NFL official finally admits link between football, trauma and CTE

An NFL official has finally admitted what the football-watching world has believed for a long time: There’s a link between football, head trauma and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known as CTE.

That’s what Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety, said during a roundtable discussion on concussions in front of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce, according to ESPN.

Miller was asked by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a democrat from Illinois, if there was a direct link between football-related head trauma and neurodegenerative diseases, such as CTE.

“The answer to that question is certainly yes,” Miller said.

This was the first time any senior official from the NFL has made the connection, something the league previously had denied. Although the NFL has hedged more lately on the issue since the release of independent studies, documentaries such as the Frontline feature “League of Denial” and the mainstream movie “Concussion,” people connected with the NFL still have failed to make a direct link between concussions and CTE.

Even as recently as the Super Bowl. San Francisco neurosurgeon Dr. Mitch Berger, who heads up the NFL subcommittee on long-term brain injury, claimed that week no direct link between football and CTE had been established.

But Miller cited the work of neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee from Boston University who has diagnosed CTE in the brains of 176 toal people, and in 90 of the 94 former NFL players she had looked at. CTE only can be diagnosed postmortem with brain dissection.

Several former NFL players have been diagnosed with CTE after their deaths, including Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, who committed suicide. Other former players who are still alive and could have signs of CTE have experienced depression, headaches, memory loss and other issues that are linked with repeated head trauma and concussions during their playing days.

Whether this admission has any real effect is difficult to determine. Football is the country’s most popular sport and should remain so for years, but it’s possible that the next generation of young athletes — either by their own choosing or by parental urging — could opt to play other sports with far less incidence of concussions and head trauma.

The NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell essentially bulletproof from litigation after having signed a settlement of a class action lawsuit between the leagie and its retired players, their representatives and family members. But the long-term health of its game, especially with a string of talented players retiring before the age of 30 the past two seasons, remains in doubt.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm