Cravens’ thoughts highlight CTE risk
In the media scrum after USC’s Pro Day wrapped up on Wednesday, junior linebacker Su’a Cravens was asked whether he was concerned about his health entering the NFL, a league marred in a concussion crisis with more and more deaths of retired players being linked to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease.
His response was rather unsettling.
“No,” Cravens said to the media. “I know I’m going to the game where I’m going to hit and sometimes you’re going to use your head to hit, and you might get a concussion. That’s what we sign up for. I saw that the NFL passed that they’re not going to be paying any more lawsuits on CTE from now on. So if that’s the case, let’s take helmet-to-helmet penalties out. If we know we’re signing up for that, let’s play. That’s how I look at it.”
Cravens was then asked if he had seen the movie Concussion, starring Will Smith as Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian doctor who discovered CTE. He said he hadn’t and added he wouldn’t see it because “my opinion might change then.”
In times when the public opinion surrounding football is more wary of player safety and the impact of the sport on the brain, Cravens’ stance takes a hard 180.
When simplified, his point makes sense. Players choose to participate in the sport. They decide to enter the draft. They voluntarily sign their name on the contract. They willingly strap on a helmet and pads every Sunday with the understanding that football is a contact sport and that violent hits are as embedded in the game as a touchdown or interception.
Cravens goes even further, advocating to change a common-sense rule that protects against concussions in getting rid of penalties for helmet-to-helmet hits. He is referring to a settlement between the NFL and deceased players with CTE that awarded money only to those who died between 2006 and April 2015, the year the settlement was approved.
It’s a poorly conceived argument: The NFL is no longer legally obligated to compensate for their ignorance of player safety, so therefore let’s soften the rules on violent collisions.
Still, point taken: It’s our game. We sign up for it, so stop interfering.
But it’s not that simple. On Thursday, The New York Times published an investigation tying the NFL to the tobacco industry. In several cases, league owners and officials consulted with executives in Big Tobacco on legal issues and for lobbying advice, and, in 1997, the league hired a lawyer who had previously argued cases for the tobacco industry.
Considering how similar the NFL’s repeated and stubborn denial of a link between football and concussions (they finally admitted to it last week, 11 years after Omalu first published his findings on CTE) were to the tobacco industry’s claims that smoking does not lead to lung disease, the connection between the two institutions comes as little surprise.
In this light, Cravens loses credence. His admission that Concussion might change his opinion on player safety — but at the same time refusing to watch it — is like a smoker picking up a pamphlet outlining the effects of smoking on lung health and tossing it in the trash without looking at it.
Smoking is not against the law, and no one is trying to ban football. The difference is that one activity is taboo while the other is by far the most popular sport in America. I’m not asking that players quit football; just that they should be more informed.
Players need to be better versed on what exactly the effects of football are on their bodies, their brain and their future. They need warnings — like on prescription medication — explicitly stating that playing football could lead to X, Y and Z. They need to know that participating in the sport could cut short their life expectancy and make their final years miserable.
The problem is, with CTE only recently gaining acceptance and the public just starting to become aware of the issues, we still don’t know the full scope of what football does to a player’s health. The onus is on the NFL to take charge and protect its players, but much like the tobacco industry, there is little chance the league would want to do damage its own multi-billion dollar industry.
The connection between the NFL and Big Tobacco leads to another point: The league does not want to become like the tobacco industry. Even if they know the truth, they will do all they can to hide or mitigate it, fearful that it will bring about a mass exodus and public shaming to the sport. Can you imagine the league requiring all 32 teams to tape a sign in the locker rooms reading, “CAUTION: Playing football is dangerous to your health and may cause death from CTE and other diseases”?
That may be extreme, but it’s what the NFL should be doing: informing, educating and updating players on what they know and what they are trying to find out, opening up an honest dialogue between themselves, their players and the public. And, if after that, players like Cravens weigh the risks against the rewards and decide they still want to play football, that’s completely fine.
Eric He is a freshman majoring in print and digital journalism. He is also the sports editor of the Daily Trojan. His column, “Grinding Gears,” runs Fridays.