The Future of Football: NYTimes Links Big Tobacco with NFL Concussion Study

EricFeczko

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bigq said:
 
 
 
I was responding to a comment further up in the thread that indicated that the effect of thousands of minor collisions is the problem in football and I was taking exception to categorizing playing football as subjecting oneself to minor collisions.  Minor is the wrong term and it understates the violent nature of the game.  I have been a huge football fan since a very early age and I think I always will however I would never allow my kids to play because of the undeniably high risk of brain injury.
 
I do agree that some people are more susceptible to brain trauma than others and due to the cumulative effects of concussions, someone who has already been subject to concussion events is likely at higher risk for future concussion events even from minor collisions.
 
The comment I was responding to was:
 

"The danger in football is cumulative. The risk of serious brain injury on "any given play" is lower than it is in baseball. The effects of thousands of minor collisions is the "problem" in football."
soxfan121 Posted 02 October 2015 - 02:44 PM

 
My apologies, I misunderstood your initial post then. I absolutely agree with what you are saying here, and the bolded perfectly captures the nuance of the issue.
 
 
OilCanShotTupac said:
One of the really big fucking heavy Wham-o frisbees, especially if it hit a guy who wasn't looking and didn't brace or move...sure, I could see it. Them things is fucking anvils.

They don't call em Wham-O for nothin.
It was one of those small, light frisbees. The person had a history of concussions prior to the incident and was hit in the back of the head.

 
 

TheYaz67

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Cam’ron Matthews, a junior at Alto High School in Texas, has died after being injured during a high school football game Friday night.
Matthews becomes the sixth high school football player to die since early September.
Matthews collapsed on the sideline Friday evening late in the first half with what was initially reported to be a seizure. According to a witness, he told teammates in a huddle before a kickoff that he felt dizzy. The witness did not know whether Matthews was on the field for the touchdown that preceded the kickoff.
He was airlifted to a hospital in Tyler, Texas, and was listed in critical condition early Saturday afternoon.
He was pronounced dead shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern. A cause of death has not yet been determined.
 
Well, "only" five HS football players died last year, so sadly ahead of that pace this year already with a few more weeks to go.....
 

mauf

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djbayko

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maufman said:
The link is broken.

When I tried to find the page using Google, the first page turned up a 9-year old bat boy who was killed in the past few weeks, as well as a 9-year old killed in an ATV accident. Kids die all the time from being kids.
Link works for me.

I don't see any information in that article which would lead me to believe the death is directly attributable to football.
 

Devizier

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maufman said:
as well as a 9-year old killed in an ATV accident. Kids die all the time from being kids.
I know life in the sticks is different, but letting a 3rd grader cruise around on what is essentially a 4-wheeled motorcycle seems like a really bad idea.
 

Kevin Youkulele

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Dogman

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On the 60 Minutes report, I could tell Goodell was a lying, cunt-faced douchebag because his lips were moving.
Be better than this. In fact, be much better than this.

I hate the guy too but the use of this word is vile and derogatory and unwelcome on this board. I'm quite certain you can creatively describe Goodell without offending members of our board.
 

Bowhemian

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I coach HS football. I can tell you that yes, we have had kids not play due to concussion risks. However, the death of the sport is greatly exaggerated. We had 45 kids 2 years ago. Last year there were 51. This season we had 55, 19 of which were freshmen. We are expecting another 18-20 freshmen next year. Maybe the news just hasn't made it north into NH yet. Class enrollment numbers haven't changed much over the past 3 years that I am aware of. We do have a great youth football program in town, which definitely helps.

With that said, we had 3 kids go down with concussions this season. All 3 have a history, 1 kid had 1 prior, and 2 had 2 prior concussions.
 

soxhop411

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Two more WIth CTE
“@JohnBranchNYT: BREAKING: Earl Morrall, 2-time Super Bowl quarterback who died in 2014, had Stage 4 CTE. Updating our Ken Stabler/CTE story now.”
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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Two more WIth CTE
“@JohnBranchNYT: BREAKING: Earl Morrall, 2-time Super Bowl quarterback who died in 2014, had Stage 4 CTE. Updating our Ken Stabler/CTE story now.”
People have managed to spin brain damage as mainly affecting linemen and hard hitting LB's. Just part of the game.

QB's having it is a gamechanger. The first big name offensive star - Stabler doesn't apply, although the name recognition is there - is going to push this over the edge and will force the NFLs hand. That's not a question of if, but when.
 

