Concussions in football players

This might be the most important football-related news in many years. Followed this link off the Football Outsiders web site, so compliments to them on disseminating this. From CNN:

Dead athletes' brains show damage from concussions

using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), at the Boston University School of Medicine, is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage. That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
On Tuesday afternoon, researchers at the CSTE released a study about the sixth documented case of CTE in former NFL player Tom McHale, who died in 2008 at the age of 45, and the youngest case to date, an 18-year-old multi-sport athlete who suffered multiple concussions. While CTE in an ex-NFL player's brain may have been expected, the beginnings of brain damage in an 18-year-old brain was a "shocking" finding, according to Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, and co-director of the CSTE.
...
CTE has thus far been found in the brains of six out of six former NFL players. "What's been surprising is that it's so extensive," said McKee. "It's throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it's deep inside." ... McKee, who also studies Alzheimer's disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.
"I knew what traumatic brain disease looked like in the very end stages, in the most severe cases," said McKee. "To see the kind of changes we're seeing in 45-year-olds is basically unheard of."
...
The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, along with other research institutions, has now identified traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of late NFL football players John Grimsley, Mike Webster, Andre Waters, Justin Strzelczyk and Terry Long, in addition to McHale. ... "Guys were dying," said Nowinski. "The fact of the matter was guys were dying because they played sports 10 or 20 years before."

The article said the NFL released a statement: "Hundreds of thousands of people have played football and other sports without experiencing any problem of this type and there continues to be considerable debate within the medical community..."

That seems disingenuous. Hundreds of thousands of people have played football without being diagnosed with problems of this type; but the data emerging from the study suggests that these problems may have gone undiagnosed and unreported, for decades. And I don't think there's any debate within the medical community about whether concussions are bad for you. The question has always been, how bad? This study suggests the answer is: potentially devastating.



Football is, of course, a massive business. The NFL itself is a huge enterprise, a multi-billion dollar monster. And the NFL is in some ways just the tip of the iceberg. The NCAA is also a pretty big operation: think of all the big money boosters at places like Georgia and Auburn and Michigan and Notre Dame and USC etc etc. Where I'm going with that is, there will be colossal resistance to the notion that football should be regulated or policed. Think of the political hue and cry over Monday Night Football being broadcast on basic cable (ESPN) rather than over public airwaves. Yet these data suggest that football cries out for, I dunno, OSHA intervention or something.

We as fans have always known that NFL football was "dangerous". Darryl Stingley was rendered quadriplegic by Jack Tatum on the field in 1978; Joe Theisman was maimed by LT on Monday Night Football in 1985; Korey Stringer died of heat stroke during training camp in 2001; Kevin Everett was paralyzed during a kickoff return in week 1 of the 2007 season (although he walked again some months later). Sure, it can be dangerous, sometimes. But I think we've always rationalized it a little, pushed it to the back of our minds. It only happens sometimes. Sure, there are occasional broken legs and torn ACLs and turf toes and ruptured biceps and hammy pulls: but most guys are fine. Stingley called his injury a freak accident.

But in recent years we've started to hear disturbing stories about ex-NFL players. The former linebacker who suffers from depression and Alzheimer's and has attempted suicide. How Joe Montana, in his 50s, can barely walk and can't lift up his grandkids. I wonder how soon we are going to be forced to conclude that football is a sport that feeds on the destruction of human beings. Not like horse-racing, where there's an occasional casualty: more like Michael Vick's much-criticized dog fighting rings, where the destruction of the participants is a certainty.

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A Simple Solution

We are increasingly seeing the issue of concussions discussed with regard to the NFL and to a lesser extent other injuries resulting from big hits. Obviously we are proud here at OS that we've been a bit cutting edge in the discussion, even as we understand that no one is really reading this blog much.

Peter King is on board. I hesitate to claim that he hasn't been in the past but it isn't insignificant that he leads his MMQB with it today.

The games we watched Sunday seemed as violent a collection as I've seen. Judging from the tweets and e-mails I got as the day went on, the public was astonished too. The Dunta Robinson collision with DeSean Jackson in Philadelphia, concussing both the Atlanta corner and Eagles receiver and probably kayoing the invaluable Jackson for Sunday's game at Tennessee. Several shots in Pittsburgh, two vicious ones by James Harrison of the Steelers; his helmet-to-helmet shot against Browns receiver Mohamed Massaquoi will certainly draw a heavy fine, and it's incredible to me no official flagged what could be the textbook definition of hitting a defenseless receiver. In New England, Brandon Meriweather lighting up Baltimore's Todd Heap with a hit to the head so vicious that either a mouthguard or something flew high into the air at the moment of impact. And so on -- six or eight shots where you wondered, "Is that guy getting up?''

I recommend the rest of King's piece. He discusses other solutions, none of which I particularly hate. It is surprising though, that given the level of clinical and national attention that was given to NFL concussions in the off-season that concussions appear to be at a local high.

Anyhow, something has been swirling my brain for a couple of months and the more I watch games, watch damage done from big hits and also embarrassingly sloppy tackling I keep returning to an idea I think would work.

Require open shoulder tackles.

Too often we see linebackers and safeties lower their shoulders and try to knock someone out rather than simply wrapping up and taking down. Require open-shoulder hits. Shoulder pads and helmets are protective devices, not weapons. Hand out 15 yard penalties for leading with the shoulder, eject players who lead with their helmets.

There would still be big hits, there surely would still be concussions. I have a hard time believing that players like Ray Lewis would be particularly limited by rules like this anyway.

From a purists standpoint I would really like to see this rule installed in the NCAA, but mainly for a selfish reason. I get sick of watching bad tackle after bad tackle. Half the time these guys whiff on their rhinoceros charges and the ballcarrier gains another ten yards anyway. Put the rule in at the NCAA and there would be more polished tacklers graduating to the NFL. It would make the game safer and it would make the game better to watch, unless you are a fan of players knocking guys down and then standing over them in some kind of male dominance ritual.

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Ward and Holmes' attitude toward concussions is a problem

Last night in an interview with Bob Costas, Hines Ward was asked about the team's attitude toward Roethlisberger sitting out round one of the annual Steelers / Ravens blood-bath. Ward admitted the locker room was "like a 50-50 toss-up" as to whether Ben should be playing or not.

"This game is almost like a playoff game. It's almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning, like 'It's just a concussion. I've played with a concussion before.' It's almost like a 50-50 toss-up in the locker room: Should he play? Shouldn't he play? It's really hard to say. I've been out there dinged up; the following week, got right back out there. Ben practiced all week. He split time with Dennis Dixon. And then to find out that he's still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to the doctors didn't feel that they were going to clear him or not -- it's hard to say. Unless you're the person [himself]. ... I've lied to a couple of doctors saying I'm straight, I feel good when I know that I'm not really straight."

After the game, Santonio Holmes chimed in. "Only [Roethlisberger] knows how he feels right now. It was coach's decision to not play him. We wanted him to play. We felt like he could play -- that's only the way we felt. He felt like he couldn't go, so he didn't go. We just got to get the job done."

Ward and Holmes' attitude highlights everything that is wrong with the way the NFL and its players have handled injuries in the past; in particular head injuries. Things are changing, and may be changing dramatically, very soon. And it's a good thing for the NFL and for football players everywhere that they are.

As recently as a month ago, I was leaning more in the center on this issue. Do more than we're doing now, don't take overly aggressive measures that compromise the integrity of the game. This specifically regarding the topic of banning contact in high school. The more I read on the issue, the more I'm coming to the view that exceptionally aggressive measures should be taken. I'm not ready to say we should ban contact football, but I'm getting there.

Former Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson is the prototypical example of what can happen if these head injuries aren't taken seriously. At age 34, his post-concussion syndrome symptoms are so severe they are essentially debilitating.

The most concerning quote from the article I linked is this: "Officially, I've probably only been listed as having three or four concussions in my career," Johnson said. "But the real number is closer to 30, maybe even more. I've been dinged so many times I've lost count."

The problem is that too many times, player's concussions go undiagnosed or simply ignored. And the two biggest reasons for that are that the players want to play through the pain, and that the NFL has a vested interest in having their best guys on the field. Tertiary to those are that fans want the players in the game, and they question their toughness if they sit.

The player's attitude isn't likely to change any time soon. It's too ingrained in the culture of the game. Tom Jackson said tonight on Monday Night Countdown that it wasn't just about wanting to step up for your fellow teammates (which is unquestionably a huge factor to them), but about self-pride. "You feel better about playing hurt. ... That's part of the macho attitude is, 'Boy I was proud of myself when I was able to play, and play well hurt.'" The fan's attitude certainly won't change any time soon...no one has to live Ted Johnson's life; nor have to put themselves in Roethlisberger's shoes Monday morning after watching Dennis Dixon throw an OT interception in a game many think Roethlisberger would have won in regulation.

This leaves it to the NFL to step in, and I give them credit for beginning the process and seemingly being open to making sweeping changes for the betterment of the players.

The problem is, the grumbling will take place over the rules changes. Players' toughness will be questioned. Steve Czaban sarcastically quipped on his morning radio show this morning "Can Tom Brady come out and play?" And guys like Ward and Holmes are openly questioning Roethlisberger's decision to have a seat last night rather than get on the field.

