SPORTS NFL TAKES ANOTHER IMAGE HIT
Controversy over brain research mars meetings
It was supposed to CHARLOTTE be pretty low-key, as far as NFL owners meetings go.
Award a few Super Bowls. Tweak the instant replay system. Chat about Las Vegas.
All that happened, sure enough, on cue. But an elephant stomped into the room, too.
The NFL is back on its heels again after the scathing investigative report released Monday by Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. that concluded the league tried to influence the CTE research that it had pledged to support through its $30 million grant to the National Institutes of Health.
The investigation, sparked by an ESPN Outside The Lines report in December, names names and points to a motive — thwarting Boston University CTE expert Robert Stern, an NFL adversary who testified on behalf of plaintiffs in the class-action concussion settlement that could top $1 billion.
Of course, there were a lot of denials and explanations coming from the suits who gathered Tuesday at a swanky resort hotel. But at this point in the concussion saga, the pushback comes with much suspicion.
Perception is not on the NFL’s side here.
For years, the league denied there was even a link between football, concussions and longterm health risks.
Now one of the doctors associated with that position, Elliot Pellman — former head of the disbanded Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee — is named in the midst of efforts to apparently squash the research to be conducted by Stern, who, by the way, had the highest-ranked proposal. Not a good look, NFL. “It’s a bad look,” Houston Texans owner Robert McNair said. “But it’s not true.”
By the time NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell tried to explain it all at his wrap-up news conference, several owners had already expressed his sentiments. Taking a cue from Goodell, owners struck the expected consensus in refuting the report.
On one level, maybe they have a point when considering how Richard Ellenbogen, the co-chairman of the NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee, contended in a letter to Congress — and before that, to USA TODAY Sports — that he wasn’t even consulted during the investigation. Ellenbo- gen, who was on the front lines in lobbying efforts to get laws passed in 50 states to enact return-to-play standards for youth players, vehemently denied the allegation in the report that he had a financial incentive in op- posing Stern’s research project.
Then again, it doesn’t take the NFL Players Association to point out that the NFL is running on fumes in the trust department when it comes to health and safety matters.
Sure, while NFL revenue soars, Goodell reiterated that health and safety is his No. 1 priority. Not only has the league adopted 42 playing rule changes over the last decade linked to safety, including three this year, it also has