Phil Plantier

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The New York Review of Books has a good overview, including a personal quandary by the author on whether to keep watching or not.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/11/the-collision-sport-on-trial/

Rebecca Carpenter had spent years trying to understand her father, Lew, who grew up near the cotton fields of the Arkansas Delta, started as a running back at the University of Arkansas, and became a football lifer, ten years as a player, a coach for thirty-one more. On the field, Rebecca said, “he was beautiful, and I mean really, really beautiful,” but at home his anger and withdrawal had cast a shadow over her childhood and later became so pronounced that his wife, after a long and loving marriage, felt no choice but to leave him.

When he died at age seventy-eight in 2010, his family received an inquiry from Ann McKee, the neuropathologist in Boston. She had read Carpenter’s obituary, saw that he ostensibly had never suffered a concussion during his career, and asked whether his brain could be examined as a control in the CTE studies. The family agreed, and months later Rebecca was in Boston looking through a microscope at the brown strands of tau protein that had riddled her father’s diseased brain tissue. McKee said to her, “On a scale of one to four, four being the worst, your father was a four.”
 

Hoodie Sleeves

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People have managed to spin brain damage as mainly affecting linemen and hard hitting LB's. Just part of the game.

QB's having it is a gamechanger. The first big name offensive star - Stabler doesn't apply, although the name recognition is there - is going to push this over the edge and will force the NFLs hand. That's not a question of if, but when.

I still think you're overstating the public perception of this - people on football analytics forums are concerned, and think the game is doomed, but the vast majority of the demographic the NFL is aiming at is whining about the "wussification of the game" - football will survive for the same reason that cigarettes are still a $40B industry - if the consequences aren't soon, they don't really exist in most people's minds - and they won't happen to you.
 

bigq

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I still think you're overstating the public perception of this - people on football analytics forums are concerned, and think the game is doomed, but the vast majority of the demographic the NFL is aiming at is whining about the "wussification of the game" - football will survive for the same reason that cigarettes are still a $40B industry - if the consequences aren't soon, they don't really exist in most people's minds - and they won't happen to you.
Sure smoking is still a big $ industry however the % of smokers in the US has plummeted in recent decades.
Football's popularity will likely decrease as the long term health effects become more apparent to the public.
 

mauf

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Wait, we're comparing the NFL to an industry that sells a product that is more addictive than heroin and kills a few hundred thousand Americans per year?

Boxing is a better parallel, but even there I don't think the parallel suggests that a precipitous decline in interest is imminent. The decline of boxing to its current fringe-sport status took decades to occur and was driven in large part by corruption and short-sighted marketing (on a scale far worse than anything Goodell has done). To the extent safety concerns played a role, the loss of elite athletes to other sports was much more damaging than public revulsion at the bloodsport -- the fight business was still doing quite well as recently as the 90s, when they still had marquee fights to promote. Maybe parents will start steering their kids away from football in large numbers, but for now the phenomenon seems mostly isolated to tonier areas of the Northeast and West that don't produce many pro players; in its regional hotbeds, the sport seems as strong at ever at all levels.
 

Harry Hooper

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There may well continue to be parents perfectly willing to let their kids play football, but what happens when schools can't get affordable liability insurance?
 

mauf

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There may well continue to be parents perfectly willing to let their kids play football, but what happens when schools can't get affordable liability insurance?
What practical liability do schools face? Catastrophic injuries aren't likely to become more common, few individuals will be able to prove that chronic problems that emerge later in life were attributable to high-school football, and even if you somehow surmount the proof problems, you have to prove the school or its employees were negligent. And that's not even getting into the additional protections that public schools enjoy in most states.
 

trs

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What practical liability do schools face? Catastrophic injuries aren't likely to become more common, few individuals will be able to prove that chronic problems that emerge later in life were attributable to high-school football, and even if you somehow surmount the proof problems, you have to prove the school or its employees were negligent. And that's not even getting into the additional protections that public schools enjoy in most states.
I certainly agree, but that also ignores (perhaps rightfully so) the possibility of finer-point diagnosis of brain issues in the future. I'm certainly not a doctor (or a lawyer), so perhaps this is a medical impossibility, but is it feasible in the next 15-20 years medical diagnoses will be able to better pinpoint when damage to the brain was sustained? I get it about the need to prove negligence, and that might be an insurmountable stumbling block to any litigation, but it would be interesting to see what would happen to a 40 year old with severe damage to his brain that is shown medically to have occurred 25 years earlier, especially a 40 year old man who never played football after high school.
 

johnmd20

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Wait, we're comparing the NFL to an industry that sells a product that is more addictive than heroin and kills a few hundred thousand Americans per year?
And, yet, the comparison isn't horrible. Football will be like smoking. Less people will play, on average, but it will still thrive as a viable sport. It comes down to the money. There is so much money in football for so many people. Just like there is a lot of money in tobacco.