In my mind, Roethlisberger unquestionably made the correct decision. I give him a lot of credit for putting his personal health and safety first, and I give the coaches even more credit for doing so, given Ben's admission that the coaches told him he should sit.

To the NFL fan, we're often too caught up in the moment of the games. We don't think of these players as people. We think of them as football players. We don't see how much it hurts them to step out of bed Monday morning after a brutal game like we saw last night. We don't get to see the guys that struggle to walk ten years after the game. The percent of NFL fans that read the Ten Johnson article can almost assuredly be counted on one hand, if not one finger.

We need to change that attitude and begin to realize that guys like Ben Roethlisberger are people first, and football players second. They give up their bodies and often their health to entertain us. They shouldn't be expected to risk horrifying, debilitating injuries simply to try to prove they're the toughest guy on the field. And in the case of Roethlisberger, they shouldn't be on the field one week after suffering a brain injury. It's dangerous, and could easily result in not only a career-ending injury, but long-term health problems.

And guys like Ward and Holmes absolutely, positively must cease questioning their teammate's toughness and resolve if and when they make a decision that is clearly the best decision for their personal lives.

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Modeling For Injury Tendencies

As a natural extension of the Moneyball concept, Stan Conte of the Los Angeles Dodgers is attempting to build an algorithm to predict injury rates among ballplayers.

The ability to predict how players’ bodies will fare is a holy grail. With an actuarial approach, Conte seems to have a head start in the pursuit. He is trying to build a formula that will give teams a competitive advantage and help them avoid players who spend their days in the training room and not on the field.

“The insurance industry has made millions of dollars off figuring out how, when, where and why people are going to die, and we are trying to figure those things out about injuries,” Conte said.

Every major league team and scores of independent analysts are trying to understand why injuries strike certain players. But Conte said his effort was more advanced because his data has been compiled over 15 years as a trainer for the San Francisco Giants and now the Dodgers. He has had hands-on interaction with hundreds of players before and after their injuries, and his observations and medical records inform his hypotheses.

Conte also draws on the analytical prowess of David Zes and Adam Sugano, statisticians who teach at U.C.L.A., and Matt Marks, an employee in the Dodgers’ baseball operations department. They are building mathematical formulas that they hope will show the chances a player will be injured within the next season.

Okay, I will be the first to admit that I'm not exactly sure how this applies to the NFL. Not because I don't think it is valid, but rather because I expect that teams are already doing this, at least to some extent.

What I find particularly interesting though, and what probably ties directly in, is that some teams seem to tend toward fewer injuries than others, particularly at the extremes. We already know that at draft time players are selected for injury history. In most cases a significant collegiate or high school injury will cause draft stock to drop - or plummet - depending on its severity and likelihood to impact performance.

Some things we already know pretty well. Running backs are very likely to experience dramatic dropoffs in performance after seasons of heavy use; the rule of 370 coined by the Football Outsiders. We know that concussions progressively debiliate health and increase in likelihood. Exhibit A is Trent Green, but concussions also forced Steve Young from the game while still near his peak.

Other factors though are less clear. Is it really just luck that teams like the Ravens and Chargers tend to escape injury devastation annually, while teams like the Lions lead the league in players on IR every year? It is doubtful that this is mere coincidence. Is the key in player selection? Conditioning? Are there blocking and tackling techniques that reduce injury risk that some teams employ and others don't?

As a matter of public health I would love to see this explored openly. But then, I would love to see it explored openly period. It's a fascinating subject.

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Safety of Players

Football executives, from the NFL all the way down to high schools, harp constantly on how the safety of their players is critical. We have had a few conversations about concussions on this blog, and concussions are an extremely hot topic in medical studies.

And for all the talk about how the health of the players is of paramount importance, games like Florida @ LSU simply make it all lip service. Cause two weeks after a concussion so bad, Tim Tebow was puking in a hospital and not allowed to read or watch TV for days, he's playing. And playing against one of the best, most aggressive defenses in the country.

My wife had a concussion similar to Tebow's back in college. She ice skated, took a terrible fall and smashed her head on the ice. She wasn't allowed back on the ice to even practice for three weeks.

Seeing this is terribly frustrating. I'm not a Tebow fan, nor could I care less who wins this game. But I am a fan of common sense. And I hate to see a guy with a potentially bright future being allowed to put himself at risk. Regardless of whether or not he wants to be out there, at what point is common sense going to kick in here? Is it going to take a high profile guy - a guy like Tebow - wind up becoming permanently crippled, or God forbid, get killed, before this sort of thing isn't allowed?

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Real Sports on Concussions

FYI - HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumble is running I believe their full hour on our favorite topic, concussions, this week.

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Mike Leach: It's bad to be both wrong and dumb

After being fired for punishing Adam James for being unable to play without a concussion, Leach has granted an interview with ESPN, shown in its entirety here.

It's an interesting situation that warrants commentary from us given how actively we've discussed concussions here. This is an important topic that deserves the media attention that it's getting. But what I'm not certain of is how much people are truly focusing on the correct thing.

Leach is maintaining he's done nothing wrong in this situation. And this is becoming a he-said-she-said story about how big the shed was, whether there was an ice machine in the shed or not, and whether or not what he did was put the kid in danger. In the interview, Leach says:
"The most important line on this statement [by the dr that diagnosed James with the concussion] says 'According to the information given to me, no additional risks or harm were imposed on Adam by what he was asked to do.' Okay and I'm gonna read it again because I think that's the most important issue on this."

The problem is, that's not the most important issue here. Not even close. Which makes Leach both wrong and stupid.

No, the most important issue in this is that Mike Leach is being accused of punishing a player for having an injury. And it doesn't sound to me like he's denying any of it.

It's one thing if Leach was saying he didn't believe James had a concussion and was punishing him for being an idiot. I could accept a story like that. And I've waited to post something about this until I got to hear Leach's position on this issue. Now that I know his stance is that he's done nothing wrong because the kid wasn't put in any additional risk, I'm happy to talk about how impressed I am with the stance Texas Tech has taken, and hope it sends a strong message to coaches around the country.

This, pure and simple, is an issue of the message Mike Leach was sending to the rest of his team. The message that having a concussion - or other type of injury - is a stigma. It's an encouragement for his kids to keep quiet about the injury and play through it.

It's a terribly dangerous message for him to send. It's tough for me to see how he doesn't understand that, but then again, I don't get a lot of the machismo crap that seems to be ingrained in many of these athlete's heads. It's a mentality that needs to change, and hopefully the actions Texas Tech have taken will begin to institute some of that change.

As a father of two young girls, I try to put myself in Craig James' position, or the position of the parents of one of the other kids on that team. And all I can think is, if I heard my kid's coach punished someone for being injured, I would explode. My kid would be off the team the next day, and then I'd be giving the coach and the school's administration an earful, and potentially getting a lawsuit ready.

Kudos to Texas Tech for firing him. Leach's inability to admit he's done anything wrong says to me honestly that he shouldn't work again, even though I'm sure he will. If he were a coach of a team my kid was considering, my kid wouldn't be considering that school any longer.

But more than that, I hope this sends a powerful message to other coaches and schools that this sort of attitude is no longer acceptable. For the sake of the kids and their safety, it's an attitude that has to change.

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Brain bank examines athletes' hard hits

Another good article in our tradition of educating about concussions.

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It's Time for Sweeping Changes

It’s time to use your imagination.

Let’s first rewind to Thanksgiving. You’re sitting, watching the Packers at Lions game; it’s first and ten at the Lions 40 with just over 12 minutes left in the third. Rodgers drops back to pass on a drive that could put them up by two scores. But instead of completing a pass to Greg Jennings for 19 yards, Suh beats his offensive lineman and crushes Rodgers. Rodgers holds his head, is taken to the sideline, shows signs of a concussion, and sits the rest of the game.

Three weeks later, Rodgers still doesn’t have any insight into when he can return. The season strolls on. The Packers lose two or three games down the stretch. They make a playoff appearance, but cannot overcome his loss. Rodgers, inexplicably, cannot make it back from his concussion, and no one knows why he can’t shake his symptoms, or when he’ll be able to return.

Fast forward a year from now. Rodgers didn’t play in mini-camps or the pre-season. He was only cleared for contact in August. But we’re in the first week of October before he sees his first action. Out he comes to rousing cheers! One of the best young quarterbacks in the league is back! He has a coming out party his first game, completing 80% of his passes, throwing for 450 yards and five touchdowns.

Three weeks, 1,200 yards and 11 TD passes later, Rodgers limps off the field toward the end of the game after taking a big shot. The Packers are already up by four scores in the fourth quarter, so they sit him just in case. And then on Monday, it’s revealed he has more concussion-like symptoms. He’s no longer cleared to play, out indefinitely.

After having sat his first three seasons, Rodgers isn’t exactly a spring chicken. But it’s safe to say that people still think of him as a fairly young QB. Compare him to Brady, Manning and Brees – all in their 30s – and he still seems to be from that “next” generation. Roethlisberger is only a year older than he is, but has nearly 60% more attempts than Rodgers because he was the primary starter his first three years, and suffers several bone-jarring hits himself. When fans think of Rodgers, I believe they tend to think of him as having a shelf-life five to seven years, maybe more, beyond what these other four guys have.

