Frontline (TV Series) League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis (2013) User Reviews

Denying what is widely accepted today as well as what seems like common sense.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 7 January 2015]

"League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis" is an unusual documentary because I would probably assume that just about every sane and objective person would assume that repeated blows to the head would cause permanent injuries. Yet, oddly, until only very, very recently, the NFL strongly denied that repeated concussions might lead to serious long term effects! This episode of "Frontline" outlines the steps that led to research about the long- term effect of playing pro football has on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and ultimately the NFL FINALLY accepting that there MIGHT such a thing in players. However, along the way, the film is interesting because of the intensity of the NFL fighting this research. And, what's most fascinating are the things done by the league that sure make it appear as if they are trying to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.

Overall, this is a very sad, sobering and comprehensive show--one that would probably trouble many parents who have kids playing football. But, as I mentioned above, it's also a lot of common sense and you wonder why it took everyone so long to even consider that there is a serious relationship between playing ball and long term negative effects on the brain.

Money talks and science walks

[Mr-Fusion · 7/10 · 8 September 2017]

The story of Mike Webster is an eye-opener. His was a celebrated career as a gridiron bruiser, and yet such an unbelievable fall from grace after retirement. It's no wonder his story is at the front of this documentary (for that reason), but it's pretty heartbreaking to see his decrepit state in the later part of his life.

An almost harder pill to swallow is the NFL's monolithic negligence with regard to head trauma on the field. It took twenty damn years for anything to finally happen on this matter.

This documentary is characteristic of Frontline - researched, polished - but the subject matter is infuriating. Well worth anyone's time, but know that going in.

7/10

This is a must watch for any sports fan or parent with children interested in sports

[tkchess · 10/10 · 25 October 2013]

I'm not going to lie. When you load up the episode (either on your DVR, OnDemand or on the internet) and you see the length at 1 hr and 53 min, it is hard to visualize yourself watching this to the end. And even more, the first segment which covers the late Steeler great Mike Webster is very slow to materialize and arrive at anything substantive related to the title of this episode. But, once they start getting into Webster's health issues in the late 90's, along with his subsequent disability claims granted by the NFL, you will find yourself unable to stop watching, and stop shaking your head at how bad of a situation exists with the NFL, and just sports in general.

I once was a huge fan of the NFL over 10 years ago, dancing at Eagles touchdowns, making or breaking my week based off the Eagles' performance that past Sunday (or Monday), but I have since become rather disconnected from the NFL. My decline is certainly associated with the Eagles' decline after 2010, but more so to do with the strike that almost occurred in 2011, realizing that this is a game of millionaires versus billionaires not caring about the interests of the people who watch their sport. The NFL's non-profit status certain doesn't help matters, either. I mention all this because prior to watching this episode of Frontline, I still had a sliver of interest in the NFL - mostly because I am a native Philadelphian and Philadelphia is a sports town where you are pretty much out of the loop if you don't follow sports (compare this to DC where the Redskins take second fiddle to politics). But now? After watching this episode of Frontline, I have no interest in the NFL. I don't cheer, I don't watch, I don't follow.

As if you needed any more proof that the National Football League is just another scummy big business that doesn't care about the livelihoods of the people who work for them (which in the NFL's case is a bit more meaningful than just a standard big business bank or phone company or the sort, since directly putting your life at risk is part of the NFL job description), this documentary really exposes the true nature of football and how dirty the NFL is.

The documentary explores how football appears to be a cause of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which causes the victims to lose normal function of their brain, directly causing death by one means or another. CTE is nothing new to the medical practice but, what the physicians were finding, however, was the cases were quite unusual with what they are accustomed to seeing. As someone who has watched the NFL, I was inclined to write this off as "oh these guys were just susceptible to concussions, they had a lot of them, and therefore they got CTE. Thus players who don't get concussions won't get this". But Frontline uncovers how inaccurate this statement is. To top it off, which is the real meat of this documentary, the NFL has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the neurological risks of playing football. I won't go into details here, since I wouldn't be doing the documentary justice, but it is pretty bad, especially when you consider the quiet $760+ million settlement the NFL recently had regarding this issue. People are quick to reply that "oh players know what they are getting into when they play this game, which is why they are paid so much". Unfortunately, after you watching this documentary you will realize that these players really don't, both as a result of the ground-breaking medical discoveries about CTE discussed in the documentary, discoveries which still require a LOT more research, and because of the NFL's absolute refusal to acknowledge the risks outside of the obvious physical risks (bones, muscles, etc.).

After watching this documentary, not only will you have a different perspective on watching the NFL, but you will have an entirely different perspective on sports as a whole. Yes, football is a sport that, by far, presents the highest risk of injury to its players (second I guess would be hockey, as it is full contact, but a distant second since the game is far removed from the days of the Broad Street Bullies), but given the nature of sports and what is presented by Frontline, you can't help but wonder whether any sport as a whole is worth the risk. The human body, and more importantly, the human brain, was not designed for this kind of punishment.

Horrifying in its implications

[Agent10 · 10/10 · 16 January 2022]

Before I watched this documentary, I knew football was a brutal sport. My parents didn't allow me to play the sport mainly out of fear of injury, but later in my adult life finding out we didn't have health insurance while in high school. I guess they were glad I was never good enough to make a sports team. I used to have the thought this was a game meant for tough masculine men, the creme of the crop. Over the last 20 years, it has changed significantly for me.

