I surely hope everyone was able to watch PBS Frontline’s “League of Denial” last night, if you happened to miss it you can view it HERE. This is also an opportunity to insist that you seek out the book, which is much more detailed and has more “players” in this issue.
During the film I along with others was asked to tweet live about what we were seeing, and as the app updated on my iPad the comments and opinions were very interesting. I thought it was great that both the Fainaru’s were adding key details of the story while the action was unfolding, a lot of my retweets were from them.
From my feed it was obvious that the league did not look like they did enough in the way of getting information out. Most poignant to me was the timeline of first admission – 2000 when the NFL Retirement Board awarded Mike Webster disability and admitted football created his problems. Yet for years after that the league itself denied all research that supported those findings, Dr. Ira Casson even went as far as saying “No” to every question asked about long-term damage in 2007. SEVEN YEARS AFTER. Further, the league continued to deny and even down play leaked research (that was sponsored by the league itself) about brain issues after retirement, in 2009 when Alan Schwartz was leaked that information. Later that same year Greg Aiello – after the thrashing of the league in Congress – admitted to Schwartz that there is a connection.
The film did a tremendous job of showing the plight Continue reading