But think about this scenario. He’s been a Superbowl MVP. He’s got the active and all time highest career QB rating. He’s streaking toward an auto-entry into the Hall of Fame and making people question whether we could be seeing the guy destined to be called the Greatest of All Time.

And just one year from now, Rodgers’ career suddenly looks to be in jeopardy from concussions.

How would this change the game? What would it do to fans’ mind-sets? We witness the oncoming of one of the greatest players we may ever get to see play; and without warning, his career is swept out from under him. The game would survive, of course. But how would that impact the way you think about the game? How would it impact your emotions, losing such a great player?

How big a story would it be?

The ramifications of it would likely be huge. We’ve seen single players alter the course of the game before. David the Deacon Jones got the head-slap outlawed in 1977 after perfecting the technique and becoming one of the greatest pass rushers of all time. Tom Brady took a season-ending shot to his knee, causing the implementation of a rule where defenders on the ground cannot hit a quarterback below the waist. It only makes sense to think that the threatening of one of the greatest player in America’s most popular sport would be cause for big changes. And it makes just as much sense to think that the story would be the headline story in the sports world, not just for a day or two, but for weeks. It’s a story that would rock the sports world, and likely result in a major change of direction.

This is the story of Sidney Crosby, and the potential tragedy the NHL now faces. The only difference is, Crosby is a far younger star than Rodgers is, and he’s more meaningful to his sport than Rodgers is to his.

Like him or hate him, Sidney Crosby’s greatness cannot be denied. Though he’s five-and-a-half years into his career, he’s only 24 years old. But in those six seasons, he’s won the league’s scoring title, been the league’s MVP, won the Stanley Cup and scored the game winning goal in the Olympic gold medal game. At this time last year, Crosby was the league’s scoring leader again and on a pace for an easy MVP award on a major Stanley Cup challenger.

In the Winter Classic on Jan 1, ’11, Dave Steckel and Victor Hedman hit Crosby in the head. He suffered concussion-like symptoms, and found himself out of the game for nearly a year. He returned to action Nov 21st, scoring four points and immediately sparking discussion of whether he could worm his way into contention for the scoring title by the end of the season. Less than a month later, he’s back on the bench, out indefinitely with more concussion-like symptoms.

It’s a truly tragic story for hockey fans. We face the prospect of losing what appears to be one of the greatest players of all time in his sport. Crosby seemed to be capable of challenging The Great One himself. Now, instead of wondering how many MVPs and Stanley Cups he’ll win in his career, we’re left to question whether he should retire now. And we’re left to wonder whether the game should undergo massive, sweeping changes, in the hopes that we can ensure that if Crosby can overcome this, we don’t lose him forever, and that if we do, we ensure we minimize the risk of the same thing happening to the next great player to come along, or any of the current greats we have playing the game.

This story should be bigger than it is.

It’s here where I need to note that it’s a shame that hockey isn’t even half as big or as popular in this country as football is. The story of Aaron Rodgers would dominate sports headlines for a long time. The story of Sidney Crosby is a bi-line, falling behind the ESPN recap of the 2-11 Rams losing to the 6-7 Seahawks as well as two other non-NFL related stories that night.

The true shame of this reality is that if the story were as big as it should be – if it were of the magnitude of an Aaron Rodgers-like injury – the attention it would bring to the problem of violence in these sports would likely bring about important, necessary changes. I’m hopeful that the NHL will finally begin to take a serious look at how violent the sport is, and how risky it is for all their players, including their potential all-time greats, and that it will lead to significant changes for the better. But I’m even more hopeful that we can reach that point in both of these sports prior to losing anyone beyond those that have already been lost.

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Dog fighting... uh, human fighting... uh, the NFL...

The thuggish hit by Dante Wesley on Clifton Smith yesterday brings back to the forefront the topic of concussions in the NFL. It's a topic we've discussed here at Oblong Spheroid in the past, but an article penned today by Malcolm Gladwell (the esteemed author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers) offers a provocative yet thoughtful point of view, juxtaposing dog fighting and the NFL. (An additional call out to Peter King's MMQB column for today, where I first saw the Gladwell article.)

It's a compelling read, and really does call out the brutal nature of the game. More than anything, it calls out to me the importance of supporting the former players, who played for little money and are left with injuries and poor medical coverage to boot but paved the way for owners and players alike to make millions today.

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Chris Henry's Brain

Under the heading of “stuff I meant to post about 3 weeks ago”, we have this:

Former Bengal Henry Found to Have Had Brain Damage
By Alan Schwarz, NYT
Dr. Julian Bailes and Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University announced on Monday that Henry, 26, had developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the progressive brain disease whose recent discovery in some retired N.F.L. players has raised questions of football’s long-term safety risks. The 22nd professional football player to be given a diagnosis of C.T.E., Henry is the first to have died with the disease while active after 2007, when prior C.T.E. findings prompted the N.F.L. to begin strengthening rules regarding concussion management..

It's taken me forever to write about this; and now that I force myself to do it, I realize that the problem is that I don't really have anything to say on the subject.

Much respect to Alan Schwarz at the Grey Lady, who has kept this subject (brain deterioration in NFL players) in the forefront as a story. Ultimately I think it's THE most important football story. I'm proud of our little blog for talking about it consistently. But overall it's hard to be anything but sad.

“I was surprised in a way because of his age and because he was not known as a concussion sufferer or a big hitter. Is there some lower threshold when you become at risk for this disease? I’m struggling to see if something can come out positive out of this.”

Dr Bailes is right. If Chris Henry developed CTE by age 26, then don't all NFL players have it, to one degree or another? Has a former player ever been tested for it, and found not to have it? The only thing I can see coming out of this, ultimately, is a ban on contact football for youth players.

While we ponder the levels of moroseness and guilt appropriate to the topic of CTE and football, go read this amazing series. Rick Telander is a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times, and a former Northwestern football player. He did a series of articles:

“The Team: What football did for us and – what football did to us” is a nine-part series by Sun-Times' award-winning columnist Rick Telander about the 1968-1970 Northwestern Wildcats, a team for which he played. This story begins at a brain research lab in Massachusetts, and it will end there, too. But on the way it moves about the country as Telander visits with old teammates and talks about the sport they played together years ago, the one that shaped them, rewarded them and wounded them.

This is must-read stuff.

What football did for us and - what football did to us
The story of the 1968-1970 Northwestern Wildcats
Part 1: What football did for us and - what football did to us
Part 2: 'I have lost words on air occasionally'
Part 3:The study too far ahead of its time
Part 4: 'I liked the physical contact. A lot of people don't like it. I always did.'
Part 5:'I had my concussions, but I never would allow myself to be held out of a game for that.'
Part 6:'I was fuzzy after I hit a guy's knee'
Part 7: 'I was never diagnosed with a concussion, but ...'
Part 8: 'I have to jot things down to remember them'
Part 9: 'I'm a cheerleader for the brain'

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Ban football

NFL commish Roger Goodell testified in front of Congress Wednesday, about concussions and the league. Basically he said that a connection had not yet been established between head injuries on the field and brain disease in later life, while at the same time playing up the steps the league has taken in recent years. This of course is exactly what we expect the head guy to say. Meanwhile, the NY Times has a piece on the daughter of former Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse, who is also testifying before the committee. Gay Culverhouse is now 62yo, and her pursuit of this issue is nothing short of heroic. As the Grey Lady tells us, Culverhouse is trying to

“tell the truth about what’s going on while I still have the chance.” Culverhouse has blood cancer and renal failure and has been told she has six months to live. “I’ve got to see that someone stops this debacle before it gets any worse,” said Culverhouse, 62, the daughter of the former owner Hugh Culverhouse who held various executive positions from 1985 to 1994. “I watched our team do anything it could to get players back on the field. We have to make that right.” ...
“Telling the players that football has nothing to do with it is literally adding insult to injury,” Culverhouse said. “It’s a joke. It’s unconscionable.”

(I had never heard of Gay Culverhouse before, and now I feel that was my loss. This is a woman in sports who deserves a biographical treatment.)

The NFL gets all the headlines. But the NFL is not the real issue here. The most compelling discussion of head trauma in football players that I've read is the piece that James linked the other day, by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker: Football, dogfighting, and brain damage. There's a paragraph in the Gladwell piece that makes abundantly clear where the real issue lies:

McKee [Dr Ann McKee, who runs the neuropathology laboratory at the Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts] got up and walked across the corridor, back to her office. “There’s one last thing,” she said. She pulled out a large photographic blowup of a brain-tissue sample. “This is a kid. I’m not allowed to talk about how he died. He was a good student. This is his brain. He’s eighteen years old. He played football. He’d been playing football for a couple of years.” She pointed to a series of dark spots on the image, where the stain had marked the presence of something abnormal. “He’s got all this tau. This is frontal and this is insular. Very close to insular. Those same vulnerable regions.” This was a teen-ager, and already his brain showed the kind of decay that is usually associated with old age. “This is completely inappropriate,” she said. “You don’t see tau like this in an eighteen-year-old. You don’t see tau like this in a fifty-year-old.”

