NFL, NFLPA seek alternatives to opioids
The NFL is taking steps to learn more about different ways to help players manage pain.
Last month, the NFL and NFL Players Association asked researchers with experience conducting controlled, experimental studies related to pain management to submit information that may be useful in treating players.
The joint pain management committee comprised of medical experts appointed by the league and the union wants to know about alternatives to opioids, including CBD (cannabidiol) and other cannabis-derivative products, that may help players recover from sports-specific and musculoskeletal injuries.
The committee’s mission is to “improve player health through evidencebased treatment of acute and chronic pain, and to facilitate research to better understand and improve potential alternative treatments.”
“We all recognize that appropriate treatment of pain is an important aspect of not only sports medicine but just medicine in general, so we are always looking at new methods and new techniques for treating pain that will be safer and more effective than opioids,” Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said.
Jim McMahon, a two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback and leader of the 1985 Chicago Bears, played through numerous injuries during his career and became addicted to opioids. Now 61, McMahon says he hasn’t taken a painkiller in more than a decade.
“I was eating at least 100 percocets a month just to function, to get out of bed,” McMahon said. “When I moved out here to Arizona, I got my medical marijuana license and I’ve been exclusively using that since and my body feels a hell of a lot better. My mind is a lot clearer. It’s done me wonders.”
Cannabis is a banned substance in the NFL, although rules about players using marijuana were loosened in the latest collective bargaining agreement.
Black female official hired: The NFL hired Maia Chaka as the first Black female official in league history. She will work games during the 2021 season.
Chaka enters the NFL after working in the Pac-12 and Conference USA.
Hyde rewarded: The Buffalo Bills signed veteran safety Micah Hyde to a two-year contract extension worth $9.6 million a year.
The 30-year-old Hyde had one season remaining on a five-year contract he signed upon joining the Bills in free agency in 2017, and is now locked up through 2023. He is entering his ninth NFL season after spending his first four with the Green Bay Packers.
Washington releases Smith: Washington released Comeback Player of the Year Alex Smith, a move that was expected but still provides a cold ending to the veteran quarterback’s storybook tenure with the organization.
Smith’s release clears just under $15 million in salary cap space for Washington.
Smith, 37, made a triumphant return to NFL action last season, two years after breaking two bones in his right leg and requiring 17 surgeries to repair it. His battle against a life-threatening infection and long rehab process to get back on the field became a documentary and an inspirational tale.