The NFL Still Won’t Tackle Brain Trauma at the Super Bowl

The NFL Still Won’t Tackle Brain Trauma at the Super Bowl

"To recap: Berger won’t say there’s a link between football and CTE, because the word “association” is fairer description of the relationship. But he can’t for sure say there’s an association, even though he recognizes former NFL players have the disease. The semantics dance is maddening. In fairness to Berger, however, he never denies that football-related brain trauma can lead to CTE or any cognitive disease. He doesn’t deny football’s risks. Further, admitting a link, or even an association, between football and CTE could put the NFL at risk. “In a legal sense, that could be the equivalent of admitting causation,” says Marc Edelman, associate professor of law at Baruch College in New York City.

Still, evading easy questions hurts the NFL’s credibility. Of course football is linked to CTE; Boston University researchers have diagnosed CTE in 90 of 94 brains of ex-NFL players they’ve have examined. As the commissioner himself once said, banging your head won’t help your brain."