quote:
I liked Kyle Turley as a Saints and a player. I'm not trying to be douchey when I say this but, why is it people are just now assuming that if an NFL player has any issues after retirement, that it's directly related to concussions or too many hard hits?

Because it happens at a higher rate than normally and unlike depression generally, which multiple causes and symptoms, there's a really obvious slate of physical symptoms. Here's the abstract of a journal article on the issue.

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Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that is a long-term consequence of single or repetitive closed head injuries for which there is no treatment and no definitive pre-mortem diagnosis. It has been closely tied to athletes who participate in contact sports like boxing, American football, soccer, professional wrestling and hockey. Risk factors include head trauma, presence of ApoE3 or ApoE4 allele, military service, and old age. It is histologically identified by the presence of tau-immunoreactive NFTs and NTs with some cases having a TDP-43 proteinopathy or beta-amyloid plaques. It has an insidious clinical presentation that begins with cognitive and emotional disturbances and can progress to Parkinsonian symptoms. The exact mechanism for CTE has not been precisely defined however, research suggest it is due to an ongoing metabolic and immunologic cascade called immunoexcitiotoxicity. Prevention and education are currently the most compelling way to combat CTE and will be an emphasis of both physicians and athletes. Further research is needed to aid in pre-mortem diagnosis, therapies, and support for individuals and their families living with CTE.

Bolded = shite you wouldn't expect in general depression.

As for, it could've happened anyway. Seriously where the frick do you people get this stuff? Sure, anything can happen at any time. Cause and effect isn't usually as simple as a + b = c. People die of lung cancer without smoking, that doesn't make smoking good for your health.

Just because participating in an activity doesn't cause the same symptoms in all people all of the time, doesn't mean it won't cause some symptoms in some people some of the time. If a small yet significant number of people who participate in what is, at this point in time, an obviously neurodegenerative process suddenly start developing symptoms consistent with neurological issues, you want to jump up and down and point to the lower rate of it happening among people who don't do the same thing? WTF sort of argument is that. Seriously, some of you guys should look up how the smoking industry denied the link between smoking and cancer for so long, then tried to act like they were clueless about the whole thing.

If people want to point me to studies showing that the neurodegenerative factors in CTE cases have nothing to do with being hit in the head, then fine, whatever go ahead.

I just don't see why all the butthurtness comes out every time an ex player's life is obviously fricked up now because they're having severe issues doing the things you and I take for granted, like going through life being able to remember shite and control our emotions.

If the ex players get to discovery stage in their lawsuit, we'll have to see if it comes out that the NFL knew this was likely and decided to ignore it, or whether they were as surprised as anybody else.

This post was edited on 5/1/13 at 8:25 pm