{"id":601,"date":"2016-04-18T09:36:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T14:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/?p=601"},"modified":"2019-02-18T09:50:30","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T15:50:30","slug":"review-concussion-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/review-concussion-the-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Concussion (the movie)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Overall I felt that the movie did a pretty good job of\nhighlighting some of the most severe examples of what could happen as a result\nof ongoing head trauma and potentially as a result of CTE.  Obviously, I am too close to the issue and\nnot really part of the “target market” so maybe my expectations are a\nbit off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not sure that the movie needed the love story element\nwith Omalu but it seemed that they wanted to use that as a way to tie the story\ntogether and humanize Omalu a bit more. \nI give incredible praise to Omalu for being willing to stand up to the\nNFL and the football establishment and fight on this issue.  His work laid the foundation for the great\nincrease in concussion awareness over the past 5 years.  Despite being right and despite his success,\nhe was demonized by many and I am not sure that the depth of the attacks on him\nwas portrayed in the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the movie missed a few big opportunities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, for most people that have not been around this\ndiscussion, stating that a concussion occurs at “60 Gs of force” is\nfar too abstract.  They would have been\nbetter served to put in a few small clips from hits that were estimated at 60\nGs and then show them in comparison to clips that were part of the “Jacked\nUp” segment, all of which are probably well over 100 Gs of force.  I think most people would be surprised by how\n“minor” a 60 G hit looks in comparison to what they are expecting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, they took the extreme cases of Mike Webster, Terry\nLong and Justin S. (I am not even going to try to spell that name here without\nGoogle).  It is likely that all 3 of\nthose players suffered significantly due to the head trauma and they did find\nevidence of CTE.  But those are hardly\nclean comparisons because that was also the midst of the steroid era and the\npotential of steroid rage and other drug implications is significant.  The movie conveniently ignored all of that as\nit focused just on the CTE issues (which should not be minimized, nor should\nyou read this paragraph to mean that they are not significant contributing\nfactors to their mental states).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, I think that the failure to compare the current state\nof concussion management and the way players are being handled post concussion\nnow was disappointing.  It leaves the\nviewer with the impression that anyone playing football WILL SUFFER the horrendous\neffects that were highlighted in the movie. \nThough people have mocked Roger Goodell saying the game is safer than it\nhas ever been, that is probably true. \nPlayers are removed after concussions and monitored closely.  Players who now miss 3-4 games would have\nbeen put right back on the field.  The\nnumber of hits players suffer in practice is significantly reduced starting\nfrom youth football to high school to college and to the NFL (or other pro\nleague).  The cumulative effect of\nreduced hitting in practice means thousands of hits fewer for any of today’s\nplayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, most notably, the party who is tasked with the\nprimary responsibility for protecting the interests of the players gets off\nwithout any mention.  The NFLPA is the\ngroup that should bear MUCH MORE of the anger and frustration from the players\nthan the NFL. The NFLPA has the resources and interest to fight back and\nquestion what is going on with the NFL. It never did.  I think it will go down as one of the great\nfailures of Gene Upshaw, former Executive Director of the NFLPA.  I am not sure how the NFLPA has stayed out of\nthe limelight so long, but it also came out with little criticism in PBS\nFrontline’s “League of Denial”. \nIf you haven’t watched that and are interest in this topic, it has much\nmore details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few other observations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Joseph Maroon comes across as arrogant and fighting\nagainst the science.  My favorite was the\nline of Omalu when he said that “history will laught at those that\ndeny” and “tell the truth”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Elliott Pelman, who chaired the NFL committee on the\ntraumatic brain injuries for many years was a Rhumatologist. This was rightly\npointed out in the movie but this movie did not highlight many of his other\noutrageious statements and proclamations in the offical reports that were\nissued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Julian Bailes continues to be heavily involved in\nconcussion related matters.  My favorite\nline of his was when he told Omalu “You are in trouble, but you are not\nwrong.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. The NFL deserves plenty of criticism for not picking up\nthis issue earlier, and certainly for trying to mask findings that had the\npotential to hurt the game.  The NFL also\ncertainly deserves flack for trying to bury the issue at the conference and\npresentation and prevent Omalu from presenting his findings. What everyone\nneeds to remember, however, is that NOBODY ELSE was taking any different action\neither.  The NHL, MLB, the general\nmedical community etc. were all way behind the times.  In fact, if you look at it, the NFL has\nactually been at the forefront of dealing with this issue (as it is in many\nhealth related issues such as drugs, PEDs, etc).  The general medical community still seems to\nbe well behind the sports community in dealing with concussion issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Dave Duerson came out looking very bad in the movie.  The movie did not really give any background\non him but having met him and had some other interactions, there are several\nimportant facts that were omitted.  First,\nhe was removed from Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees because of a domestic violence\ncharge which occurred while he was in South Bend for a trustees meeting.  He was on many other board, belonged to\nMedinah Country Club and was struggling to uphold his image.  He had a business that ran into significant\nfinancial difficulties and he was being investigated and sued on many levels\nrelating to the collapse of his primary business (a meat packing plant that had\ncontracts with McDonalds).  Again, not to\nminimize the impact that CTE may have had on him or his behavior (or business\ndealings), but these other issues could have been significant in his decision\nto take his own life.  Sadly, I had the\nopportunity to present at an event sponsored by an organization run by one of\nhis closest friends. This friend was the first person to get to the body and\ncleaned up before the family got there. I got to see the actual photos he took\nof the bed, blood soaked sheets and the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Ira Casson, another one of the medical professionals on\nthe NFL’s committees looked utterly ignorant with his blanket proclamations\nthat there was no link to concussions or head trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Junior Seau was anothe player that had tried to commit\nsuicide on a few other occasions, before he was successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Omalu’s boss who was indicted is also a good reminder of\nthe federal government that can choose to indict almost anyone for almost\nanything if you have any dealings with federal agencies or funding.  I don’t know the whole story in that case but\nwould be interested to read more if anyone has the details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are still a lot of unanswered questions, many of which\ncannot be answered until we can identify CTE in living people.  I will make a list of these questions for\nnext time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overall I felt that the movie did a pretty good job of highlighting some of the most severe examples of what could happen as a result of ongoing head trauma and potentially as a result of CTE. Obviously, I am too close to the issue and not really part of the “target market” so maybe my expectations are a bit off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,294,290,11],"tags":[334,331,329,333,35,336,296,6,332,335,330],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}