110 N.F.L brains found to have CTE out of 111

[tom cody]

Sad really, got to wonder if this report will lead to anything positive and reduction of this? 110 out of 111 is a scary figure as it relates to this.

[Dome]

12 hours ago, Malik said:

Eh, you can develop CTE well before entering the NFL. Plenty of high schoolers out there have it. Not even getting into the college level.

Link/source?

I'm sure that it can develop by HS, I'm just wondering if where you heard "plenty" have it by then, and what exactly "plenty" means.

[Broncofan]

The issue is that all 111 players were flagged with concussions from past history.   And given their age likely in an era when nothing was done.  

It doesn't mean there isn't an issue but if you do autopsies on 111 guys killed in gunfights you will find all had gunshot wounds.   Classic case of selection bias.   What would be most meaningful were if a population of NFL players with no history of concussions were autopsied as well (obviously at their time of death).   I think guys like Warren Sapp who volunteered for this fall into such a group but you need this "control" population to give a better picture.  You find CTE in big numbers in that group then there's a real story.  Doesn't mean there is no risk but the autopsies really don't tell us new info.      

 

[sp6488]

12 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

The issue is that all 111 players were flagged with concussions from past history.   And given their age likely in an era when nothing was done.  

It doesn't mean there isn't an issue but if you do autopsies on 111 guys killed in gunfights you will find all had gunshot wounds.   Classic case of selection bias.   What would be most meaningful were if a population of NFL players with no history of concussions were autopsied as well (obviously at their time of death).   I think guys like Warren Sapp who volunteered for this fall into such a group but you need this "control" population to give a better picture.  You find CTE in big numbers in that group then there's a real story.  Doesn't mean there is no risk but the autopsies really don't tell us new info.      

 

The other thing that is a bit tough here is what this means for football today.  A lot of these guys would have started playing 50 years ago (65 year-old player at time of death, who started at 15, let's say).  Practices, equipment, treatment, etc. are all much better now than they were then.  Hard to isolate the "when" of a cumulative condition.

[coors]

Pretty damning... 

[fretgod99]

46 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

The issue is that all 111 players were flagged with concussions from past history.   And given their age likely in an era when nothing was done.  

It doesn't mean there isn't an issue but if you do autopsies on 111 guys killed in gunfights you will find all had gunshot wounds.   Classic case of selection bias.   What would be most meaningful were if a population of NFL players with no history of concussions were autopsied as well (obviously at their time of death).   I think guys like Warren Sapp who volunteered for this fall into such a group but you need this "control" population to give a better picture.  You find CTE in big numbers in that group then there's a real story.  Doesn't mean there is no risk but the autopsies really don't tell us new info.      

 

As noted by Shanedorf on the first page:

On 7/25/2017 at 1:05 PM, Shanedorf said:

They talk about the study bias you mentioned above- the people who agree to have the brains assessed have seen symptoms that suggest CTE- so the numbers are definitely skewed. However...

"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 would have 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."

These teams at BU are doing "good science" and following Good Clinical Practice Guidelines.

They are not some sham operation like the crew the NFL assembled to say " everything is fine...nothing to see here"

So it appears that the concerns with regard to selection bias are unwarranted. Even if literally ever other player possible to have been tested during the time frame tested negative, the rates of CTE for football players are still higher than in the general population.

[Broncofan]

23 minutes ago, fretgod99 said:

As noted by Shanedorf on the first page:

So it appears that the concerns with regard to selection bias are unwarranted. Even if literally ever other player possible to have been tested during the time frame tested negative, the rates of CTE for football players are still higher than in the general population.

Sure that's why it's not reassuring to say there's no risk.  But let's say it's negative for everyone else.  Then what about the next 1000?   And most importantly - what does it tell us about the risk today for young players? 

Personally I think there's clear risk but this study doesn't quantify it at all.   Especially since those guys never got any treatment to reduce the risk for recurrent injury.   They don't deserve the label of sham science like the NFL's old work did but it's far from giving really good info on what the risk is, especially nowadays. 

[fretgod99]

18 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

Sure that's why it's not reassuring to say there's no risk.  But let's say it's negative for everyone else.  Then what about the next 1000?   And most importantly - what does it tell us about the risk today for young players? 

Personally I think there's clear risk but this study doesn't quantify it at all.   Especially since those guys never got any treatment to reduce the risk for recurrent injury.   They don't deserve the label of sham science like the NFL's old work did but it's far from giving really good info on what the risk is, especially nowadays. 

That's not the purpose of this study. This wasn't designed to assess risk. Critiquing something for not doing what it wasn't designed to do doesn't make much sense. It clearly demonstrates the existence of a problem. It further demonstrates that the problem cannot be ignored. It helps generate support (moral, financial, and otherwise) to further study the problem and the various issues associated with it (such as risk, mitigation, etc.).

