Mark Fainaru-Wada - League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth

Copyright 2013 by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-7704-3754-1
eISBN: 978-0-7704-3755-8

Jacket design: Michael Nagin
Jacket photograph: Nick Veasey/Getty Images

v3.1

To the three remarkable women in our lives

Nicole,

Maureen,

and our mother, Ellen Gilbert

This book benefited greatly from the work of people who joined us at different stages of the research. Sabrina Shankman, a reporter for Frontline, the PBS investigative news program, spent nearly a year on the project, conducting numerous interviews and gathering information on everything from the biomechanics of helmet testing to the NFLs courtship of mommy bloggers. She is a tireless, smart, and resourceful reporter and a wonderful colleague. Her work can be found throughout the book. Kevin Fixler, a recent graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a freelance sportswriter based in Denver, and Maureen Fan, the former Beijing correspondent for the Washington Post, also contributed essential research. We were fortunate to have such outstanding collaborators, each of whom strengthened the book in ways that are visible and others that are not.

Paul J. Tagliabue, Commissioner, 19892006

Roger S. Goodell, Commissioner, 2006

Jeff Pash, Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Greg Aiello, Director of Communications

Elliot J. Pellman, M.D., Chairperson, 19942007

Ira R. Casson, M.D., Cochairman, 20072009

David C. Viano, Ph.D., Cochairman, 20072009

Henry Feuer, M.D.

Mark R. Lovell, Ph.D.

Joseph F. Waeckerle, M.D.

Joseph C. Maroon, M.D.

Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D., ATC, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Robert C. Cantu, M.D., Emerson Hospital, Concord, Massachusetts

Julian E. Bailes Jr., M.D., NorthShore Neurological Institute, Evanston, Illinois

William B. Barr, Ph.D., New York University Medical Center, New York, New York

Leigh Steinberg, Sports Agent, Newport Beach, California

Bennet I. Omalu, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner, San Joaquin County, Lodi, California

Julian E. Bailes Jr., M.D., NorthShore Neurological Institute, Evanston, Illinois

Robert P. Fitzsimmons, Attorney, Wheeling, West Virginia

Garrett Webster, son of Mike Webster, Moon Township, Pennsylvania

Christopher Nowinski, Sports Legacy Institute, Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, Boston, Massachusetts

Ann C. McKee, M.D., Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital

Robert C. Cantu, M.D., Emerson Hospital, Concord, Massachusetts

Robert A. Stern, Ph.D., Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Troy Aikman, Quarterback, Dallas Cowboys, 19892000

Harry Carson, Linebacker, New York Giants, 19761988

Dave Duerson (deceased), Defensive Back, Chicago Bears, 19831989; New York Giants, 1990; Phoenix Cardinals, 19911993

John Grimsley (deceased), Linebacker, Houston Oilers, 19841990; Miami Dolphins, 19921993

Merril Hoge, Running Back, Pittsburgh Steelers, 19871993; Chicago Bears, 1994

Ted Johnson, Linebacker, New England Patriots, 19952004

Terry Long (deceased), Guard, Pittsburgh Steelers, 19841991

John Mackey (deceased), Tight End, Baltimore Colts, 19631971; San Diego Chargers, 1972

Tom McHale (deceased), Guard, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 19871992; Philadelphia Eagles, 19931994; Miami Dolphins, 1995

Gary Plummer, Linebacker, San Diego Chargers, 19861993; San Francisco 49ers, 19941997

Junior Seau (deceased), Linebacker, San Diego Chargers, 19902002; Miami Dolphins, 20032005; New England Patriots, 20062009

Justin Strzelczyk (deceased), Guard-Tackle, Pittsburgh Steelers, 19901998

Al Toon, Wide Receiver, New York Jets, 19851992

Andre Waters (deceased), Safety, Philadelphia Eagles, 19841993; Arizona Cardinals, 19941995

Mike Webster (deceased), Center, Pittsburgh Steelers, 19741988; Kansas City Chiefs, 19891990

Steve Young, Quarterback, Los Angeles Express (USFL), 19841985; Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 19851986; San Francisco 49ers, 19871999

Behold the mighty woodpecker.

On average, it weighs about 2 ounces and can generate up to 1,000 g forces while pecking at tree limbs 12,000 times a day. Yet the woodpeckers brain remains pristine and unscathed, a fact that has intrigued researchers for decades. Nature essentially has turned the woodpecker into a shock absorber from beak to foot. The birds uneven bill deflects much of the impact of its incessant head banging. A third interior eyelid prevents its eyeballs from popping out. The woodpeckers tongue is one of the most unusual features in nature. It extends from the back of the birds mouth and through its right nostril, finally wrapping itself snugly around the entire crown of the head. Chinese researchers who subjected the great spotted woodpecker and the Eurasian hoopoe to super-slow-motion replay and CT scans concluded that the tongue serves as a kind of safety belt for the brain.

In the late 2000s, Julian Bailes displayed a woodpecker skull in a jar on top of his desk in Morgantown, West Virginia. Bailes was a top neurosurgeon and a former team doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He incurred the wrath of the NFL when he joined a small group of researchers who concluded that football was causing brain damage in an alarming number of former players. During a closed-door meeting in 2007 that was attended by the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, and 200 team doctors, trainers, and players, a neurologist affiliated with the league had mocked Bailes, rolling his eyes as Bailes showed slides of diseased brain tissue collected from dead players. Im a man of science! the NFLs neurologist had bellowed, implying that Bailes was not. It was an ugly scene, one of many that took place during those strange years when the National Football League went to war against science.

Every once in a while, someone would ask Bailes about the curious object on his desk. Bailes loved footballhe had been an all-state linebacker in Louisianaand even though the NFL was attacking him, he surrounded himself with artifacts of the sport: a shelf filled with old helmets of the Steelers, Cardinals, Chiefs, and Rams; deflated footballs; a panoramic photo of Pittsburghs Three Rivers Stadium, where he once had worked; and a signed photo of the legendary Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert, snarling and toothless. My whole life was football, Bailes would say. He would pick up the tiny bird brain from his desk and explain that if only NFL players were built like woodpeckers, none of this would have happened.