he even bragged about it once on an NFL film. and August 29, 2017 Menu. Dr. ANN McKEE: This is something you would never. The league actually never got around to looking at it in any kind of valid way. PETER KEATING: They went after him with missiles I mean, like a nuclear missile strike on a guy's reputation. PETER KEATING, Reporter, ESPN: Goodell is asked point-blank if he stands by the idea that concussions don't hurt pro football players. But from a neurological standpoint, you're going to have you're going to have some brain trauma. PETER KEATING: The threat was that the doctors and trainers, neuropsychologists, maybe owners, maybe commissioners and ex-commissioners, were going to have to testify under oath as to what they knew and when. League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis. ". Knock him out! ANNOUNCER: Here comes Seau! I had to make sure the slides were Mike Webster's slides. He was the right person to do it. And that was just for starters. NARRATOR: And Tagliabue said he was skeptical about the risk from concussions, once calling the controversy the result of "pack journalism.". For FRONTLINE, ESPN and in their own book, they've been investigating how the NFL has handled evidence that football may be destroying the brains of NFL players. And I said, "My God, of course. No one from the NFL talked to. That's the sacrifice that you take to play this game. NARRATOR: Tom and Lisa McHale had three sons. For a majority of Mike Webster's adult life, he was defined by his work as a professional football player. And then he'd lift his shoulders. I remember late at night looking at the brain and thinking, "Just going to knock this one off." In fact, if I want to relax, that's one way I can relax. The MARK FAINARU-WADA: And so ultimately, he committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. This was not something that I made up. NARRATOR: Then one of the most watched television broadcasts in history, a 30-second ad sold for $3 million. When you have force against force, you're going to have injuries. Stand by all cameras. But 27 years and four children later, Mike and Pam Webster's marriage ended. We don't know if concussion in and of itself is what causes the abnormalities. HARRY CARSON, Author, Captain For Life: These players come down with dementia. Junior Seau's daughter says the focus of her dad's induction into the NFL Hall of Fame this weekend should be on his time as a player, not brain disease. "Yes, you won." NEWSCASTER: Congress is looking into the long-term impact of concussions. STEVE YOUNG, San Francisco 49ers, 1984-99: You know, I really worry about my lineman brothers. Rep. JOHN CONYERS: I just asked you a simple question. JOSEPH MAROON, M.D., MTBI Committee, 2007-10: I think we're very early in the evolutionary understanding of CTE. PETER KEATING, Reporter, ESPN: The closer you look, the less this holds up. Maybe 10 minutes passed, and he looked at me with the same puzzled expression and asked the same sequence of questions. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Film says . It was happening to every player in every collision sport. At the time, it was something the league would not admit publicly. The skin on his forehead had built up almost a shelf of scar tissue that from the continuous pounding of his head into other people. So not only was it an issue for my clients, it was a huge societal issue. STEVE FAINARU, FRONTLINE/ESPN: They call him, like, the designated brain chaser, like that's his job, to go out and get the brains. The threat was that the league was going to have to pay out in the billions with a B, not millions with an M. NARRATOR: About one third of NFL veterans, including some of the biggest former stars, claimed the NFL had fraudulently concealed the danger to their brains. ANNOUNCER: Let's give him a big round of applause! NARRATOR: Dr. Ira Casson and others on the committee expressed their skepticism that playing football was the cause of CTE. But what you should know now is your child could develop a brain injury as a result of playing football. ANNOUNCER: A major FRONTLINE investigation of what the NFL knew and when it knew it. That brain is normal. NARRATOR: Over the years, he became increasingly confused. LEGAL AIDE: OK, representing the National Football League will be Paul Clement. I think I have more than enough reasons to believe that I'm going to be fighting this myself. It just I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. NARRATOR: To her, it may be the beginnings of an epidemic. And I think the NFL has given everybody 765 million reasons why you don't want to play football. August 22, Aaron Hernandez Found To Have Had "Severe" Case of CTE, NFL Acknowledges a Link Between Football, CTE, What the NFL's New Concussion Numbers Don't Answer. NARRATOR: His second in command and closest aide, Roger Goodell, took over. Big pileup! Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. NARRATOR: Once one of Pittsburgh's greatest football heroes, Webster began living out of a pickup truck. To lead it, he chose Elliot Pellman, the New York Jets team doctor, a firm believer that concussions were not a serious problem. He took on this battle for the right reasons. MARK FAINARU-WADA: Where do we want to announce that? It's you know, it's a way of life. NARRATOR: To outsiders, the choice of Pellman was unusual. I'll bring them to you. Dr. HENRY FEUER: She was seeing only those that were in trouble, and we know that there are thousands roaming around that are not having problems. Superagent Leigh Steinberg saw it firsthand. No. Hell, I don't know what I'm saying. NARRATOR: Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants, Harry Carson went to war with Mike Webster. Those things seem to happen around 1,000 to 1,500 times a year. MARK FAINARU-WADA: They were saying, "Football caused this. My boyfriend's been shot! I'm, like, "What does that mean? Our house is getting foreclosed. Depends on who you listen to. He fumbled the ball! Like, he didn't have that stamina physically. It's been removed from the upper spinal cord. NARRATOR: It was a scientific study of former players commissioned by the National Football League itself. Steve Young apparently knocked cold, knocked out cold, walks off the field. They would not. And so the image of the situation to most fans is that the NFL got taken to task for the concussion problem, OK? They insinuated I was not practicing medicine, I was practicing voodoo. But this time, it was the league saying it. NARRATOR: The admission would not be made public until years later, when it was discovered by the Fainaru brothers. ANNOUNCER: He's at the 40! Dr. ANN McKEE: I'm up against a lot of doubters. You love 'em wild and woolly, and you're seeing it now. Michael Kirk & Mike Wiser and Steve Fainaru & Mark Fainaru-Wada. We strong we strongly deny those allegations that we withheld any information or misled the players. That's the way Mike Webster would say it, too. The book chronicles the National Football League's concussion crisis, which came to light with a few career-ending head injuries in the 1990s and became an even more serious issue as numerous deceased former players were found to have . [laughs] So we continued talking, talking. Now he had heard firsthand how serious some respected scientists thought the issue was. CEL 2103. Not long after her trip to Tampa, Dr. McKee received a phone call. STEVE YOUNG, San Francisco 49ers, 1987-99: And I describe it as the moment of impact, the moment when you actually have to go tackle somebody, it's really a game of will. There's something something doesn't match." CHRIS NOWINSKI, Author of the Book/Film Head Games: I'd be a fool not to worry about CTE personally. MARK LOVELL, Ph.D., Neuropsychologist: I look back on some of the papers, yeah, I think I could have done it differently. You see the knee right there, knee right on his helmet. NARRATOR: Nowinski began to have violent nightmares and migraine headaches. Midfield! How many NFL players are suffering concussions every season? LEIGH STEINBERG, Sports Agent: It became an entertainment show. APA radio and television citation is almost similar with how you cite a book. CORRESPONDENT: With early onset of Alzheimer's? Is he from outer space? BOB FITZSIMMONS, Webster's Attorney: The thing that struck me the most was how intelligent Mike was, and the problem was that he just couldn't continue those thought patterns for longer than a 30-second period, or a minute or two minutes. NEWSCASTER: talked about NFL owners as being like tobacco executives, NEWSCASTER: but I think it's seen as being plausible, NEWSCASTER: the NFL, similar to what the tobacco industry engaged in. And they're going to be football players. NARRATOR: But now the league might face huge lawsuits and a tarnished image if Dr. McKee's findings about CTE held up. What did the NFL know and when did it know it? All those parameters are removed. There's "The science is still emerging and we're really going to try and do long-term studies on this. I look at brains. Reality therapy 9. PAUL TAGLIABUE, NFL Commissioner: [Sports panel discussion, December 1994] Concussions I think is, you know, one of these pack journalism issues, frankly. That means denial. There was dismissiveness on his part. ALAN SCHWARZ: I read on the wire that the NFL had given a million dollars to Boston University. And they were trying to fight back. And one of his colleagues said, "It's Mike Webster. NARRATOR: Fitzsimmons pulled together Webster's complicated medical history. HARRY CARSON: And so I have to meet force with force. Her husband, Ralph Wenzel, had played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. ELEANOR PERFETTO, Wife of Ralph Wenzel: As the disease progressed, he went from being ill but fairly functional to getting to the point where he could no longer, you know, dress or feed himself. If they got knocked out and went back into the same contest, it didn't matter. pbs frontline special league of denial apa citationdeny the witch 9th edition rulesdeny the witch 9th edition rules Said, "Oh, he's another NFL player. Mike Wiser. What prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate over 150 unsolved civil rights era killings? It