Forget legislating the NFL, for a minute. Those are grown men, and they are well-compensated for the risks they run. Maybe they're not fully educated about those risks, maybe they are: it's an issue that can be argued. Forget even college football for a minute. Those are legal adults too.

McKee is talking about evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in an 18-yr-old kid, who (probably) did not play a down of college football. She says that he played football “for a couple of years.” That's gotta be high school football, right? This is a guy who was exposed to the repetitive subconcussive trauma of high school practice (read thru the Gladwell piece to the part about the Sports Concussion Research Program at UNC). That was enough to create this condition in his brain.

It’s one thing to leave the NFL substantially alone: maybe throw some more money at the ex-players medical fund, improve the helmet technology, that kind of thing. Maybe even get bold, and have neurologists on the sidelines who are not in the employ of the teams, to judge whether guys can go back into the game or not. These are useful things to do: but they still leave the game as played essentially unchanged.

But high school football is played by 15- and 16- and 17-year-old children. Pop Warner is played by kids even younger. If football can be shown to cause brain damage in children – and not just the ferocity of game-day competition, but the routine subconcussive pops that every player gets every day in practice – then high school football and Pop Warner football must be banned.

I don't like it any better than you do. It seems obvious what would happen to pro and college football if there were no pool of high school players to draw upon. But what choice would there be? We don't let children buy cigarettes or alcohol either.

What we really need is a longitudinal study, along the lines of the Framingham Heart Study or the Nurses' Health Study, where every kid who plays high school football in some county or district (preferably in a hotbed like Pennsylvania or the states that are home to the SEC) is tracked over decades, with their brains evaluated after death where possible. God knows where the money for that would come from. The NFL sure as hell isn't going to fund it, because they can see what such a study would find.

Is there any choice but to ban youth and high school football?

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Head Trauma And ALS

One of our ongoing themes here at OS is a running commentary on football and head trauma. I remain proud that in our tiny corner of the internet we were doing this before it got cool.

Steve Gleason recently revealed he has ALS. He's a folk hero in New Orleans (I had no idea about this before this morning) and will be the honorary captain for today's game. It is difficult to reconcile our great passion for football with the terrible costs that the game incurs.

Six months before Gleason's diagnosis a team of researchers from Boston University reported a link between an ALS-type disease and the repetitive head trauma suffered by some athletes.

Some peers say the study's sample size -- two former football players and a former boxer -- is insufficient to draw accurate conclusions, but evidence shows ALS strikes athletes in far greater numbers than the general population.

A 2005 paper found that Italian professional soccer players had developed the disease at rates about six times higher than normal.

The disease strikes about two in 100,000 people, which means only two or three NFL players since 1970 should have been afflicted. BU researchers identified 14 former NFL players since 1960 as having been diagnosed with ALS, a total about eight times more than what would be expected among U.S. men of similar ages. Perrin said his research shows Gleason would be the 27th former NFL player identified with the disease.

Most experts believe brain trauma is not solely responsible for diseases like ALS or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE. Those afflicted probably have genetic factors leading to susceptibility, with concussions serving as a catalyst.

"You have people in both camps," Gleason said. "But it's getting harder and harder to say that there are no repercussions from head trauma in the NFL or in football. You can't say that anymore."

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Will football die?

Two recent articles, both of which were good and interesting, popped up in light of Seau's death. We haven't even confirmed that he's shown signs of CTE. But his suicide - only a year removed from another suicide attempt - has pretty much said everything that needs to be said to spark a new round of questions and concerns about concussions in the sport.

Here's a Grantland article on what life without football would look like. 

Here's a ProFootballTalk article on how the game must evolve.

At this point I just don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that the game of football is a shell of what it is today in another 10-20 years. Most people scoff when someone suggests that football could be dead in the coming decades. But, as the Grantland article notes:

Before you say that football is far too big to ever disappear, consider the history: If you look at the stocks in the Fortune 500 from 1983, for example, 40 percent of those companies no longer exist. The original version of Napster no longer exists, largely because of lawsuits. No matter how well a business matches economic conditions at one point in time, it's not a lock to be a leader in the future, and that is true for the NFL too. Sports are not immune to these pressures. In the first half of the 20th century, the three big sports were baseball, boxing, and horse racing, and today only one of those is still a marquee attraction.

The problem that I I have is, most people - including the Grantland article - believe that if football as we know it is going to die, it will be due to lawsuits financially crippling the game. I don't believe it will happen quite like that. The lawsuits I do think clearly will be the sparkplug. 

But the path I see is a bit different. And it leads me to believe that the game will be fundamentally changed some time in the next 10-20 years, and the only question left will be whether people love the game as much as they do now or not. The path to me begins with the kids. Two Oblong Spheroid articles come to mind. Jim wrote one, linked. Patrick wrote the other, but I couldn't find it...I remember it distinctly though, because it sparked a debate in which I was clearly on the wrong side, that high school and kids' football in general would have to be significantly altered, and soon. I took the stance that the game shouldn't change, and it marked for me the beginning of a total attitude shift...I eventually landed on the right side here. 

 But that, to me, is the point of main change. The lawsuits, to me, won't kill the NFL. What I think they'll do is two things. 1) They're shining light on this issue, and showing how dangerous this game is. That's going to give parents pause as to whether or not they allow their kids to play. 2) They very well may wind up pointing at the youth leagues. 

Forget former NFL players suing the NFL. Imagine instead a group of parents suing high schools because their kids are showing signs of CTE. That second point is by far the more dangerous and likely to incite sweeping changes in an exceptionally short time. But the bottom line is, I don't think it's going to take long for first the talent field to thin due to fewer parents allowing their kids to play the game, and second for schools to limit if not ban hitting, which fundamentally shifts the way the game is played at lower levels, meaning the talent is completely different at the pro level, assuming the pro level doesn't shift as well. 

 At this point, claiming the game cannot possibly see a massive shift in the next quarter century is simply naive. More than that, I no longer think it's a question of if...I think it's a question of when football undergoes massive, sweeping changes. And once that happens, the question is, will the fans stay? That's the question I think no one can really predict.

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More on concussions

As a follow-up to this post, the NYT has this:

Controversy
By ALAN SCHWARZ

An international panel of neurologists, updating their recommendations on concussion care in the May issue of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, said that any athlete 18 or younger who was believed to have sustained a concussion during a game or practice should never be allowed to return to the playing field the same day. The group had previously said that such athletes could return if cleared by a doctor or certified athletic trainer
...
Other doctors, many of whom work the sidelines of high school athletic events, said they feared the effects of such strictness. They predicted that athletes would respond by hiding their injuries from coaches and trainers even more than they are already known to do, leaving them at risk for a second and more dangerous concussion.
...
Dr. Bob Sallis, a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine and a longtime sideline doctor in Southern California, said he saw the recommendation as a step backward. “More kids will be hurt seriously because of this, either by players not admitting they might have gotten a concussion or coaches encouraging them not to be up front about their symptoms, whether subtly or overtly,” Sallis said.
...
spotlights how some attempts to improve concussion-related safety can instead compromise it, a paradox encountered at levels as high as the N.F.L..

That's a very salient point.

The whole article is interesting, I don't want to steal its thunder by quoting too much of it. But this tidbit toward the end is particularly cool, about recovery from a concussion:

The panel also emphasized the importance of not just physical rest for players found to have a concussion, but cognitive rest as well. It said that teenagers should be kept from activities ranging from schoolwork to video games and text messaging while recovering from a concussion. “That is the No. 1 management issue in our clinic — how do we manage the cognitive activity that stresses that brain’s abnormal metabolism?” said Gerry Gioia, the chief of pediatric neuropsychology at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. “Studying for an algebra exam, reading a lengthy text, sitting in a classroom for an hour and a half trying to keep notes and keep up — it extends recovery, it feels miserable to the kid, and it’s misunderstood by the school and public.”

Fascinating.

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Concussion Ad

In tonight's MNF game with around 6:20 left in the 3rd Q, they ran a CDC ad discussion the severity of concussions. Very interesting TV spot. Link attached here.

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Ravens

It's taken me a little while to get this out...



Congrats to Steelers on winning the AFC championship. They were clearly the better team. The margin was not huge, but it is undeniable.

It's a tough pill for a Ravens fan to swallow, because all three of those games were very close. The first one at their place went to OT – you can't get closer than that. The second game was decided by that replay windowpane TD to Santonio Holmes. And in game 3 we had the ball down 2 with 4 mins to go, with a chance to make the deciding drive and get into the Super Bowl. I think many, many Ravens felt there was a bit of destiny swirling around this team, esp after the win over the Titans. I know I personally was a believer, right up until Flacco threw the INT to Polamalu.