The spread of untraceable performance enhancing drugs soured my opinion on sports in general. Of course, 250-pound men with the speed of a gazelle and the power of a professional weight lifter with 5% body fat should have set off some alarm bells. Then I started hearing about the widespread epidemic of pain killers and how teams gave out cortisol shots the same way kids eat candy. I guess the final straw was when I saw this documentary. It illustrated a harrowing conclusion: no matter how safe you make the game, it will kill you in some way.

The main conclusion they tried to illustrate is that possibly not all who play the game will suffer CTE, but it is pretty clear these players will get some form of it regardless. Whether you turn into Mike Webster or ultimately become an old man with a bum body and some simple memory problems, its still unclear how prevalent the disease is and intense it can manifest into the body. I think now more people have an idea of whether they should let their kids play or not, but when dealing with potential life changing money, the threat of bodily damage is not as big of a deal for poorer families. The pressure to perform and save your family is a massive tool all pro sports promise.

Aside from the larger societal pressures and perceptions of playing the sport, the fact the NFL did all it could to cover up the link between CTE to playing the game is rather unforgivable. This a league worth 16 billion in profit and growing, and they continue to play games about the health of their players and the potential damage it causes. It's a distasteful stance that has tuned me out to the game over time. I might be more forgiving if they eliminated college football all together and created a farm system league, but we all know that rich men never want to pay for the development of their own product. Other people have to do it for them while they rake in the millions.

Frontline has always been a beacon of good journalism, and while they definitely slanted toward the conclusion that football does destroy the brain, they at least illustrated the cost of these conclusions. Bennett Omalu should be a well know and respected doctor for his work, but of course the NFL smeared him and used racial inclinations to banish him to Northern California. He doesn't even get to continue the research he helped pioneer! To this day, we continue to see stories of football players acting rashly or violently. While the old adage of "violent men play violent sports" used to ring true, the insidious nature of CTE may be a better fall guy. Either way, with the amount of money being thrown around to keep things quiet and keep people silenced, it will ever be a wonder if society will wise up and understand the cost of the game might not be worth the few hours of enjoyment you receive from it each week.

This documentary is better than what "Concussion" and Will Smith could ever think to create

[michiganave_p · 10/10 · 12 November 2022]

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.

Note I don't say concussion, as that term is very misleading to the actual scope of the problem: It is about repeated blows to the head instead. Hence, the main premise of why I have such a problem with the Disney movie.

Instead this documentary follows the path of NYT and ESPN reporting, and also books "Head Games" and "Brain Game", which would have been the best title for this decades long investigation and cover up, incorporating all of these perspectives into the documentary. Even the NFL, to their credit, had their representatives interviewed here.

I thought this did a good job of covering from the beginning what happened to Mike Webster, all the way to Junior Seau's death and the current state of the NFL at the time of release. It is a long documentary, but worth the time to see how potentially damaging this game is to youth, specifically if injuries and bad techniques are prevalent.

When your dream betrays you and the NFL covers it up.

[rich-fouts · 10/10 · 22 February 2023]

The most heartbreaking, tragic finding to come from this documentary? Shattered dreams. But worse, dreams of betrayal since the very dream these players had -- eventually destroyed them.

Many of these players dreamed of becoming football stars from an early age. And, those that played from age 9 or 10 were the most stunning because not surprising, they died at such young ages.

For example, in 2010, Nathan Stiles, just 17 years old, took a hit that would mark his last game due to a history of subconcussive and concussive blows to the head. This poor kid died hours after his high school homecoming football game. He was later diagnosed with Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) a brain condition linked to repeated head injuries and blows to the head. Sadly, CTE can't be diagnosed until death.

Hence, this is not just an NFL crisis (though it was the NFL that refused to acknowledge the link between repeated concussions and degenerative brain disease).

Witness -- Owen Thomas, who at age 21 was discovered to have an advanced case of CTE yet had no history of concussions (Thomas took his own life in April 2010). Thomas was the first non-professional football player to be diagnosed with the disease.

CTE lesions show up in various places on the brain, which manifest its effects differently. As Dr. Ann McKee, a neurologist who studies brains of football players notes, "Different parts of the brain control different tasks, from decision-making and emotional response to controlling anger and violence." So while some players simply drift into diseases such as dementia, others become violent to others or to themselves. For example, suicide victim Aaron Hernandez was just 27 years old when Dr. McKee found he had Stage 3 CTE. She had never seen such severe damage in a brain younger than 46 years old.

Other players that couldn't cope took their own lives (starting with the tragic story of Mike Webster and Terry Long, but include players such as NFL wide receiver Charles Johnson).

49ers player, Phillip Adams, had no previous criminal record or any history of violence. His autopsy revealed an advanced case of CTE.

Junior Seau was a legendary NFL linebacker, who spent most of his career with the San Diego Chargers. Seau tragically took his own life with a gunshot wound to the chest in 2012 when he was just 43 years old (a year later, it was revealed that he suffered from an advanced case of CTE).

Jovan Belcher (age 25) fatally shot his 22-year-old girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, then drove to the Kansas City Chiefs' practice facility and shot himself in the parking lot. After an autopsy, he was diagnosed with CTE.

Kenny McKinley (age 23) was selected by the Denver Broncos in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL Draft. A year later he was found dead in his home from a gunshot wound due to a severe case of depression related to the injuries suffered during his rookie season.

Though this crisis emerged as early as 1994, the NFL refused to take meaningful action. Finally, in 2015-16 the league acknowledged that a problem exists. Throughout the years, their spokespeople, lawyers and of course Roger Goodell, insisted the sample sizes were too small. Tell that to the families of Mike Webster, Terry Long, Phillip Adams, Junior Seau, Kenny McKinley and Jovan Belcher.