wasn't a supposition. No account yet? He's so young. We're talking about a nefarious injury, one that you never feel until it's too late. NARRATOR: What she saw was that telltale protein, tau. Next available on Thursday 9 a.m.10 p.m. Find information on spaces, staff, and services. View film. If Will Smith's character in the upcoming movie "Concussion" seems familiar, it might be because you've already met the real Dr. Bennet Omalu in FRONTLINE's "League of Denial.". JANE LEAVY, Author, The Woman Who Would Save Football: She's a lightening rod because people see her as the woman out to destroy football as we know it. I was really scared. : We don't know who is at risk for it. STEVE FAINARU: There's almost a Darwinian quality about the NFL. NARRATOR: The NFL retirement board had no choice. How to cite "League of denial" by Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru APA citation. He looked beat up. NARRATOR: For Dr. McKee and others, it raised the obvious question. I had, you know, a lot of we had a lot of mutual friends, spoke to people at his foundation and just said, you know, "We would like every other case, we would like to review this case, if you want.". NARRATOR: Harry Carson has been studying the matter since he retired 25 years ago. He's up. NARRATOR: But what Otto and others do not know is whether football has also caused injuries they cannot see, the result of what they called getting their bell rung. GINA SEAU, Ex-Wife: We didn't know why he was detached or forgetting, or why he would bark at us for nothing or we didn't know. NARRATOR: Now Goodell was fully in charge of the league's handling of the concussion crisis. ANNOUNCER: An awesome physical team were the Steelers today! DOCUMENT: "indicate that his disability is the result of head injuries he suffered as a football player.". You only get one brain. And the answer was, and I'm virtually quoting, "Research has not shown that there are any long-term consequences to concussions in NFL players as long as each injury is treated properly. NARRATOR: But away from the cameras, the two sides were engaged in tense court-ordered negotiations. NARRATOR: And according to Dr. McKee, there was something else, something familiar about the way the NFL committee was acting. NARRATOR: Now Dr. McKee was joining a team of researchers to build on Dr. Omalu's discovery. And it became part of the popular jargon, you know, "He knocked him silly. League of denial : the NFL's concussion crisis. He wasn't the same person. And what I like is he wants to get up off the ground. ALAN SCHWARZ: They refused to listen to people who didn't share their opinions about the research, and it was very much, you know, putting a stake in the ground saying everybody else is wrong. And Webster felt he'd never received the acknowledgment that his years in the NFL had caused his problems. NARRATOR: A number of prominent scientists believe she has overstated the dangers of playing football. ALAN SCHWARZ: While we were talking, he said "It's clear that there are long-term consequences to concussions in NFL players." I think McKee uses the word "crisis." NARRATOR: On the other side, the NFL's lawyers. I looked again. Don't watch the dramatized version of what happened, as this is the original documentary based off the book of the NFL's coverup of head injuries. NARRATOR: Omalu shared his evidence with leading brain researchers, who confirmed his findings. MARK FAINARU-WADA: The last thing the league wanted to be dealing with in that moment was the analogy to big tobacco. NARRATOR: The NFL would not publicly sit down with Dr. Omalu. NARRATOR: Aikman's concussion was bad enough that he could not return to the game. Second Initial if given. ANNOUNCER: Down he goes! Jim Gilmore He suffered countless head injuries. NARRATOR: In Pittsburgh at just about this time, Mike Webster's brain tissue was being examined. Now two former Steelers who had gone crazy about the same time. Dr. BENNET OMALU: That was what I thought, in my naive state of mind. ANNOUNCER: a sight that is the last thing in the world the 49ers would want to see. BOB FITZSIMMONS, Webster's Attorney: Mike was a legend and a hero. Dr. BENNET OMALU: I said, "Let me fix this brain. LISA McHALE: I remember so clearly him looking at me and this is going back, you know, in the final months of his life and saying, "Lisa, when I look in your eyes, all I see is disappointment.". New York, NY: MBCS. Having said that, I still think it's something that we need to be concerned about. Probably the most hurtful charge that's been leveled against her is that she's crossed a line from scientist to activist. ROBERT CANTU, M.D., Neurosurgeon, Boston University: If you're going to put together a blue ribbon committee to study brain trauma, it should have as its chair somebody who has that as a background, either a neurologist, neurosurgeon, neuropathologist, preferably a clinician. NARRATOR: At 43, his business empire had imploded. CHRIS NOWINSKI: Everyone, thank you so much for your time, and we're available if you want to stick around. 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