The difference between these two teams starts with Big Ben, who is an unbelievable QB. He doesn't dominate the ball like Peyton Manning does, and he doesn't wind up with the stats, but it's ridiculously difficult to get his team off the field on 3rd down. He rolls away, keeps a play alive, and then throws a perfect strike to the guy who uncovers. His size, accuracy, decision-making, and mobility make him difficult to deal with. It's a hell of a package. And he's clutch. I gather from Pittsburgh discussion boards that Ben has a rep as a bit of a drama queen. That seems odd to me, because he's absolutely clutch. (Reminds me of Earl Weaver's quote about Jim Palmer: "Jimmy's tough to beat when he has his excuses all lined up.") You can free up a blitzer and get to Ben, but he's so friggin huge that half the time the guy just bounces off of him; and then Ben completes the pass. In the process he takes a lot of shots; and I wonder if he's not going to have great longevity as a player. And I also wonder what his post-football life is going to be like as he gets older (there have already been concussions). But today, there aren't three QBs in the league better than Roethlisbugger.

Another piece of the margin between these two teams: that 65-yd TD play to Holmes in the 2nd quarter, that play has happened in each game. Each game someone has broken free to weave his way thru the entire Ravens D and score a long TD. Each time the play seemed to unfold in slow motion, and it looked impossible that the Ravens couldn't tackle the guy. And he got in. On reflection I think this shows that the Steelers depth is better than the Ravens depth. The Steelers are a younger, quicker, more athletic team. Not position by position, but probably the 9-10-11th guy on the field with each unit. This lets them win the "sudden change" on the football field – that's something Jimmy Johnson has talked about as a centerpiece of his football philosophy: scoring on the turnover, etc. The Steelers were able to do that in their three games against the Ravens (they also did it in the SB against the Cards), and that reveals something about the two squads.

Honorable mention to the Steelers O-line, which improved all season, I guess the result of coaching and hard work. They looked better in the postseason than they did early in the regular season, and that's significant.


Other factors:
• Steelers DBs healthier
• Steelers RBs healther
• Steelers WR corps is better. It may turn out that Mark Clayton and Marcus Smith become players; but Santonio Holmes and Nate Washington are already players – and damn fine ones, as Holmes went on to prove in the Super Bowl.


This game highlights the ways in which Joe Flacco was still a rookie. He can be slow to decide to throw, he stares down receivers, and he doesn't use all his receivers. He only throws to his favorite guys. On the game-clinching INT, Mason is double- or triple-covered, and Flacco throws to him anyway. On the replay, it looks to me like Marcus Smith is open down the seam, about 20 yards over Mason's head. Polamalu gambled on the throw to Mason (is it really "gambling", if you bet that Flacco is going to throw to Mason?), and there was no over-the-top help on Smith, who had gotten behind his man. I think on a lob to Smith he'd still be running. On the other hand, a play like that puts the ball in Big Ben's hands down 5 with 3:50 to play, and I've seen that movie before. And the point is that the rookie QB wasn't able to find that receiver. It may turn out that Flacco has a longer, more productive career than Roethlisbugger; but Big Ben is already a polished QB – a great one, as his two Super Bowl rings demonstrate.

Feinstein wrote a nice piece on the game for the Washington Post:

They were a banged-up team coming in: cornerback Samari Rolle was inactive; fullback Le'Ron McClain played only a few snaps; Terrell Suggs needed a pain-killing shot in his shoulder to get on the field. All the receivers were hurting. The game began with backup safety Daren Stone knocked silly on the opening kickoff. Late in the first half, cornerback Corey Ivy was also knocked for a loop.
...
Ben Roethlisberger was a fifth-year quarterback who could get out of trouble and make plays; Flacco was a rookie who did miraculous work to get this far, but wasn't quite ready for this game or this defense.
...
There was a lot of talk about the future, about coming back and doing this again next year, but veterans knew full well that the NFL holds no guarantees. ... As the Ravens took off their uniforms and hugged one another in a quiet locker room, the sense of loss -- not so much of defeat as a greater sense of loss -- was palpable.

And of course this wasn't one devastating loss but two:

Jets to Hire Ryan
The Jets made a formal offer to Ryan “about an hour” after the Ravens lost 23-14 to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game

Not just the end of a season, but the end of an era.

__________________________________________________________

The Steelers are a great football team, and a truly great organization (one of the best in sports, possibly the best in football).

It's also true that their play in the AFC Championship game was remarkably dirty. This wasn't just "solid hard-hitting football"; many of the Steelers were head-hunting and should have been penalized. The hit that put Willis McGahee on a stretcher was helmet-to-helmet and should have been called. It was not the only one.

I of course have very little room to complain, as a Ravens fan. They don't exactly play the game with their lily-white gloves on. The last time the Ravens got to the conference championship, Tony Siragusa belly-flopped on Rich Gannon and put him out of the game, effectively ending the Raiders chance to compete. I believe the Ravens themselves wouldn't complain: as I understand it, their philosophy is that it's their responsibility to out-hit the opponent, they don't need no stinking refs to protect them. And that's a fine philosophy for players to have.

But the refs have a responsibility. Guys were getting hurt. The Steelers were hitting with helmets and forearms to the head, and guys were getting hurt. If as a ref you are not enforcing safety rules, then what purpose are you serving?
__________________________________________________________

It's natural as a Ravens fan to say, "We went to the conference championship game with a rookie QB! And with the most-injured roster in the league! Imagine us next year, with Flacco having a full season of experience and a full offseason in the program! Super Bowl here we come!"

But it's not going to be simple for the Ravens to build on this season. Rex Ryan's departure will have an impact on the team; and it's not just Ryan, the Ravens have a ton of free agents on defense, including Ray Lewis. It's possible that the era of defensive dominance in Baltimore has ended, with a loud free agency "POP!" Also, the injury situation and the three Pittsburgh games revealed that the Ravens roster is a little brittle. They infused some young talent into the squad with last year's draft, but they need more. You can never stand still in this sport: you are constantly fighting erosion, from free agency and time, and the terrible toll football takes on the bodies of dynamic young athletes.

Early look at Ravens needs for next season:

• Re-sign their own free agents!
• stud corner
• big play WR
• pass rusher
• LB
• depth at TE
• RT
• RB??


Starting at the bottom of the list and working up:



The Ravens finished the season thin at RB. Ray Rice missed the last 5 games with an injury; Le'Ron McClain was hobbled for the AFC championship game with an ankle; and Willis McGahee was carried off the field on a stretcher. It was sadly a fitting end to a difficult season for McGahee, who had knee surgery toward the beginning of the season and nearly had his eye poked out toward the middle. I think a lot of Ravens fans were frustrated with McGahee this year, and there were persistent rumors in the Baltimore Sun that the Ravens coaching staff was too. Yet I think most of us fans would be surprised if we saw up close what he had to go thru to get ready to play each week this past season.

I personally started to see McGahee in a new way during the 4th Q of the AFC championship game. The hit and stretcher probably overshadow this in a lot of fans minds, but McGahee played like a hero in that 4th quarter. He didn't have overwhelming rushing numbers, but his pass blocking against the Steelers blitz was amazing. Really amazing. There were 3 or 5 plays were he lined up to one side of Flacco in a shotgun, the blitzer came free on the other side, and McGahee lunged across the formation and somehow got a piece of the pass-rusher, buying Flacco an extra second to get the ball away. Each individual play was amazing, a block that you thought he couldn't possibly make, requiring total effort and focus and commitment on his part. And then he made plays like that again and again. It was an extremely impressive performance.

Anyway: A lot of fans figured during the season that McGahee was not going to be part of the team's plans for next year. And the way the teams rushing attack sputtered, there is probably some groundswell for improving the talent base here. Matt Forte doesn't seem to be on this roster, and if those guys are growing on trees (he was a 2nd-rd pick!) then it would be natural to think the Ravens should get one. But of course, guys like Matt Forte do not grow on trees, the Bears got very lucky landing him in the 2nd round. McGahee's contract means that he will be back next season. The Ravens would take some absurd cap hit by cutting him, something like $15 million of accelerated money. No way do they cut him. Also, McGahee may have "redeemed himself" (if that was necessary) with his play vs the Steelers; and it's important to remember just how many injuries he dealt with this season. He may be a very significant part of the Ravens attack next season. (He turned 27 mid-season.) Also, Ray Rice had evidently fully recovered from his injury, and the coaches seem to love him, esp as a Brian Westbrook -type receiving back. He had 40-yd reception vs Miami this year, and a 60-yd run vs the Browns. He seems to be able to play, at least in a defined role. And finally, Le'Ron McClain had over 900 yds rushing in a combined FB/tailback role, his first season as a tailback. He just turned 24.

I think the Ravens are very happy with their running-back-by-committee situation, and I don't think they plan to make a change. Ozzie is a determined "best player available" guy, so the Ravens might not be able to pass up a LeSean McCoy or whomever; but I don't think that's the plan.



At RT, the Ravens may feel they have their guy of the future in-house. They had a couple of draft picks this year who were depth guys during the season, but who have some upside as prospects: Oniel Cousins and Nathan Hale. Cousins was really raw coming out of college, and Hale probably wasn't carrying enough weight. But supposedly the Ravens loved Cousins play and attitude in camp – he was running with the first team last camp and in most of the preseason games, with the early injury to Adam Terry – and Hale was one of their "red star" draft picks. I would not be surprised to see the Ravens give extensive playing time to one of those guys at RT during the OTA's and minicamps, and proclaim him the starter as the season approaches. Willie Anderson was an important player for the Ravens this past season, with his experience and leadership: but he is 10,000 yrs old, and a statue compared to the athleticism of the rest of the line. I think the Ravens will let him be supplanted. If the one of the young guys steps up at RT, *and* if the Ravens can re-sign Jason Brown, then they will have one of the best young O-lines in the AFC.

