GMEN HQ » CTE

Good From Seau’s Death?

georgemaurer — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:00:33 +0000

Junior Seau’s suicide last week was an absolute tragedy. How can someone who has so much, also have so many internal demons? Seau was rich, famous and admired by people around the world. He was the kind of man others wished they could be. How can such a person reach a moment so completely and utterly devoid of hope?

Some blame the sport which made Seau the man he was. His death has re-ignited the discussion about brain injury and its connection to dementia and depression. Many connect Seau’s suicide to former Chicago Bears all-pro safety Dave Duerson who also killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest.

Duerson’s final wish was to have his brain studied for evidence of trauma. Boston University researchers found plenty. According to the New York Times, a neuropathologist found “indisputable evidence” of chronic traumatic encephalopathy without “evidence of any other disorder.” In plain English, the researchers believe they found a connection between Duerson’s football related brain injuries and his declining mental state. Duerson is just one of many. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/sports/football/03duerson.html

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Junior Seau, Could Tradegedy Have Been Averted?

mlav70 — Thu, 03 May 2012 02:48:19 +0000

Tom McHale,Terry Long, Andre Waters, Ray Easterling, Dave Duerson and now Junior Seau. We all love the big hits on ESPN. Hear the crack of helmets. See the violent bone jarring hits every Sunday. But lets all ask this, what if that was your child or loved one out there. Would we still love those hits? Especially as we find out more and more on chronic head injuries. Medical science has shown a link between TBI(Traumatic Brain Injury) CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) and suicide. And this last incidence of Seau committing suicide just gives more credibility to that. The question is could this Tradegedy has been averted? Could the players association and the NFL do more for these players who have had multiple concussions and head injuries? With 100′s of former NFL players and their families filing lawsuits of negligence against the NFL for failure to do more about these head injuries, when will enough be enough. How many of those players will committ suicide. When will their former employee step up and get them help? When will the league do more to seriously address this topic? Are the helmets players wear truly the safety design possible? Or are they still using the hard plastic shell design to enhance the sounds of collisions? Who is going to protect these players from themselves? How many more players have to committ suicide before the league will actually do something? These questions are just questions to us. But for the modern day gladiators that entertain us every Sunday from Sept to Jan. They are an inevitability. RIP Junior.

New York Giants: Operation Concussion

Salvatore Stefanile — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:45:48 +0000

This can be your brain from playing in the NFL. (Picture credit: NickVeasy.com)

The story of the New York Giants deliberately trying to hurt and perhaps give concussion-prone San Francisco 49ers’ Kyle Williams another concussion to knock him out of last Sunday’s NFC Championship game has been already reported everywhere over the internet and first came to light from New York Mag’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells. But I still wanted to talk about it on GMEN HQ.

In his piece, Wallace-Wells shared a couple of pretty alarming quotes from some Giants who talked about a strategy of targeting Williams, who has suffered numerous concussions in the past…

Jacquian Williams said: “The thing is, we knew he had four concussions, so that was our biggest thing was to take him outta the game.”

Williams down and out after taking a hit. (Picture from bangstyle.com)

Devin Thomas mentioned that Williams has, “had a lot of concussions,” and that the Giants, “were just like, ‘We gotta put a hit on that guy.’” Thomas also singled out Tyler Sash who, “did a great job hitting him early and he looked kind of dazed when he got up. I feel like that made a difference and he coughed it up.”

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