[Broncofan]

2 hours ago, fretgod99 said:

That's not the purpose of this study. This wasn't designed to assess risk. Critiquing something for not doing what it wasn't designed to do doesn't make much sense. It clearly demonstrates the existence of a problem. It further demonstrates that the problem cannot be ignored. It helps generate support (moral, financial, and otherwise) to further study the problem and the various issues associated with it (such as risk, mitigation, etc.).

That's absolutely fair that the study wasn't designed to act as a prevalence indicator. But that's how it's being presented by the media that don't understand the limits associated with this kind of study.  So the need to clarify the limits of this study are entirely fair game.   The only viable conclusion is that more study is needed.   But that's not the conclusion most ppl draw from reading the stories. 

[MacReady]

The reason I don't find this very alarming is that these were all dead NFL players.  How many of them died before the new rules geared towards safety took effect?  Additionally, how many of them died before they played a single game with new helmets designed to reduce brain trauma? 

 

[Shanedorf]

That's a valid consideration HZ, but you also need to account for the fact that the typical OL in their day weighed 240 instead of the 310 we see today

The physics of the collisions changes as the athletes get bigger and stronger. Also, some of them played in a 12 game season, some 14, some 16. Training camp was different too, so was the number of preseason games. Is it the absolute number of collisions ? the size of the collisions or the cumulative effect of the collisions ? Is there some threshold,  that once surpassed, puts an athlete on a one- way trip to CTE and dementia ?

Rules changes of ' 78 also come into play, less headhunting. The NFL also changed the location of the hash marks over time which also impacts play and the physics of the collisions.  So many variables here....that's why they continue to do the rigorous studies.

[LaserFocus]

On 8/16/2017 at 6:00 PM, fretgod99 said:

Those are all fine benefits of organized sports in general, not of football. I'm not here to say that football should be eliminated. I'm just saying that "Players learn teamwork and discipline" is a really poor justification with respect to concussion issues since pretty much every team activity does the same thing.

I definitely wasn't implying you or anyone on this website wants to minimize or eliminate football, but I do feel other media outlets are politicizing this issue, and are rushing to judgement without facts. For example, there are plenty of examples of former players getting in trouble, and family members automatically blaming CTE. Some of these players were abusing drugs, or alcohol, or had an early death due to excessive weight gain after retirement. I think most fans became aware of the concussion issue in the 90s, when Mike Webster's plight became well-known. Surprised a story with so many facets hasn't been advanced more, the 110 out of 111 study just isn't significant to me for reasons others have explained. The Peyton Manning bombshell several years ago about seeing Colts players deliberately scoring poorly on baseline tests in the offseason so they could return to the field faster when they had concussions was strangely glossed over.

 

For me, even more player safety rules will begin to harm the popularity of the sport. Other team sports offer positive life lessens, but many athletes only participate in football. This is the time for all levels of football to do a better job in promoting the sport. I'm just concerned there are people in decision-making roles, from a parent, to a school administrator, who will make a choice affecting a young player not based on facts. Just finished watching a documentary about Art Schilicter, and the producers felt the need to toss in the former QB's alleged 17 concussions. It was irrelevant to the story of his crimes, but was mentioned anyway.

 

    

 

 

[ramssuperbowl99]

 

16 minutes ago, LaserFocus said:

For example, there are plenty of examples of former players getting in trouble, and family members automatically blaming CTE. Some of these players were abusing drugs, or alcohol, or had an early death due to excessive weight gain after retirement.

Oh man, players use drugs/alcohol and gain weight from depression and the media blames CTE. I wonder why that might be... 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581107/

Mood and behavioral symptoms associated with CTE are most concerning to family members and colleagues and include depression, emotional instability, suicidal thoughts, and problems with impulse control (Stern et al. 2011). McKee et al. (McKee et al. 2009) recently reviewed the clinical symptoms of CTE in 51 neuropathologically confirmed cases of the disease in athletes. In 30% of cases there was a prominent mood disturbance, usually depression (28%). Substance abuse and suicide are common in CTE (Omalu et al. 2011) (Omalu et al. 2010a; Omalu et al. 2010b; Omalu et al. 2010c).

[fretgod99]

1 hour ago, LaserFocus said:

Just finished watching a documentary about Art Schilicter, and the producers felt the need to toss in the former QB's alleged 17 concussions. It was irrelevant to the story of his crimes, but was mentioned anyway.

As mentioned just above, this is sort of the point. How do we know that the concussions are irrelevant? That's the epitome of question-begging. One of the issues with CTE is it can cause issues things like impulse control. Does that mean CTE and concussions made Schlichter a criminal? No, he certainly could have been (and likely was) predisposed to that type of behavior already. However, it is certainly conceivable that CTE contributed appreciably to the development of his gambling addiction and resultant criminal behavior. The entire point is we don't know the extent of the problem this sort of thing can cause and it absolutely needs to be studied further.

Simply saying it's irrelevant misses the ultimate point.

[Buddyboy]

The NFL should do an annual survey of the over all well being of all retired players.

What is the well being of HoF players?

Most broadcasters are former QB's. They are fully cogent. Are they outliers?