NFL News 2016: League Hits Back At New York Times For Article On Football's Relation To Concussions
The National Football League was not too happy about the recent New York Times' article about the correlation between American Football and head trauma.
On Thursday, Alan Schwarz, Walt Bogdanich, and Jacqueline Williams released an article about the "flawed" concussion research procedures by the NFL, which was said to be based on a "full accounting" of all concussions diagnosed from 1996 until 2001.
The same report adds that a number of retired players compared the league's method of dealing with health crisis to the previous methods used by the tobacco industry to downplay the negative health effects of smoking cigarettes.
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The report also noted a number of injury reports were actually more severe than what was on the official tally, taking note of St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner's case in particular. Warner sustained a concussion last December 2000, which healed after two days, but the symptoms continued to manifest.
He was then ruled out of the Pro Bowl.
The NFL refused to take the situation lying down and issued a response. In a report by Frank Schwab for Yahoo! Sports, the league claimed that the Times used ignored some facts. Specifically, the NFL says the publication "relied on faulty and incomplete concussion data."
"The studies never claimed to be based on every concussion that was reported or that occurred. Moreover, the fact that not all concussions were reported is consistent with the fact that reporting was strongly encouraged by the League but not mandated, as documents provided to the Times showed," an excerpt of the NFL's response reads.
American football has been long criticized for the high risk of head trauma that the players are putting themselves in. Three years ago, the UFC has piggy backed on the said claims, noting how mixed martial arts is 'safer' than the NFL.
In a January 2013 interview, UFC president Dana White noted how the NFL immediately puts a player back in after a concussion, as opposed to the UFC's method of putting its fighters on a lengthy medical suspension.
