In 1981, Dwight Clark gave the NFL one of its iconic moments with “The Catch,” sending the 49ers into their first Super Bowl and marking the beginning of a golden era of professional football.
Now the man who has been one of the game’s greatest ambassadors is asking the NFL to reciprocate. His heartbreaking disclosure Sunday that he has ALS was accompanied with a request to the NFL to work with the league’s players to “make the game of football safer, especially as it relates to head trauma.”
This should be the No. 1 issue before the NFL, but don’t hold your breath.
The league will continue tinkering with its rules to discourage the most brutal helmet collisions and reduce the number of concussions. But it isn’t doing enough to get to the bottom of football’s relationship to brain damage.
It’s important not only for today’s players but also for parents deciding if their kids should travel the gridiron path.
The NFL has known since 2012 that pro-football players have four times greater risk of dying from ALS or Alzheimer’s disease.
Since 2012, the league has raked in close to $50 billion in revenue and expects to draw a record $17 billion in 2017. It has paid Commissioner Roger Goodell an estimated $150 million for his services over the past five years.
How much has the NFL allocated for brain research on the consequences of repeated blows to the head during practices and games? It donated $30 million in 2012 to the National Institutes of Health, and an additional $40 million last fall for research into head injuries.
The league was roundly criticized in 2015 for a blatant attempt to influence who would conduct a $16 million study of brain disease in former NFL and college football players. The NIH eventually decided to move forward with the study without using any of the NFL money.
The league is terrified of the damage further research might do to the sport’s future and of the potential liability for failing to disclose the risks.
Clark says he doesn’t know for sure that football caused him to contract ALS, “but I certainly suspect it did.”
Football players, coaches and their fans need to know — and so do parents considering whether their children should play. They can’t expect the NIH to come to the rescue: President Trump is proposing a 20 percent cut to its budget.
The only way the NFL will act is if fans and government officials apply enough pressure for the league to take action.
We’ll know the NFL is serious about understanding football’s connection to brain injuries when it starts spending at least as much money on brain research every year as it does on the NFL commissioner’s salary.
Bay Area News Group
