beyond what they said.

The study was definitely not a representative sample. On the other hand, if it turns out that the sample was as biased as possible, such that every single player with CTE was in the study, that would still put the incidence at 9%, which is crazy high.

> if it turns out that the sample was as biased as possible

The researcher never claimed it was a sample that one would expect with a scientific study (e.g. control group, test group, variance by age, race, etc.) From the original NYT article:

> The set of players posthumously tested by Dr. McKee is far from a random sample of N.F.L. retirees. “There’s a tremendous selection bias,” she has cautioned, noting that many families have donated brains specifically because the former player showed symptoms of C.T.E.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#128

Post by bkjelden »

amelius wrote: post #64
magic_beans wrote: post #47

"Urschel is pursuing his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the offseason, focusing on spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra and machine learning." This guy has a back-up plan. Good man.

Sounds like a very broad plan to me.

It's a better plan than almost every other NFL player has.

Most players have lived very football-focused lives from a very young age, and have been the star on the team all of their life. Their future has always been more football, and they haven't given any thought to what comes after that.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#129

Post by otoburb »

>>In August 2015, he suffered a concussion when he went helmet-to-helmet with another player and was knocked unconscious.

"I think it hurt my ability to think well mathematically," Urschel said. "It took me about three weeks before I was football-ready. It took me a little bit longer before my high-level visualizations ability came back."

Losing a high-level cognitive ability must be terrifying; the flood of relief upon regaining his ability (probably slowly?) after 4+ weeks must have made him deeply question his continuing commitment, and then the CTE study pushed him over the edge.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#130

Post by dragonwriter »

ineptech wrote: post #34

Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe? If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be…

> Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe?

To the extent that such a list can be said to exist (some of them are Boolean values, but if it's a long list, it's only long because you are including lots of things that individually loosely correlate with tribal membership rather than separate it), attitudes towards kids playing football have been on it for decades.

(It also correlates with race, welath, and other socio-economic factors in a way which aren't what you'd expect if you thought it was simply a matter of left/right political tribal identity.)

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