Top NFL Analyst Quits, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field

[Tennis]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/s...ncussions.html

LONG BEACH, Calif. — If Ed Cunningham had not already seen enough, he would be back in a broadcast booth on Saturday afternoon, serving as the color analyst for another top college football game televised on ABC or ESPN. It is the work he has done each fall for nearly 20 years.

But Cunningham, 48, resigned from one of the top jobs in sports broadcasting because of his growing discomfort with the damage being inflicted on the players he was watching each week. The hits kept coming, right in front of him, until Cunningham said he could not, in good conscience, continue his supporting role in football’s multibillion-dollar apparatus.

“I take full ownership of my alignment with the sport,” he said. “I can just no longer be in that cheerleader’s spot.”

Football has seen high-profile N.F.L. players retire early, even pre-emptively, out of concern about their long-term health, with particular worry for the brain. But Cunningham may be the first leading broadcaster to step away from football for a related reason — because it felt wrong to be such a close witness to the carnage, profiting from a sport that he knows is killing some of its participants.
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“In its current state, there are some real dangers: broken limbs, wear and tear,” Cunningham said. “But the real crux of this is that I just don’t think the game is safe for the brain. To me, it’s unacceptable.”


Football has dominated Cunningham’s life, he said, since he began playing as a freshman in high school. He was captain of the University of Washington’s 1991 national championship team and a third-round draft choice in the N.F.L., where he was an offensive lineman for five seasons. He has been a broadcaster since, paired for most of the last decade with the play-by-play announcer Mike Patrick for Saturday afternoon games televised on ABC and ESPN.

As a color analyst, primarily providing commentary between plays, Cunningham built a reputation among college football fans, and even coaches, for his pointed criticism toward what he thought were reckless hits and irresponsible coaching decisions that endangered the health of athletes. His strong opinions often got him denounced on fan message boards and earned him angry calls from coaches and administrators.

“I could hardly disagree with anything he said,” Patrick, who will have a new broadcast partner this season in Cunningham’s absence, said in a phone interview. “The sport is at a crossroads. I love football — college football, pro football, any kind of football. It’s a wonderful sport. But now that I realize what it can do to people, that it can turn 40-, 50-year-old men into walking vegetables, how do you stay silent? Ed was in the vanguard of this. I give him all the credit in the world. And I’m going to be outspoken on it, in part because he led me to that drinking hole.”

Still a sturdy 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, Cunningham explained his position while sitting in a booth at Legends Sports Bar in Long Beach, near his home. The booth had its own television, silently rebroadcasting an N.F.L. preseason game as Cunningham spoke. He never glanced at it.

He made it plain that he was not becoming an antifootball evangelist. The sport’s long-term success hinges on moving more urgently toward safety, especially at the youth and college levels, he said. He has pointed suggestions on ways to make the game safer.

But he grew weary of watching players be removed from the field on carts with little ceremony. (“We come back from the break and that guy with the broken leg is gone, and it’s just third-and-8,” he said.) He increasingly heard about former players, including former teammates and peers, experiencing the long-term effects of their injuries, especially brain trauma.

Good call. It's time to do away with this sport given the absolutely destructive effect it can have on the brain.
I remember LeBron saying he wouldn't let his kids play because of the risks.

[Cantheal]

Know what has far more cases a year?

Girls soccer.

We need to stop support a dangerous sport like this and I can no longer watch young ladies subject themselves to it in the name of entertainment.

I remember Serena William say she would not let her girls play soccer because of the risks.

.....

[Cantheal]

and don't get me started on the even WORSE parents forcing their kids to play soccer

[ohiostate124]

Know what has far more cases a year?

Girls soccer.

We need to stop support a dangerous sport like this and I can no longer watch young ladies subject themselves to it in the name of entertainment.

I remember Serena William say she would not let her girls play soccer because of the risks.

.....

It's scary what kind of damage heading the ball does

[I Push Buttons]

No one cares about TBI when they make millions of dollars.

[Sykol]

Make millions, retire before 40, what a brutal sport, those poor men.

[Stop Pretending]

Ban soccer.

[Grakey]

Its a sport they chose to play. No one is holding a gun to their head while they play a game making millions of dollars. I'm sorry, but I don't feel bad for them, and I dont think society should either. We should feel bad for the players who didn't know about CTE decades ago. But players now know the risks, and guess what, they still play. As would, I think, many who played decades ago, even if they had known the risk.

[IIamaKing]

There is NO way to make contact football safe. Its a pipe dream.

[PACOX]

The real tragedy behind the NFL is all those fat linemen running around, right?

Did you know that half of the players on the field at any given time are obese? They should be forced to wear special jerseys!

[LMuhlen]

There is NO way to make contact football safe. Its a pipe dream.

What if we change the rules a bit so that the boys wear bras and tinfoil hats, use a balloon instead of a ball and give hugs and compliments to the opposing team instead of tackling them. We could call it Sarcastaball!!

I dislike sports, but if people want to endanger themselves, it's up to them. The way to protest would be to stop being interested in those polemic sports, and eventually the money it gets would switch to other forms of entertainment. Just like what the guy in the article is doing.

And if soccer is also bad, they are both bad, it's not an excuse.

[Typhoria]

Zomg, it's like people are being payed a shit ton for a high risk physical job.

[mizeri]

pretty sure rugby has more injuries then american football

[Sting]

Maybe he should give sarcastaball a try

[Deckon]

Tennisace just wants Football abolished because it's so popular, and it's something Canada can't be good at...

[Tennis]

Tennisace just wants Football abolished because it's so popular, and it's something Canada can't be good at...

I want it banned for several reasons.

[kail]

I want it banned for several reasons.

Hockey too? Rugby? What about car racing?

[Zethras]

Hockey too? Rugby? What about car racing?

Or perhaps boxing, or other combative sports? Those are just as likely to scramble the old grey matter just as much as football.

[Logwyn]

Know what has far more cases a year?

Girls soccer.

We need to stop support a dangerous sport like this and I can no longer watch young ladies subject themselves to it in the name of entertainment.

I remember Serena William say she would not let her girls play soccer because of the risks.

.....

What data do you have for this? Or are you just pulling it from the air? Everything I see says American Football is the tops in the USA.

[THE Bigzoman]

The NFL has already taken its disingenuous concern about player safety too far, as evidenced by Vontaze Burfict's bullshit ass suspension recently.

The NFL was wrong to supress information about the link between constant hits to the head. But now, we know about the effects it has for some players. Players, now fully aware of the risks, can decide whether or not to take them.


Football is an inherently violent sport. There's nothing anyone can do to change that. Let's not fundamentally change a sport that people have grown to love and play.

--Every football fan ever.