Another possibility on the O-line is, the Ravens feel that Cal center Alex Mack is the "best available player" when their turn comes in the 1st-rd. O-line isn't on the radar for the Ravens on any of the mock drafts. But they got Ben Grubbs at this spot in the draft two years ago, and in general Ozzie likes to get a guy he feels is the best player at his position, with a late-in-the-round pick. Examples include Grubbs at G, Todd Heap at TE, Ed Reed at S. Maybe the Ravens let Jason Brown walk in free agency and target Mack in the draft. I'd be sad because I like Jason Brown as a player, and also because I think there are more important uses for the Ravens 1st-rd pick. However, that scenario would let the Ravens throw a lot of money at Ray Lewis.



At TE, the Ravens should get Quinn Sypniewski back from injury, and that will help the depth at this position a lot. They were so thin at TE this year, they switched a LB over to TE during camp (he even caught a reg season pass!).
(That player was Edgar Jones: you may have noticed #84 rush the passer a few times during the AFC championship game.)
I think the national publications will point out that Todd Heap had his least-productive season since his rookie year (not counting 2 injury-shorted 6-game seasons), and is about to turn 29, and will conclude that the Ravens need to look for his replacement. I'm not sure that's true. The Ravens kept Heap in to block a ton this past year: they went max-protect a lot, and they ran a whole lot. Heap would block at the RT spot when the Ravens went to the unbalanced line, and his performance there was a big part of their success. He really did have a good season: just not the season he's used to. I think this is a situation where the position looks worse from afar than it really is. I think the Ravens have higher priorities than upgrading this position. I do expect them to spend a late-rd draft pick here, probably for a blocker. And of course, the "best player available" when the Ravens pick at #26 in the first round, may turn out to be tight end Brandon Pettigrew of Ok St. Impact players are always good; but as I said, I think other positions are priorities.



Three of the four starting LBs for the Ravens are unrestricted free agents this offseason. Three of four! The one starter who is not a free agent is the one who's never made a Pro Bowl, ROLB Jarret Johnson. He's a good player, but he's not the meat of the Ravens D the way Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs and Bart Scott are. The Ravens can probably keep two of the three players, but not all three.

As of this writing, the Ravens have franchised Suggs, which was the utterly necessary move. He's 26 yrs old, has averaged 9 sacks a year, and has become a complete player. The Ravens have also done a nice job of getting young players into the organization who may be able to step in. Last year they drafted Tavares Gooden in the 3rd round: he got into a few games before getting injured in game 6 and missing the rest of the season with injury. He's supposed to be a fine player. They also snagged undrafted free agent Jameel McClain, and he had a fine season. Frankly he looked like a potential James Harrison type: an undrafted guy who eventually blossoms into the defensive player of the year. McClain had a few sacks and a blocked punt and a safety. He seems to be a real impact player. They also have Antwan Barnes, who looked like a potential sack machine a season ago but was not productive this year. So with those players, and with Suggs, the Ravens seem to have done what they can to position themselves to make a transition this season.

Ray Lewis will obviously be the story of the Ravens offseason. *If* they can re-sign him, then they will have only one hole to plug at LB, and they already have Tavares Gooden, so everything will be fine. Bart Scott turns 29 next season anyway. If they can't re-sign Ray – and it will take bux to sign Ray, and Dallas & the Jets might be serious contenders for him; not to mention that the Broncos have freed up significant salary cap space the last few days, and their DC Mike Nolan used to coach Ray in Baltimore – if they can't re-sign Ray, then they might retain Bart Scott and technically only have one hole to fill at LB. But that's a huge friggin hole.

Even if the Ravens bring everyone back from last year's D, they still need some help rushing the passer. Is that odd, that the #2 D in the league needs a pass rusher? But Adalius Thomas went to the Patriots in the 2006/7 offseason, and since then the Ravens haven't been able to consistently bring pressure from the side opposite Terrell Suggs. Trevor Pryce is a stud, but he'll be 34 next season. I haven't seen any national publications list a pass rusher as a need for the Ravens, but putting a situational rusher on the right side could really stabilize this D. Could USC linebacker Brian Cushing be the "best player available" when the Ravens pick at 26? (Or Clint Sintim of Virginia, or Aaron Maybin of Penn State?) Esp if they lose Ray Lewis, the Ravens might need to get more raw talent into the LB corps. Ozzie has always been able to just find guys who can play at this position, but Ray Lewis' departure would change a lot of things. Remember also the Ravens lost one of their LB coaches, to become Rex Ryan's DC in NY. There might not be as much reason for faith that they can just "make" a Pro Bowl linebacker out of late-round talent, the way they have.

On Ravens discussion boards, there is a lot of disagreement. Throw a lot of money at Ray, to keep him til he retires? Or make a "reasonable" offer, while signing their other important players, like Jason Brown? This sometimes devolves into the argument "Which would you rather have, Ray or Brown?" which I think is not the right way to look at it. I dunno what the right thing to do is. In general I feel you shouldn't tie up the team's salary cap on a 35yo (before camp starts) linebacker. But it's Ray Lewis! Fortunately the team has Ozzie to make the call.



Of course the Ravens need what they always need, a big-play wide receiver. They've been trying to get this player since Michael Jackson got old & Derrick Alexander left after the 1997 season. Or maybe since Qadry Ismail left after 2001. Derrick Mason is a man; but the guy Ravens fans are looking for is more like Larry Fitzgerald or Andre Johnson.

I get frustrated talking with other fans about this, because people say stuff like "the Ravens need to draft a #1 wide receiver." As if it's possible to order one out of a catalog! Guess what? Guys like Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson are not easy to find, and they don't come around very often. For whatever reason, WRs are tough to project to the NFL. Is there a position where more draft mistakes are made, than WR? I guess QB; but maybe not. If there was a guy in this draft you could point to and say HE is going to be the next Fitzgerald/Johnson (other than Michael Crabtree, who is expected to go in the top 5), then sure, I'd say draft him. But drafting a WR is a crapshoot. I tell you what the Ravens don't need: they don't need another good but not game-breaking WR. They have plenty of guys who can make some plays, but aren't dominant: Mark Clayton, Demetrius Williams, Marcus Smith.

The top guys in free agency are TJ Houshmazilly, Devery Henderson, maybe Shaun McDonald. And of course there are persistent rumors about Anquan Boldin leaving the Cardinals. I would take Anquan Boldin in a friggin heartbeat: but he's not leaving the Cards, no matter what he thinks. Maybe they'd trade him if he didn't report next camp. Houshmazilly isn't considered the "#1 receiver" that a lot of fans want: but he does have the ability to get open and catch passes. I would not despise him as a FA signing. But he'll be 32 next season: for the money, is he really a big upgrade over what the Ravens have? Devery Henderson is an actual deep threat. And he's only 26 yrs old. I don't know much about him: why has he never caught more than 32 passes in a season? I would think you could catch more than that just standing around, the way Drew Brees sprays it around in Nawlins. Shaun McDonald looked like a football player last year, and played 5 yrs for Mike Martz; but his yards-per-catch is very low for a WR.

Is Nate Washington of the Steelers a free agent? I wouldn't mind improving us and weakening them in one stroke.

The WRs I see projected on the mock drafts to go near where the Ravens are picking in the 1st round are, Percy Harvin of Florida and Darrius Heyward-Bey of Maryland. They're both potential game-breakers, and they both have question marks. Harvin is fast and a playmaker; but he's not real big (under 180#) and he played a hybrid RB/WR position in college (a lot like Reggie Bush). Heyward-Bey is superfast and has great size, but hasn't played a lot of football (he ran track in high school), and wasn't super-productive in college. The next tier of WRs in the draft is Hakeem Nicks of N Carolina, Kenny Britt of Rutgers, Juaquin Iglesias of Oklahoma, and Derrick Williams of Penn St. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on any of these guys; but it's worth pointing out that the old Rutgers OC is on the Ravens coaching staff, and Iglesias is described on one mock-draft as "a smooth route runner", which is sort of like saying a girl is a great dancer. Mark Clayton is also "a smooth route runner". That's a great quality: but it's not one the Ravens need to spend a top-2 pick on.

I'd be fine with the Ravens taking a flyer on either Harvin or Heyward-Bey, if they felt they had an insight about him as a player. As a Maryland fan, I'd love to see Heyward-Bey go to the Ravens and blossom into a great WR. He really is ridiculously fast: 4.3 and occasionally sub-4.3 in the 40, at 6-3 210. But there's bust potential there. It would not bother me as a fan if the Ravens went in another direction with that pick.