Boxing fell apart because of corruption, the brutality, and the lack of opportunities for riches on a massive scale. As always, follow the money.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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I still think you're overstating the public perception of this - people on football analytics forums are concerned, and think the game is doomed, but the vast majority of the demographic the NFL is aiming at is whining about the "wussification of the game" - football will survive for the same reason that cigarettes are still a $40B industry - if the consequences aren't soon, they don't really exist in most people's minds - and they won't happen to you.
Nope. I'm one of the few people on this board that really doesn't give a shit about this problem. They all get their money, I get my entertainment/bloodlust. It sucks for these guys, but they aren't my problem.

With that said, I played football in high school, and I'd say that a relatively large portion of guys that used to play won't let their kids play, which is a different tune then just a few years ago. I fall in that category.

This is now a narrative. It headlines evening news, is the center of blockbuster movies, and even NFL water carriers like ESPN talk about it weekly. This conversation is not going away and the volume will continue to increase.
 

Hoodie Sleeves

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With that said, I played football in high school, and I'd say that a relatively large portion of guys that used to play won't let their kids play, which is a different tune then just a few years ago. I fall in that category..
Relatively large?

Here's the NFHS numbers on high school football participation. They're going up right now, not down.
2012 was a bit of a trough, but they've gone back up and exceeded their highest points again. Youth football is growing.

http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/ParticipationStatics.aspx/

Like Maufman said - the states that are worried about this don't produce all that many pros (or even college players).
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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Relatively large?

Here's the NFHS numbers on high school football participation. They're going up right now, not down.
2012 was a bit of a trough, but they've gone back up and exceeded their highest points again. Youth football is growing.

http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/ParticipationStatics.aspx/

Like Maufman said - the states that are worried about this don't produce all that many pros (or even college players).
First, the states that worry about this are generally ahead of the curve on setting cultural trends.

Secondly, last year, Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia produced the most top 100 recruits.

Florida - In 3 of the last 4 years -excluding 2012 where there was a drastic drop in participation - Florida has had between 40,000 and 41,000 boys play football. Thats stagnant, not "going up right now." In those same 4 years, Florida's population has grown by 4%.

California - In the last 9 years, California has had between 102,000 - 104,000 boys play football. That's stagnant, not "going up right now." In those same 9 years, California's population has grown by 6%.

Louisiana - In the last 4 years, Louisiana has had 20,000 boys play football every year. That's stagnant, not "going up right now." In those same 4 years, Lousiana's population has only risen by 1%.

Texas - In the last last 13 years, Texas has had between 157,000 - 163,000 boys play football every year. That's stagnant, not "going up right now." In those same 13 years, Texas' population has gone up nearly 20%.

Georgia - In the last 8 years, Georgia has had 32,000 boys play football every year. That's stagnant, not "going up right now." In those same 8 years, Georgia's population has risen 6%.

I have no idea how you consider this to be "growing", but I'm not seeing it. This, also, doesn't take into account the younger generation of players who are much less set in their ways then the current crop of 40-50 year old parents. The numbers are stagnating now. Let's see what happens over the next 10-15 years.
 

SumnerH

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The first big name offensive star - Stabler doesn't apply, although the name recognition is there - is going to push this over the edge and will force the NFLs hand.
I dunno. Frank Gifford was an MVP, 8 time pro-bowler, and pretty recognizable post-NFL name, and he's been conclusively diagnosed. And there are some pretty huge offensive names still living (e.g. Brett Favre) who have complained about CTE-like symptoms, though they won't be diagnosed conclusively until after death.
 

SumnerH

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Boxing fell apart because of corruption, the brutality, and the lack of opportunities for riches on a massive scale. As always, follow the money.
Boxing's also a case where the business model is basically determined by people with short-term interests; Mike Tyson (quite rightly) has no vested interest in growing the sport moving forward by having it on free TV to get new fans, when he can make more money short-term by fighting PPVs.
 

