Does the NFL even care about concussions?
Think from KERA
KERA
4.7 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The NFL knows that concussions are a risk for its players – and it’s largely the players who carry the burden of protecting themselves. New York magazine features writer Reeves Wiedeman joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how the league’s approach to concussions has affected high-profile players like Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, why CTE is still a major concern, and why the NFL is changing its positioning on the matter. His article is “The End of the NFL’s Concussion Crisis.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When an athlete is coming back from, say, a knee injury, it's a fairly straightforward thing to assess when they're well enough to take the field again. |
| 0:17.7 | Either they can run and jump and pivot to excel at their sport, or they |
| 0:21.6 | can't. If the damage is too severe, that bum knee will probably end their career. But what if |
| 0:27.2 | the damage they sustain is invisible to the naked eye? From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm |
| 0:34.1 | Chris Boyd. We've come a long way since the days when football coaches would gode |
| 0:39.0 | concussed athletes back into the game with statements like, you just got your bell wrong, son. |
| 0:44.4 | While for years, the NFL denied or downplayed the long-term hazards of repeated blows to the head, |
| 0:49.8 | the scientific evidence is now so overwhelming that the league acknowledges those injuries are serious, |
| 0:55.6 | which is not the same thing as trying to eliminate them from the game. Reeves Whiteman is a |
| 1:01.5 | feature writer at New York Magazine, which published his article, The End of the NFL's Concussion Crisis. |
| 1:07.5 | Reeves, welcome back to think. Thanks for having me, Chris. |
| 1:11.6 | Anybody who follows football will have heard about the injuries that have plagued Tua, Tango, Vailoa, in the past couple of seasons as quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. But for those who are not fans of the sport, will you tell us a little bit about what he's been up against? |
| 1:25.8 | Yeah, sure. So Tua is the quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. |
| 1:31.2 | He's kind of one of the young stars of the league. Playing for the Dolphins is very high-flying |
| 1:37.3 | fast offense. One of the teams expected to contend for the Super Bowl in each of the past couple of seasons. |
| 1:46.2 | But in 2022, Tua suffered a series of what appeared to be very serious and injuries to his head. |
| 1:57.5 | He was sacked in one game and sort of, you know, not even hit that hard, but just pushed to the ground, his head. He was sacked in one game and sort of, you know, not even hit that hard, but just |
| 2:03.8 | pushed to the ground. His head sort of snapped back, hit the ground. He actually got up and |
| 2:09.2 | tried to walk and then just kind of his body sort of fell slack. And there was some controversy |
| 2:15.0 | at the time because the dolphins actually said this was just a back injury and not a head injury. |
| 2:20.6 | And so there he came back into the game in the second half. |
| 2:26.3 | He was back on the field again a week later and suffered what at that point was obviously concussion. He got hit again, slammed |
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