I gotta tell you, I think there is great potential for the Ravens to improve in the passing game, just with the personnel they have. The WRs did not rack up great stats last year, but all of them were held back by the adjustment to a new offense and a rookie QB. Mark Clayton called it one of the most frustrating, exciting, challenging seasons he's had (this was in a mid-season interview). The Ravens were a very run-dominant team, so there weren't a ton of opportunities in the passing game, esp early. Then Joe Flacco latched on to Derrick Mason like a newborn latches on to a nip, so there weren't a lot of balls thrown to other guys. Seriously, there seemed to be some very primitive reaction deep in Flacco, like in the lizard brain, where "throw to Mason" = good and "throw to someone else" = not as good. I wonder if it crystallized when Heap dropped the TD pass in game 1. I swear there were plays where Flacco would drop back, and Marcus Clayton would be open, Marcus Smith would be WIDE open, and you could see a sliver of Derrick Mason's jersey thru the guys draped over him – and Flacco would throw it to Mason. And half the time Mason would catch the stupid thing! Dislocated shoulder or not; which didn't help break the cycle of Flacco looking only to Mason. Demetrius Williams caught a 70-yd TD pass in game 7 vs Oakland – and then was lost for the season with an injury. Mark Clayton had a breakout game against Cincinnati in game 12; but wasn't able to follow it up with similar numbers. Marcus Smith made a circus catch off a DB deflection in the playoffs, but the play was called back by a penalty ("throw to someone else" = not good), and I'm not sure Flacco ever threw to him again.

Here's the list of WR "looks" for the Ravens, off of FFtoday.com. This is the number of times the player was targetted for a pass by the QB:

Ravens receiver looks

Receiver	Looks
Derrick Mason	121
Mark Clayton	82
Demetrius Williams	23
Yamon Figurs	5
Marcus Smith	4
Ernie Wheelwright	0

Mason's number is high, good for #21 in the league. That 3rd figure is low, good for 119th in the league. If you add up the looks to all the other Ravens receivers, they total less than Mason's number: Flacco threw more to Mason than to all the other receivers put together. There just weren't a lot of balls for guys other than Mason to catch.

Remember that Flacco was not identified as the #1 QB last offseason, or in training camp. He was the #3, and did not get the reps that Kyle Boller & Troy Smith got. He only became the starter as of the last preseason game, when Smith went down with the illness. In fact the Ravens coaches were lamenting mid-season in one article I read, about how if they'd known he was going to be this good this quickly, they'd have given him more reps in training camp. "Imagine how good he'd be if he'd gotten the reps." Well, this time Flacco will go thru the offseason as the #1. He'll get all the reps in the OTAs and minicamp. He'll get to build the relationships with Clayton and Williams and Marcus Smith (and Todd Heap!), and maybe wean himself from this "throw only to Mason" thing he had going on. Couple that with the natural improvement from a QB in his 2nd year, and you could see a whole new Ravens passing attack next year, even with all the same guys.

I also think the Ravens got a sleeper with last year's 4th-rd pick, Marcus Smith. He's real fluid, and seems to have great hands; he's got great size, moves well. Get this: I am raving about a rookie WR who finished the season with zero catches. It seems ludicrous. ZERO! But I swear he looks like a football player to me. Flacco just would not throw to him. In the first place he only got on the field when the Ravens went to 3-WR sets, after Williams got hurt, and AFTER the Ravens stopped trying to use Yamon Figurs there. Subtract out all the caveats, and there weren't a lot of opportunities for Smith. He did draw a pass interference penalty in the endzone, which gave the Ravens a TD; but he didn't get a reception for it.

Maybe I've wandered from the point a bit? Ok, here's the point. The Ravens could use that "big play receiver" they've been seeking for a decade. A player like that could have a disproportionate impact on this team, make more of a difference than just about any other type of player. If the Ravens think that guy's there when they pick, I'd be quite pleased to come out of this draft with a Percy Harvin or Darrius Heyward-Bey or whomever they like. Even with the question marks, the Ravens staff has earned my trust: and Cam Cameron might want a shiny new toy to plug into his offense. But if the Ravens have doubts about the guys they're seeing, I have no problem with them looking elsewhere in the draft, and improving their production in the passing game without a magic new receiver. Either way I would like to see my boy Marcus Smith get more looks. ;-)



Maybe it sounds weird to say about a top 3 defense, but the Ravens really need to add talent at the corner. Chris McAlister missed 18 reg season games the past 2 years, and as of this writing they've cut him, thus freeing up $8 million they can use on their other free agents. That leaves Samari Rolle and Fabian Washington as the starting corners. Washington is very good, but he's small, and he battled injury off and on during the season. Rolle is 32, a fine player but not a young 32. He missed a lot of time the prior season, when he was diagnosed with epilepsy. The team is thin after that, though I should mention that Frank Walker, a player whom I criticized thruout the season, really improved all year, and made important contributions down the stretch. Corey Ivy and Evan Oglesby have played well in nickel & dime situations, but you don't think of either of them as starter material. (And Ivy is about to turn 32.) This is a position that needs an influx of talent.

I think any team would be looking for more talent at corner with the above roster; but for the Ravens, having good corner play is especially important, because of the style of D they play. They have been a gambling team with all sorts of odd blitz packages; and they say they're going to continue to play that way even with Rex Ryan gone. That puts pressure on the corners. When the Ravens have had to go to their backup corners the past 2 seasons, they have had to back off some of their pressure in order to get double-teams and zones on some receivers, and they've had trouble getting off the field on third down. (Esp against the friggin Steelers.) A shutdown corner would really stabilize the entire defense; it would instantly improve the pass rush.

Of course, the "stud corner" isn't any easier to order out of a catalog than the "big play receiver" is. One possibility that had me intrigued was all-world cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. How would we feel if the Ravens didn't re-sign Ray Lewis, and instead gave the big bucks to Asomugha? That's one way to shore up a defense! I wonder how he'd like playing for a winner, instead of the Raiders? However, as of this writing the Raiders have locked-up Asomugha with a huge contract, like Peyton Manning -type numbers. The deal has been criticized; but Asomugha is the best player at his position in the league. Teams don't even throw to his side of the field.

(An interesting footnote: in John Madden's first book Hey Wait a Minute, I Wrote a Book! he wrote that when he was coach of the Raiders, Al Davis always felt that the cover corner was the most important position on a football team. Madden said that they would argue, because Madden felt that OT was the most important position on a team. However, their arguments weren't too intractable, because each of them thought the other guy's favorite position was the second-most important position on a team.)

The corners who are mentioned in mock drafts near the Ravens pick are, Vontae Davis of Illiois, Alphonso Smith of Wake Forest, DJ Moore of Vanderbilt, Sean Smith of Utah, Mike Mickens of Cincinnati, and Darius Butler of UConn. That's a lot of players at one position for one small stretch of the 1st round, which indicates a lack of consensus about how to rank the corners. Probably this diversity of opinion will coalesce after the combine. Already, Davis and Smith are the two most often mentioned in this area of the draft (assuming Malcom Jenkins goes off the board in the top 10). I think the Ravens really need one of those guys; esp a big physical guy like Davis.

It should be noted that the Ravens are one of only a few teams (the Pats, and I think the Raiders and Redskins are the others) who do not subscribe to the combined scouting services. Instead they do all their own scouting, with regional guys going around to campuses during the year. It would not be shocking if the Ravens addressed their CB need with a guy not as high on the radar, maybe a 2nd or 3rd round pick for a guy like Mike Mickens of Cincinatti or the kid from Nicholls State, Lardarius Webb, who had the fastest 40-yd dash of the CBs at the combine.



Free agent re-signing priorities:

Terrell Suggs
Jason Brown
Ray-ray?
Bart Scot??
Jim Leonhard
Dawan Landry
Brandon McKinney

Not much you can say about free agency. The Ravens need to retain most of these guys, won't be able to keep all of them. They've franchised Suggs, and I think retained McKinney. We'll see soon about the others.

There is a lot of noise about Ray Lewis. Whatever happens will be national news; in the meantime, I don't know anything more than you do.

I had a spirited discussion the other day with Chris about Jason Brown. Upshot: Chris thinks the Ravens would be stupid to spend a lot of money on Brown, center is a highly-replaceable position; I think the Ravens really need to keep Brown, they're trying to grow a top-notch O-line and must not take a step back here, by letting their most accomplished OL (other than Old Man River Anderson) walk, over a medium-sized contract. Chris has a viewpoint worth hearing, but I'm right. ;-)

I love Jim Leonhard, but he will probably walk, and it doesn't seem like money is the main issue. He wants to start, he deserves a starting spot in this league, but the Ravens have Dawan Landry returning from injury and they drafted two safeties last year, so there's no guarantee in Baltimore. I find this sad: I don't think a team can ever really have enough guys like Jim Leonhard. He's 5-foot-8 and looks like Orel Hershiser, but he's a bulldog of a football player. There are a lot of guys with better measurables who don't make the plays he does.

__________________________________________________________


I notice I've been particularly wishy-washy about who the Ravens should draft. Writing above, I have advocated using the Ravens #1 pick on RB LeSean McCoy, C Alex Mack, TE Brandon Pettigrew, outside LBs / pass rushers Brian Cushing & Clint Sintim & Aaron Maybin, WRs Percy Harvin and Darrius Heyward-Bey, and corners Vontae Davis & Alphonso Smith. Ten players!

To me, this reflects the fact that there are a lot of ways this team can improve. It's not like last year, where if the Ravens don't come out of the draft with a QB prospect we must all shoot ourselves. They can go in a variety of directions this year.

