More and more football players are being diagnosed with CTE, a devastating neurodegenerative disease. So why did the NFL ignore it for decades?
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00:00This disease is no joke. It affects the one place that we know very little about and that's the brain.
00:05CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, an aggressive neurodegenerative disease that
00:11has been found in many football players' brains is believed to have potentially caused players
00:16to experience amnesia, erratic behavior, mental health issues, and even to commit murder.
00:22CTE is a neurodegenerative brain disease that's caused by repetitive traumatic injuries to the
00:29It's logical to assume that about at least one in ten NFL players on the field right now have CTE.
00:34But the research on CTE continues to be a debated topic in the NFL.
00:38This game is inherently violent. I think this does put tackle football and the NFL
00:44on notice that they do need to change some things.
00:46CTE is associated with impaired thinking, memory loss,
00:50impulsive behavior, and depression among former football players.
00:54Could be depression, could be anxiety, their inability to control
00:57their behaviors, their impulses, aggression, sometimes violence.
01:02CTE is very often seen in people who have taken thousands and thousands of blows to the head.
01:07CTE is believed to be impacting many current and former NFL players' day-to-day lives.
01:13I can't remember how to tie a tie. I can't remember how to lace my shoes.
01:19My left arm won't do what my brain tells it to do.
01:23It became associated with football in the early 2000s when researchers
01:27first began finding it in the brains of deceased NFL players.
01:31When Andre Waters died in 2006, who was a strong safety for the Philadelphia Eagles
01:35and the guy I grew up watching, he took his life at age 45, and it turned out he had CTE.
01:41CTE was also diagnosed in two former NFL players who were accused of murder
01:46and then died by suicide.
01:47Philip Adams, who died in 2021 at age 32, and Aaron Hernandez, who died in 2017 at age 27.
01:55He was struggling in a deep, dark place that many athletes suffer from.
02:00CTE can only be formally diagnosed by examining someone's brain after their death.
02:06Never occurred to me, and I'm a brain scientist, that they were actually getting head trauma.
02:10You can't see it, they don't complain of pain,
02:14and they aren't immediately symptomatic unless they've had a concussion.
02:17CTE has been found in the brains of many of the NFL's former star players,
02:22including Frank Gifford, Andre Waters, Junior Seau, and Demarius Thomas.
02:27But for decades, the NFL denied a connection between football and brain diseases.
02:32The concept of permanent brain damage and dementia following repeated blows to the head
02:38is a very well-established and generally accepted principle in medicine.
02:43Would you agree with that statement?
02:45There's a lot more you have to say about yes, I agree, or no, I don't agree.
02:49However, by 2013, the NFL agreed to pay a $765 million settlement for concussion-related injuries
02:56after over 2,000 NFL players sued the league,
02:59saying it never told them about connections between concussions and brain injuries.
03:04I think everyone now has a better sense of what damage you can get from playing football.
03:15And I think the NFL has given everybody 765 million reasons
03:24why you don't want to play football.
03:26In the settlement, the NFL refused to admit to any wrongdoing.
03:30There was no admission of guilt.
03:31There was no recognition that anything was caused by football.
03:35It wasn't until 2016 that a senior NFL official
03:38publicly confirmed a link between football and CTE.
03:42Well, certainly, Dr. McKee's research shows that a number of retired
03:45NFL players were diagnosed with CTE.
03:47So the answer to that question is certainly yes,
03:50but there's also a number of questions that come with that.
03:52In recent years, the NFL has announced new concussion protocols,
03:55player safety initiatives, and funding for research.
03:59The NFL has done, I think, a really good job of promoting taking the head out of the equation.
04:06You can't hit with the head.
04:07But earlier this season, concussion protocols were questioned again
04:10when Tua Tongovaiola was allowed to play after slamming his head into the turf
04:15and stumbling while walking on the field.
04:17But only four days later,
04:19Tongovaiola was hospitalized after suffering a concussion mid-game.
04:23The NFLPA announcing that this weekend that an unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant
04:30involved in his concussion evaluations has been terminated
04:34and saying modifications to the concussion protocol are needed.
04:38This is an epic fail, and it's a fail on the coach, too.
04:41As a coach, you were the last line of defense.
04:46And I'm sorry, but I'm not letting that guy back out there.
04:53I'm not letting that guy back out there.