Today,
there are pending concussion-related lawsuits against the NFL, NCAA and
National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). Millions
upon millions of dollars are being dedicated to medical research and
improvements to helmets and other safety equipment. New rules are also
being introduced at all levels of the sport on how to play the game and
manage concussions to help prevent brain injury in football.
How did we get here?The
following is a timeline look at major rules changes, equipment
advances, medical research, legal action and other events that have
helped to shape prevention of head and brain injury in football, one of
the country’s most popular sports.
A shoemaker in Annapolis, Maryland,
creates the first leather football helmet. Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves
wears the moleskin device in the Army-Navy game.
George Barclay of Lafayette College wears
the first “head harness,” a leather helmet fixed to his head with three
heavy straps to protect his head and ears.
Vernon Wise, a 17-year-old at Oak Park
High, dies from back injuries in a football game. His death generates
heavy local press coverage. The Chicago Tribune calls the 1905 football
season a “death harvest” as 18 players die in the U.S. School officials
in Cook County, Illinois and across the country consider banning the
sport.
President Theodore Roosevelt meets with Yale’s Walter Camp and others
to discuss how to make the sport safer. The group creates rules that
include setting first downs at 10 yards, creating a one-yard “neutral
zone” at the line of scrimmage, mandating penalties for unsportsmanlike
conduct and allowing the forward pass. These meetings lead to the
establishment of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
Football deaths and injuries continue,
including the death of University of Virginia halfback Archer Christian
from head injuries suffered in a “line-bucking play.” New rules are
adopted that include bans on line-bucking and “flying tackles.”
The first professional football
organization is founded. It features 14 teams, including the Decatur
Staleys (today’s Chicago Bears) and Chicago Cardinals (today’s Arizona
Cardinals).
The group’s goals include raising “the standard of professional
football in every way possible,” including prevention of injuries. Two
years later, the group adopts the name, National Football League (NFL).
A New Jersey pathologist, Harrison
Martland, is the first to describe in medical literature a condition
called “punch drunk” syndrome or “dementia pugilistica.”
This is later known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a
degenerative brain disease linked to concussions. CTE is later found in
many former football players.
The John T. Riddell Company introduces the first all-plastic helmet. A chin strap is added to the design in 1940.
One major problem: The material is brittle and tends to break at impact.
The NFL requires all players to wear helmets. Six years later, the NFL officially adopts the plastic helmet.
At halftime of a game, Cleveland Browns
coach Paul Brown orders a bar to be added to the helmet of his star
player, Otto Graham. It’s the first single-bar facemask.
With money he earns from the patent, Brown creates the Cincinnati Bengals. By 1962, facemasks are worn by every NFL player.
The New England Journal of Medicine
publishes a study which concludes that no football player should
continue playing after suffering a third concussion.
Riddell introduces “micro-fit technology”
to helmets, which features padding inside that is aimed at absorbing
blows to the head.
The NFL passes a rule that prohibits grabbing another player’s
facemask. However, no penalties are attached to the rule until 1976.
Those penalties include ejection for “vicious or flagrant” violations.
The National Operating Committee on
Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) is created to establish
standards and certification of athletic equipment, including football
helmets, in order to prevent injuries and deaths.
The NOCSAE publishes standards for
football helmets. Companies that provide helmets to the NFL, college and
high school sports teams release helmets to meet those standards.
By 1980, NOCSAE-certified helmets are required at every level of the sport.
The NCAA and NFHS adopt rules that ban “spearing,” or using the head as the initial contact point.
The NFL adopts the “Deacon Jones Rule,” which bans players from slapping an opponent’s helmet in an effort to get around them.
The NFL passes a rule that bans
“spearing.” However, 17 years pass until referees are finally allowed to
call personal fouls for helmet-to-helmet hits.
The NFL passes a rule that bans
“spearing.” However, 17 years pass until referees are finally allowed to
call personal fouls for helmet-to-helmet hits.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sport
Injury Research is founded with funding, in part, from the American
Football Coaches Association.