Marciano490

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Boxing's also a case where the business model is basically determined by people with short-term interests; Mike Tyson (quite rightly) has no vested interest in growing the sport moving forward by having it on free TV to get new fans, when he can make more money short-term by fighting PPVs.
This is closer to the truth. Boxing has too many cross-interests involved. It needs one central governing body, or one main one at least, like the UFC that makes fights happens, banishes crappy referees, and promotes stars in the sport.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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I dunno. Frank Gifford was an MVP, 8 time pro-bowler, and pretty recognizable post-NFL name, and he's been conclusively diagnosed. And there are some pretty huge offensive names still living (e.g. Brett Favre) who have complained about CTE-like symptoms, though they won't be diagnosed conclusively until after death.
I was really referring to someone who had the benefit of national media recognition on a large scale. Gifford retired in 1964, well before football became what it is today.

If Favre, who you mentioned, OD's on pain killers tomorrow - not too much of a reach - and CTE is found, yes, that would blow the cover off of this.
 

Marciano490

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I was really referring to someone who had the benefit of national media recognition on a large scale. Gifford retired in 1964, well before football became what it is today.

If Favre, who you mentioned, OD's on pain killers tomorrow - not too much of a reach - and CTE is found, yes, that would blow the cover off of this.
It's really hard to tell, though, isn't it? People have died or been paralyzed in football and boxing and they've remained popular afterwards. I don't think there's going to be a cover blowing, but just a steady drip. A Favre or Rodgers would accelerate it, but even after that the NFL is going to limp along for decades, like so many of its players. (dramatic, knowing pause)
 

mauf

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A Gallup survey shows that men who played sports in college have better life outcomes than non-athletes who attended college. These effects are particularly strong for men who played football or basketball, though these men report lower levels of physical well-being than other athletes. Seems to reinforce the idea that sports are, on balance, good for a young person's development, but that football has long-term physical risks associated with it, at least for men who play beyond high school (which, of course, is not news).

http://www.gallup.com/poll/189206/former-student-athletes-winners.aspx?g_source=position1&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles

Off-topic, the findings for women (in a separate article -- you can easily find it from the link) are off the charts. Get your girls playing sports, folks.
 

singaporesoxfan

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A Gallup survey shows that men who played sports in college have better life outcomes than non-athletes who attended college. These effects are particularly strong for men who played football or basketball, though these men report lower levels of physical well-being than other athletes. Seems to reinforce the idea that sports are, on balance, good for a young person's development, but that football has long-term physical risks associated with it, at least for men who play beyond high school (which, of course, is not news).

http://www.gallup.com/poll/189206/former-student-athletes-winners.aspx?g_source=position1&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles

Off-topic, the findings for women (in a separate article -- you can easily find it from the link) are off the charts. Get your girls playing sports, folks.
Correlation isn't causation though: could very well be that college athletes are drawn from the more well-adjusted, high-performing types, so making someone play sports wouldn't have that effect.
 

H78

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Don't know where else to post this:

I have to admit, this past season wore me out. By the time it was over, I was glad it was over. It gets to a point where you're tired of the drama around the team and the way the league is handling issues on the field (catch rule, PIs, odd-penalties) and off the field (domestic abuse, player bias when it comes to rule violations, DG).

In other words, I was burnt out on all things NFL by the time the Super Bowl rolled around. For the first time in a while, I don't want to even think about it until September.
 

Saints Rest

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And, yet, the comparison isn't horrible. Football will be like smoking. Less people will play, on average, but it will still thrive as a viable sport. It comes down to the money. There is so much money in football for so many people. Just like there is a lot of money in tobacco.

Boxing fell apart because of corruption, the brutality, and the lack of opportunities for riches on a massive scale. As always, follow the money.
I think boxing is a weak parallel to football for more reasons than you note here:
  • Sheer numbers of kids participating at all levels from 8-10 years old on up.
  • As a result, there is HS football which is huge in certain parts of the country (cf. "Friday Night Lights") and college football is almost as big as the NFL on a whole. Note that most of the largest football stadiums in the country are college stadiums.
  • On a related note, football is much easier to participate in on a casual level -- touch or flag football, tossing a ball in the backyard, NERF, etc. Boxing doesn't really have that.
  • There is a huge social side to football -- tailgating, Super Bowl parties, etc, that boxing never really had.
  • I remember in the 70's that boxing was on free TV all the time. I knew Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton, etc. I think that boxing's move to PPV really killed it as a mass-watched sport. I was in college during the rise of Tyson, and certainly knew who he was, but I can't remember any of my friends shelling out the $39.95 to watch him fight.
 

moly99

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The other issue that is not mentioned much is that football is a really, really expensive sport to run while it only offers eight home games per year in a (regular) season.

