Dave Pear's Blog

Well, the NFL and the NFLPA and everyone else in between are spinning out a lot of press before Super Bowl weekend so we may as well also post up a couple of new videos to keep things balanced.
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Bob Costas had Dr. Daniel Amen as a guest on his Costas Tonight Super Bowl Edition Thursday night. Dr. Amen talked about his clinical brain study of 135 retired football studies and what he learned about the long-term effects of brain injuries. (Dr. Amen’s segment starts at the 44-minute mark.) Bob Costas notes that they also invited the NFL to send in one of their experts but got no response. (You can read our post about the Amen Study from 2010 by clicking HERE.) This episode also featured several retired players including Tony Dorsett and Rodney Harrison, all discussing their own experiences and fears about concussions. And the tide keeps turning…
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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Wednesday, 2 May 2011
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BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
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I didn’t know Junior Seau although I met him on the day he was drafted into the National Football League in 1990 and probably interviewed him after a football game a few times more. From all accounts, he was a fearsome presence on the football field; a killer who at times could control a game defensively.
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But Junior Seau didn’t live to be a ripe old age and until an autopsy is performed and a police investigation is complete, there is no need to speculate about the circumstances surrounding Seau’s death other than he was found dead of a shotgun wound on the morning of May 2, 2012 about 22 years after the San Diego Chargers football team called his name at the annual National Football League event.
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The gun wound should strike a nerve among former players. It seems that is becoming a way of life and death among NFL alum suffering from life altering injuries that probably came from years and years of absorbing hits on the football field. People do hear about former NFL players but there seems to be no tracking of high school and college players who years after their football careers ended killed themselves.
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Over the past few weeks, there have been some amazingly honest discussions during live NFL game broadcasts. So what’s been different from past coverage? Mainstream NFL announcers and commentators have begun to bring up those elephants in the room. And slowly, the conversation has also started shifting to include retired players who are now being vindicated by a growing wave of documented cases and scientific data on the long-term effects of concussions as a direct result of their past careers on the field. While concussions have always been a part of this physical sport, almost everyone also agrees that any dramatic changes or rules will likely make the game something completely different from what it has been.

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