Every year, that special excitement around my house is due to the
return of football. Amid the exciting
plays, the reality is it’s a $9.5 billion industry where men injure themselves
regularly on the job. And it is a
job. Football is a game played by men
who are employed to entertain us with glorious passes, long dashes for the end
zone, and crushing blows. But it’s a job
just the same with high risk of accidents on the job.
A player only has a small window within which he’s able to play
and make a career for himself. During
the average 6 year career span of a football player (or 9 for a first- round
draft pick), these players play hard in order to get big contracts, big
bonuses, and increased playing time. The
more time on field making those big plays, the bigger their contract can swell
and the more endorsements a player can collect.
But with these big plays come serious injuries.
According to the NFL Players Association, 1 in 4 football injuries
will result in a torn knee. And 50% of
NFL players will require knee replacement surgery by the time they’re 50. The cumulative effects of playing football
can result in not only injuries to the spine, back, neck, and knee, but they
can also produce serious head trauma and brain injuries.
Chronic
Traumatic Encephalopathy in Football Players
NFL players will take an average of 2,500 hits to the head. According to the National Institute of
Health’s study published in the Journal
of Athletic Training, each team experiences roughly 200 hits comparable to
“crashing a car into a concrete wall at 40mph” every season. In a career of 6 to 9 years, this can amount
to thousands of potential blows to the head not to mention all the crushing
body blows that cause other debilitating injuries.
But in recent years, former players have organized to shed light
onto the dangers that cumulative head trauma can produce in football
players. "It's not as simple as how
many concussions someone's had -- it's total brain trauma," says Robert
Cantu, MD, co-director of Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic
Encephalopathy. “Linemen who've had almost no concussions have the majority of cases of
chronic traumatic encephalopathy, because on every play they get their brains
rattled, trying to block with their head.”
The cumulative effects of recurring concussions have
given birth to a new field of research into a condition named chronic traumatic
encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that mimics dementia. In both 2010 and 2011, two high profile NFL
suicides reflected severely advanced cases of CTE which contributed to their
deaths.
Symptoms associated with CTE include:
- A foggy mental feeling
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Balance problems
- Abnormal sleep patterns
With national attention on CTE, the NFL has instituted
new guidelines for monitoring players’ concussions and subsequent playing time. And to address growing CTE and dementia
concerns, the league has created the 88 Plan.
Named for Colts’ tight end, John Mackey, who suffered from dementia, the
plan provides for dementia and Alzheimer’s care. Players cared for in a hospital can get
$100,000 year towards their care or $88,000 a year if cared for at home. To date, this plan has paid out almost $19
million.
Worker’s
Comp In the NFL: the Case for Cumulative Trauma
Sometimes, those league payouts won’t pay the medical
bills and can’t pay off the debts you’ve accumulated after a career- ending
injury. NFL players suffer a lot of
trauma as a result of doing their job.
And sometimes, it’s not the big injuries you see on the television
screen that causes suffering. Sometimes
it’s the cumulative traumas and overuse which wears an athlete down.
California is the only state that allows employees to
file cumulative trauma worker’s compensation cases. For this reason, football employees who
experience this cumulative trauma have been filing their cases in California,
even if their team was out of state. Players
file claims on the premise they played significant amounts of games in
California, with injuries that continued to grow worse.
The NFL Players Association claims hundreds of players
have filed worker’s compensation claims in California, hoping to obtain the
benefits they desperately need. Faced with the potential for big payouts in
California, the NFL Players Association reported that it became common for
insurance carriers to proactively contact former NFL players with offers for
small settlements to prevent future high dollar claims.
With hundreds of football claims lined up in
California, it will be an interesting test case to see if the league will begin
offering better benefits to injured players. And it will be interesting to see
if these claims continue to be approved.
Perhaps if enough claims pay out, the league might institute new
stringent safety guidelines to limit playing on recurring injuries.
