Brain damaged in the NFL.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports

Do we really want to know how the National Football League makes its sausage?

That's the question that came to mind when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University recently released a comprehensive report showing that eighty-seven out of ninety-one former NFL players tested positive for the debilitating brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which has been linked to concussions.

The study in no way means that 96 percent of former players will develop the disease. This was a self-selected group. The subjects' families chose to have their loved ones autopsied based upon their behavior at the end of their lives. However, the number was shocking even to those expecting the worst.

Here is the kicker: The study found the disease in 79 percent of all football players examined--even if they only played at the high school or collegiate level. This means that people who do not necessarily play the sport with the biggest, strongest, and fastest players on Earth--but who just receive the ordinary "sub-concussive" hits on every play--are also susceptible to chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

This story comes on the heels of an ugly soap opera at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which tried to block the late Hall of Famer Junior Seau's daughter, Sydney, from making a speech at her father's induction. Every honoree gets to choose someone to make that speech and it was Seau's wish that it be Sydney. But the Seau family filed a suit against the NFL after Seau's 2012 suicide. The twenty-year veteran shot himself in the heart so that his brain could be more easily examined by doctors.

The NFL is in a PR crisis over the fact that science and discovery are clearly not its friend. The more we know, the worse it looks for the long-term health of the sport.

For years, the league fronted a now discarded and utterly embarrassing "Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee" that published medical-sounding proclamations declaring "no NFL player" had ever been diagnosed with brain damage as a result of concussions. The committee also proclaimed that "professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis."

This strategy drew comparisons of the NFL with the tobacco industry...