OT - Patriots Deflate Report

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by calvindog

The NFL only cares about perceptions and not justice.

10000% agree with this statement. The very nice bi-product of this story for the league though is that every minute of airtime this story gets (and it will get lots), it deflects attention from any/all of the league's other serious issues.

To prior comments about concussions, the blind eye the league's turned toward this and other player disabilities is disgraceful. IMO, it's in line with the "doctors" who for years denied that smoking increased one's risk for cancer. Also love that the guy who headed the NFL's concussion research was a rheumatologist. I'm sure he's a smart guy, but they didn't think a neurologist may be more qualified??

Don't get me wrong, I love football.. loved playing, love watching.. but think the NFL is a pretty disgusting entity overall. The NCAA is right behind it.

There's plenty of info out there, but felt the below old snippet (2006) from the LA Times summed it up nicely. It's amazing how long the league's been able to mostly deflect this topic, and their bogus doctors and studies have helped the cause. IMO- letting some air out of balls doesn't sniff this (nor any number of other issues, including salary cap violations, added stadium noise, etc) in importance. But IMO the NFL PR men say-- "YES!! Please keep talking about Deflate Gate all off-season, please please!!"

Concussions, it seems, are the NFL's dirty little secret. It's not just that they happen so often, but that the league doesn't seem to be doing much about it.

Sure, the NFL says it has had a committee of doctors studying them since 1994. But experts in the field say the league's studies are flawed, use suspect data, and don't stand up to peer review.

So when the NFL says no evidence has been found that brain function declines as a result of a concussion, the news is greeted with skepticism in the medical community.

"What the NFL allegedly finds is totally at odds with scores of publications that are out there," said Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurologist and leading expert in brain injuries at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "The stuff the NFL is putting out is just not the way the thinking is in the community of sports medicine and specialists with expertise in this area."