HOW O.J. HELPED THE NFL JUKE CTE
As helmet-maker’s witness vs. paralyzed kid, Juice shielded league from cata$trophe
In March 1970, O.J. Simpson served as a witness in a landmark court case brought by the family of a paralyzed football player against a major helmet-maker. His adroit performance on the stand, experts say, helped the NFL shrug off the dangers of CTE for decades.
Two years after winning the Heisman Trophy at USC and a year after becoming the firstround draft pick for the Buffalo Bills, Simpson was tapped by the legal defense team of Rawlings Sporting Goods.
The equipment-maker had been slapped with a $3.6 million lawsuit — the first of its kind to reach a jury — by the family of Ernie Pelton. The former running back at Rio Linda High School in Sacramento, Calif., had been paralyzed from the neck down after a helmet-to-helmet hit in 1967.
Simpson — already a local hero at the time around his hometown of San Francisco before becoming a national celebrity — charmed a star-struck jury as he defended the plastic helmets produced by Rawlings, according to The Sacramento Bee.
“I believe in this helmet,” Simpson, who wore a Rawlings helmet as a running back for the Bills, testified in Sacramento County Superior Court, according to the newspaper.
Asked on the stand to read the warning label inside the Rawlings helmet — which said players should “avoid all purposeful contact” — Simpson quipped, “I try, but haven’t succeeded.”
Just like his
Simpson also testified that he used a Rawlings helmet during his high school playing days in San Francisco — like the helmet Pelton was wearing when he suffered the life-altering injury.
Lawyers for Rawlings argued during the trial “that the game of football is at stake,” with one of the attorneys asking Simpson if he was aware of the sport’s inherent risks.
“A person would be pretty ignorant if he didn’t know,” Simpson replied.
“I know every time I get on the field, there’s a chance you can get hurt like the Pelton boy.”
After Simpson’s testimony, the jury sent a note requesting to have their photos taken with the gridiron star, according to an account of the trial by political journalist Melody Gutierrez.
The Sacramento Union newspaper ran a photo on March 11, 1970, with the caption: “Simpson signs autographs for jurors.”
Weeks later, the jury ruled in favor of Rawlings. Simpson — who died April 10 at age 76 and was cremated after his family refused an analysis of his brain for concussion damage — helped pave the way for a verdict that helped shield the NFL for generations to come from addressing the dangers of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, industry experts said.
“If Pelton won, it would have been devastating to football,” said Robert Erb, the CEO of helmet maker Schutt Sports from 2008-2020. “The NFL, NCAA and high school football had to be relieved.”
Helmet liability expert Kimberly Archie added: “It made attorneys afraid to take on other cases.”
‘ If [Ernie] Pelton won, it would have been ’ devastating to football.
— Robert Erb, former CEO of helmet-maker Schutt Sports
There were a few victories against helmet makers in the ensuing years. In 1974, MacGregor was ordered to pay $3.5 million by a Rhode Island jury for selling a defective helmet, but a judge later reduced that penalty by 40% saying the youth player was partially responsible.
Warning-label case
A year later, the family of an Indiana 13-year-old won $5.8 million from Rawlings because there was no warning label on the helmet.
But for the most part, helmet makers and the NFL were able to skirt any significant financial damage for decades because of the ruling in the Pelton case.
“It reinforced the ‘assumption of the risk is on the player legal defense,’ ” Erb told The Post.
“If you want proof of how important that verdict was, you can look at the number of patents filed in the years after for new helmet designs. There was little development.”
The NFL continued to ignore that many of its players were exposed to brain damage from violent helmet-to-helmet contact well into the 21st century, with football growing into the nation’s most popular pro sport largely on the bone-jarring hits highlighted in its own NFL Films videos.
Rawlings finally stopped making helmets in 2015 after losing several suits filed by the families of youth football players who suffered head injuries.
It was around that time that the NFL stopped turning a blind eye to CTE, which can only be diagnosed after someone dies. Symptoms include erratic impulsive behavior from bruising to the brain caused by repetitive head trauma.
The tide began to turn as alleged evidence emerged that the NFL had been hiding studies that showed the impacts of repeated head injuries, undermining the argument that players knew the risks of football.
NFL stars like the Chicago Bears’ Dave Duerson and San Diego Chargers’ Junior Seau were found to suffer from CTE after their brains were analyzed following their tragic suicides.
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who in 2015 was found guilty of firstdegree murder, hanged himself in prison in 2017. An analysis of his brain found that he had CTE.
In 2018, Simpson told The Buffalo News he was “concerned” he might have developed CTE during his career, admitting that he suffered a pair of concussions.
“I do recognize that it probably affects you in short-term memory more than long-term,” he said. “I know with me, I have days I can’t find words . . . That gets a little scary.”
Dr. Bennet Omalu, the doctor who connected CTE with football and was portrayed by actor Will Smith in the 2016 movie “Concussion,” said he would bet his medical license that Simpson suffered from CTE.
The league has since done laboratory testing to evaluate which helmets best reduce head impact injuries. These tests recreate the unique impacts players at each position tend to experience on the field, an NFL spokesman says, adding that the league now approves safer helmets.
It’s still not enough, Erb said, pointing to the increase in concussions suffered by today’s players. He pinned some of that blame on the league increasing the length of the season from 14 games in the early 1970s to the current 17-game format.
“The NFL is just as much of a meat grind as it was back in the 1970s,” Erb said. “The NFL is spending more money on advertising about safety and throwing dinners for neurologists than on fixing the problem.”
Consistent concussions
Overall, the NFL since the 1970s has had 20 games per season, the league said. The format in 1978 went to 4 preseason games and 16 regular season games. In 2022, the format switched to 3 preseason games and 17 regular season games.
The overall 20-game season has remained consistent, an NFL spokesman said.
“In 2023, concussion numbers largely remained steady compared to the previous season,” the NFL spokesman said, and significantly lower than the 2015 to 2017 baseline.
Meanwhile, the NFL’s change in attitude toward helmet safety came way too late for Ernie Pelton and his family, which was left to care for the quadriplegic for the next five decades with little financial help.
He died in 2007 after spending his life in bed attached to medical equipment.
The family blames Simpson for siding with Rawlings.
“We would have won if O.J. didn’t testify,” Pelton’s sister Malinda Lacusky told The Post. “Ernie didn’t get a good case because such a famous man testified against him.”
Simpson’s decision to take the secrets of his brain to the grave added salt to the wound, the industry experts said.
“I think the NFL is relieved. The last thing they needed was to learn that O.J. had CTE. They don’t need or want that,” Erb said. Liability expert Archie agreed. “As one of the most well-known NFL Hall of Famers, O.J.’s brain being donated to science could have made an enormous impact in awareness,” she said. “That is part of O.J.’s legacy. He was a part of football fooling the public about safety.”
Simpson’s lawyer did not return calls.