1.) Despite having the highest revenues of any sports league in the world, the NFL has the lowest average salary of the "big four" leagues in North America, and is also lower than India's cricket league and the big soccer leagues in Europe. http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-nba-average-salary-2014-4

2.) While a few college football programs are raking in cash, the majority of CFB programs lose money and are kept afloat by boosters. What almost happened to UAB is a good example. A great many programs are kept due to pride and prestige for the school rather than profitability. Rutgers' football program had a deficit of $36.3 million in 2013/2014.

The cost of the equipment and the sheer number of players in a team make football a monstrously expensive sport to operate. As long as it is massively popular that is fine. If that ever changes though, I think the financial problems could doom football even if the medical problems do not.
 

Clears Cleaver

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What's likely is that football participation will become more and more segregated by socioeconomic barriers. Wealthier and more educated kid will be less likely to play whereas lower income and/or less educated will play. Since the low income population is growing faster in this country the number of players may not decline as precipitously as we might think.

Lots of social questions that this would create of course, but that's maybe for a different thread.
 

Phil Plantier

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Ivy League moving towards banning tackling in regular season practices

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/sports/ncaafootball/ivy-league-moves-to-eliminate-tackling-at-practices.html

The N.C.A.A. guidelines are more permissive. Teams that hold two-a-day practices can have full-contact in one of them. Full-contact practices are allowed up to four times in a week, and a maximum of 12 times during the preseason. During the season, teams can hold full-contact practices no more than twice a week.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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NFL careers are getting shorter and shorter. The average NFL career is now down to fewer than three years. That can't be good for the league.

When Jerod Mayo announced his retirement at the age of 29 last month, it was surprising. But statistically, the surprise was in how long he made it. Mayo’s seven seasons were more than twice as long as the average linebacker’s career, and according to new research, NFL players’ careers are significantly shorter than they were just a few years ago.

Using data from Pro Football Reference, the Wall Street Journal has run the numbers and found that as of 2014, the average NFL career is 2.66 years. As recently as 2008, that number was 4.99 years.
Edit - added quote.
 

Harry Hooper

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AFP:

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s vice president of health and safety, was on Monday pressed at a roundtable organized by the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US House of Representatives on whether there was indeed a link between the hard-hitting gridiron game and neurodegenerative diseases such as CTE.

“The answer to that question is certainly yes,” Miller said.

However, Miller added it was unclear how that would affect the future of America’s most popular sport.

“There is a number of questions that comes with that,” Miller said.

“I think the broader point, and the one that your question gets to, is what that necessarily means, and where do we go from here with that information.”
 

edmunddantes

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And the NFL is trying to walk that one back as they realize they just boned themselves a bit in the ongoing settlement talks/litigation with those that opted out.

My guess is Miller will most likely quietly retire for medical reasons/spend more time with his family in short order.
 

soxhop411

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not a good look for the NFL....


BERKELEY -- The NFL's political action committee has given campaign contributions to many of the lawmakers who are reviewing concussion research, Berkeley-based MapLight told this newspaper Wednesday.


The nonprofit that analyzes campaign finance data reported the NFL's Gridiron PAC has given money to 42 of 54 members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee that began informal hearings last week on one of the league's most pressing safety issues.

Michigan Republican Frank Upton, the committee chair, announced in December lawmakers would conduct a broad review of concussion research this year. The Subcommittee on Oversights and Investigations held a roundtable discussion on concussions last week when the NFL for the first time acknowledged a link between the game and the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

Jeff Miller, the league's senior vice president for Health and Safety Policy, made the statement that an NFL spokesman confirmed the next day.

MapLight reported that since 2008, 17 percent of the Gridiron PAC's campaign contributions -- $293,000 -- were given to energy and commerce committee members.

The PAC gave $25,000 to Upton and $8,500 to Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the committee's highest ranking member. It also contributed $1,500 to Pennsylvania Republican Tim Murphy, who heads the oversight and investigations subcommittee.
more at the link

http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_29676270/nfl-funds-campaigns-lawmakers-reviewing-concussions?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1458762997