Shout out to a reader of the blog for sending this my way via the Boston Globe. The NFL Players Association and Harvard are teaming up on a decade long, $100 million "accelerated research initiative" aiming to "transform the health of active and retired players within five years." This is a great step forward and seems far more aggressive than the NFL's pledge of $1 million to Boston University's work on CTE.
I would like to have seen the NFL and the NFLPA get on the same page with this, but perhaps there are political and litigious reasons that didn't happen. As big as this investment is and as great a step it is, it fails to address one big thing: How do we make concussions and head trauma less common?
In the long term for the league to last beyond the predicted 30 years it has left, we're going to need to prevent these injuries from being an issue. It's an excellent thing to know research is being done to treat those already afflicted or at rick of affliction, but until the injuries that cause the affliction become rarer the league continues to travel down an uncertain road.
No comments:
Post a Comment