The conversation regarding the connection between the NFL and concussions, and concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), continues to rage. The science is, at best, incomplete. At worst, the research shows a circumstantial connection between the game of football, repeated head and brain trauma, and the development of CTE's many possible symptoms.
To Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones though, the issue really isn't all that complicated.
Jones, one of the NFL's most outspoken figures, addressed the reasonably assumed link between football and CTE and, after stating with a straight face that he doesn't want to get into a battle of semantics, said that there's simply not enough evidence to say that football causes CTE.
"No, that's absurd," Jones said. "There's no data that in any way creates a knowledge. There's no way that you could have made a comment that there is an association and some type of assertion. In most things, you have to back it up by studies. And in this particular case, we all know how medicine is. Medicine is evolving. I grew up being told that aspirin was not good. I'm told that one a day is good for you.... I'm saying that changed over the years as we've had more research and knowledge.
"So we are very supportive of the research.... We have for years been involved in trying to make it safer, safer as it pertains to head injury. We have millions of people that have played this game, have millions of people that are at various ages right now that have no issues at all. None at all. So that's where we are. That didn't alter at all what we're doing about it. We're gonna do everything we can to understand it better and make it safer."
Of course, the research is still in its early stages. But even as some media outlets try to pump the brakes on talk of the connection between contact-based sports like football and hockey, the eyes and ears tell a different story.
As does the early research.
Of the brains of former NFL players that have been studied, 96 percent showed signs of CTE. 79 percent of all football player's brains studied by Boston University researchers showed signs of the mis-folding protein in the brain that so often characterizes CTE.
Add that to the fact that Jeff Miller, the NFL's senior vice president of health, admitted only a few weeks ago that there is a connection between football and CTE, and it's hard to understand why Jones would suddenly take this position.
Then again, considering the league's owners continue their fight against former players seeking monetary compensation for the health issues they're facing in their post-playing days, Jones probably has millions of reasons to stick to his "absurd" guns.