The center conducts vital research into fatal and non-fatal football injuries, including compiling statistics on brain injuries.
The first helmets made with polycarbonate
alloy plastic and alloy steel face masks are introduced. They become
standard equipment within a few years.
The NFL establishes the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) Committee to study concussions.
The committee releases studies that include a finding that team
physicians had routinely allowed players with concussion symptoms to
return to action, putting them at risk of suffering second impact
syndrome.
In Lake County Circuit Court, a jury
awards $1.55 million to former Chicago Bears fullback Merril Hoge in his
lawsuit against a former team physician.
In his lawsuit, Hoge alleged that the doctor failed to warn him about
the severity of his concussions, which forced him to retire at age 29.
The Riddell Revolution helmet is
introduced. It is specifically designed to reduce the risk of
concussions and widely hailed as the biggest advance in helmet design in
a quarter of a century.
The “Revo” leads to “smart” helmets that include features that can monitor players for head injuries.
Dr. Bennet Omalu teams up with researchers
from the University of Pittsburgh to publish the first of two
controversial studies that discuss CTE among former football players.
The studies are influenced by autopsies of two former Pittsburgh Steelers, “Iron” Mike Webster and Terry Long.
The NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement
includes the “88 Plan,” which provides medical benefits to former
players who have developed dementia.
The NFL holds a summit that results in new
guidelines for the management of concussions in the sport. Two years
later, stricter guidelines are adopted.
The Center for the Study of Traumatic
Encephalopathy (CSTE) is established in partnership with Boston
University School of Medicine – the first center of its kind.
The NFHS
makes changes to its rule book, stating that any athlete who “exhibits
signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion (such as loss
of consciousness, headache, dizziness, confusion or balance problems)
shall be immediately removed from the contest and shall not return to
play until cleared by an appropriate health-care professional.”
The NFHS also issues new guidelines on management of concussions.
Before killing himself with a shotgun,
former Chicago Bear defensive back Dave Duerson tells family members to
donate his brain to the CSTE. Three months after his death, neurologists
confirm that Duerson suffered from CTE.
The NCAA revises its 16-year-old guidelines on treatment of
concussions to include language stating, “It is essential that no
athlete be allowed to return to participation when any symptoms persist,
either at rest or exertion.”
The NCAA
adopts a new “targeting” rule that calls for ejecting players who
target a defenseless player with a helmet-to-helmet hit. The
controversial rule is revised a year later.
Alvin Jobe, the father of a Mississippi high school football player,
files the first federal class-action lawsuit involving concussions
suffered by high school football players. The lawsuit against the NCAA
and NFHS includes a demand that both organizations certify concussion
management plans of NFHS members.The family of former San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau releases the findings of a National Institutes of Health post-mortem examination of his brain, indicating that he suffered from CTE. Seau, like Duerson, had taken his own life with a shotgun in 2012.
The NFL reaches a proposed $765 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by a group of former players who claimed the league had concealed the dangers of concussions and rushed injured players back on the field. The plaintiffs included former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon and the family of Junior Seau. All 18,000 former NFL players could be eligible for compensation in the settlement, including those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, CTE and dementia. The NFL also implements its strictest concussion protocol to date.
In the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, the NCAA submits a proposed
$75 million settlement of claims brought by former athletes, including
Eastern Illinois defensive back Adrian Arrington. The claims alleged
that the NCAA endangered players’ health by putting concussion polices
in the hands of its member schools. As part of the settlement, the NCAA
would adopt new protocol for handling concussions and fund monitoring of
former players. In the future, athletes could bring individual lawsuits
against the NCAA but not class-action claims.
President Barack Obama hosts the first Healthy Kids and Safe Sports
Concussion Summit at the White House. During the event, it is announced
that organizations that include the NCAA, NFL and Department of Defense
will spend millions of dollars on concussion research in the coming
years.