Originally Posted by
wphamilton
I haven't stated a premise, but the facts I've brought up are correct. Regardless, these pros haven't been playing pro ball for 25-30 years, so what players were told 25 years ago hasn't much to do with players now being misinformed. Even so, I know first-hand what we did know 30 years ago about concussions, because I knew it then
It is not drastically different. We were very much aware of the likelihood of losing cognitive abilities from concussions.
You are missing the point, it's not the period they played - 15 years as is the case with Montana, but that it's been 20-30 YEARS since he (and others) retired (20 in Montana's case).
This is a disease that typically manifests itself upwards of a decade after an athlete would have been engaged in multiple brain trauma hits. It's only been recently (6-10 years) that this disease has been recognized as a real problem for professional football players as well as a host of other athletes who can have brain hits as part of their career.
Have they been mis-informed ?, probably not the players of 15 -20 years ago and earlier, as it's questionable and hard to prove the NFL knew the scope of the problem. But no question the NFL has been hiding the issue for the past 10 years. Both the NFL as well as the players union were roundly criticized for the 1 billion settlement in 2014 but many lawyers for the union and players were looking for money in a hurry to help players suffering who otherwise had no other financial resources to get treatment. One clause of the settlement had this "
Players diagnosed in the future with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to repeated blows to the head, will not be covered by the settlement."
My attitude is the NFL got away cheap and should be paying out the wazoo.
WiKi has a decent article. Just type in CTE