It also reflects a certain confidence in the organization, to make sensible intelligent moves. In Ozzie we trust. I can't wait for the draft!

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Conflict of Disinterest

I am bemused by all the high-minded hand-wringing over Jay Glazer and his "conflict of interest" in covering the NFL. Have you seen this?

Fox’s Glazer Straddles Jobs as N.F.L. Reporter and Trainer

Jay Glazer is an “NFL Insider” for FoxSports; he's a sports reporter. And then he has a side business where he and his business partner Randy “The Natural” Couture train NFL players using MMA methodologies. From the NYT link above:

He and Couture have developed position-specific exercises to improve players’ leverage, endurance and flexibility. Current and former clients include the Atlanta Falcons, the St. Louis Rams, Chris Long, Ryan Grant, Patrick Willis, Keith Rivers, Matt Leinart and Jared Allen. Glazer hopes to bring in more football players and athletes from other sports. “We want to revolutionize athletic training,” he said.

MMA-style training is a natural for NFL players, who want to train hard and gain an advantage. When you bring Randy Couture to the party, pro athletes are going to take an interest. But does this pose a problem for Glazer's NFL reporting? In the article linked above, the NYT delicately points out:

Glazer’s arrangement is unusual, at best, and raises questions about how he balances his competing interests. While some N.F.L. reporters and sportscasters cover the sport for more than one news media outlet, Glazer reports on some of the same players and teams who pay him for his training expertise. ... Bob Steele, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, said Glazer’s entangled roles created “competing loyalties.” He added: “You can only scrutinize what he reports. But you can’t scrutinize what he does not report, so we don’t know what he didn’t ask an athlete.”

Sports Illustrated's Jeff Pearlman, less delicate than the Gray Lady, goes ballistic:

The Jay Glazer Rules
...turned my stomach. When he’s not reporting on NFL players and teams, Glazer, ahem, works for NFL players and teams. Literally. ...
This, journalistically, is a joke. An embarrassing, pathetic, worst-of-its-kind joke.
...
Glazer, on the other hand, accepts money from the very people he’s covering. One minute he’s helping Brian Cushing become a better athlete, the next he’s supposed to be telling us all he knows about the man—warts included. As clients, these players certainly expect—and receive—a high level of confidentiality. To work out under someone’s watch is to provide him with incredible access; access you don’t want displayed to the public. So what if Glazer hears Leinart calling a hooker? What if he sees Cushing (funny example) poppin ‘roids? What if he doesn’t think Grant is an especially hard worker? Does he sleep on the information, or does he ruin his ties with the players by reporting it? The answer is obvious: He sleeps on it.

Wow, what a controversy.

I wonder if “sports journalists” are at all surprised & disappointed at the blasé response to this tempest in a teapot? I think that most fans, without knowing any specific shortcomings, understand very well that sports reporters are not Woodward and Bernstein. For all their journalistic airs, what they do is not the same sacred exercise of the Fourth Estate that they studied in college.

What's most striking is not Glazer's arrangement, but Pearlman's hypocrisy. Blogger Brooks articulates a much more even-handed view:

Jay Glazer: We Fear What We Don’t Understand
Longtime Pearlman Sports Illustrated co-worker and perhaps the most prominent writer to ever work for the magazine, Rick Reilly, has a history of taking money from athletes for services rendered. In ‘91, Reilly co-authored Wayne Gretzky’s autobiography. In ‘95, Reilly co-authored a book with Charles Barkley about the “wit and wisdom” of the NBA player. In ‘88 Reilly co-authored Brian Bosworth’s autobiography. ... The books were all published while Gretzky, Barkley and Bosworth were still active professional athletes. ... SI baseball reporter Tom Verducci wrote a book with Joe Torre published last year about Torre’s experience managing the Yankees. ...
not a day goes by that I couldn’t cite countless conflicts of interest at the sports media leader, ESPN. Not to mention the NFL-owned and operated NFL Network. In the case of ESPN, the network rakes in hundreds of millions in revenue and branding benefits from the same league that it supposedly objectively covers - the NFL...
I’ve worked in main sports media for 16 years and have covered it daily while running this site for over nine years. From that experience, I can confirm that there isn’t a single sports media organization without a significant conflict of interest. Dealing with those conflicts is what distinguishes genuine reporters from bought-off, agenda-driven hacks.

Brooks stops short of laying out the case for how completely sold-out most sports reporters are. One online forum goes a bit further:

SportsJournalists.com
There are guys at ESPN who share agents with the athletes and the coaches they cover. There are guys at ESPN who are very close friends with the athletes, the agents and the coaches they cover.
Do I have a problem with Glazer's side business? Absolutely, but to single him out on this isn't right.

The business with shared agents is something that a fan or reader might never, ever know about. But there are corporate relationships that are obvious to any fan who turns on a TV.

• CBS, Fox and ESPN pay a combined $4 billion a year for TV rights to air NFL games. How much objective analysis do you hear on CBS & Fox & the four-letter about the American Needle vs NFL Supreme Court case? Drew Brees is writing Op-Ed's in the Washington Post, but it isn't “news”? Come on. How much discussion do you hear on those networks about football-related concussions, and post-football dementia?
• NBC pays the International Olympic Committee something on the order of $2 billion for the rights to broadcast the Winter Olympics. How much investigative reporting are we going to see on NBC about that legendarily corrupt organization, the IOC?
• CBS, Turner, and the NCAA recently agreed to a $10.8 billion extension on their deal for CBS to broadcast the mens basketball tournament thru 2024. How vigorous is the discussion on CBS going to be about graduation rates of basketball players, and academic reform, and player stipends, etc? Is Dick Vitale suddenly going to start being critical of Duke?
  

Jeff Pearlman may try to tell us it's not true that money talk$, but that will be a tough sell.

But actually, sports journalists are ethically compromised long before corporate interests become a factor. That is because the #1 thing a sports journalist has to peddle is access. Either the athletes and coaches and GM's will talk to them, and give them something to report – or they won't. Sports fans desiring information are subject to the whims of journalists who may be soft(er) on the guys who will talk to them, and rough on the guys who don't. Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy puts it very succinctly:

“No. 1, I'm not worried about my job security, and I'm even less worried about what Michael Wilbon would think about anything,” Van Gundy said. “He's just ... a talking head. I have refused to be on PTI [Wilbon's television show] for years, for five years. I follow that stuff. If you go on guys' shows, they don't criticize you. If you won't go on their show, they do. That stuff is never known. There's a lack of integrity in that business.”

Tom Boswell, among the most respected sports columnists in the country, wrote about this long ago. Forgive the vagueness of this please: I'm going to try to get it from memory. This appeared in an essay in one of his first two books, either How Life Imitates the World Series or Why Time Begins on Opening Day. He's discussing the daily ins-and-outs of covering a baseball team, and how the running of the tape recorder helps maintain some of the professional distance between player and reporter. But sometimes a player will blunder into saying something he didn't mean to, and will exclaim "You can't print that!" Boswell writes that this usually makes for an hour of moral drama on Lou Grant, but he usually shuts off the recorder and discusses it with the player. Boswell goes on to say that usually the thing the player is concerned about is something Boswell wouldn't bother writing about anyway – something of little interest to the general public, like a stupid argument with another player. But sometimes it is something worth writing about, in which case Boz lets the player have another crack at a quote he can use.

Is this a betrayal of journalism? Sports beat reporters travel with the team; they have to rub shoulders with the players for six to eight months of the year, in baseball and football (longer, in pro basketball). It seems professional to me, not to burn access over stupid stuff: otherwise you won't be useful to anyone. Every sports reporter decides, among all the information he is exposed to, what to report and what to save. What's more pathetic: Tom Boswell giving some young player another chance at a quote, or Peter King name-dropping all the players & coaches whose cell number he has? Let's not even talk about Chris Mortensen.

Since when did we come to expect that a sports reporter is “supposed to be telling us all he knows about the man,” in Pearlman's phrase? Nobody expects that. In the first place, there are space constraints; reporters are supposed to be punchy and concise, tell what's important. In the second place, the discretion of the reporters covering Babe Ruth and John F Kennedy are famous: we are no longer stupid enough to trust reporters to give us the whole story, if we ever were. In the real world, a sports fan knows that a certain amount of the iceberg is hidden; and only when a player crosses the line in a truly Roethlisberger-esque way will we ever get a real exposé on him.

Anyway: if it's a problem that Jay Glazer has a professional relationship with some teams & players, then why on earth do sports news organizations label their guys as “Insiders”??? They all but advertise that such a relationship exists; suddenly it's a problem when one of their guys actually gets inside?

Here's the bottom line. Sports reporters are essentially entertainers. What they do is not important in the world.

I mean, it's important to me. I'm dying to know about Joe Flacco working with a baseball pitching coach this offseason, and Ray Rice's training regimen, and whether Fabian Washington & Ladarious Webb are on-schedule to return this season. I need the work product of sports reporters and columnists, because I'm a fan and I crave it. What does Cam Cameron think we need to do to move the ball against the Jets in the season opener? TELL ME!!!!!!!

But a noble profession? It's nice to see sports journalists aspire to a professional standard of ethics. But let's not get delusions of grandeur about the job.

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