<div><a class="nrcLnk_imagesView" href="http://www.news-record.com/content/2012/03/26/article/content/2012/03/26/article/editorial_an_nfl_hit_list">Editorial: An NFL hit list</a></div><div> </div><div>3-27-2012</div><div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.news-record.com/content/2012/03/26/article/editorial_an_nfl_hit_list">http://www.news-record.com/content/2012/03/26/article/editorial_an_nfl_hit_list</a></div><div><p>There’s no small irony in the fact that a team called the Saints has behaved so badly.</p>
<p>Coaches and some players on the NFL team sanctioned a system that offered cash bonuses for severe hits to star opponents, including Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, former Minnesota Viking Brett Favre and Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers. </p>
<p>The bounty on Favre, offered before the 2010 National Football Conference Championship Game, totaled $10,000 and was dangled by a Saints player, defensive captain Jonathan Vilma. Knock Favre out of the game and the cash was yours.</p>
<p>When Favre was hit high and low by a pair of Saints defenders, and had to be carried off the field, a microphone picked up one unidentified player on the sideline yelling, “Pay me my money!” Not so fast. Favre returned to finish the game, but said afterward that ever since he was asked repeatedly whether a price had been put on his head.</p>
<p>The punishment has been sweeping and severe: Saints head coach Sean Payton last week was suspended for the entire season. Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who directed the bounty program, was suspended indefinitely. An assistant head coach and the team’s general manager also face suspensions.</p>
<p>Further, the Saints will lose their second-round draft picks in 2012 and 2013 and must pay a $500,000 fine. Penalties loom as well for some individual players, as many as 27 of whom may have participated in the Saints’ bounty system.</p>
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<h1>Junior Seau's death reopens debate around NFL brain injuries</h1><p>5-3-2012</p>
<p id="stand-first" class="stand-first-alone">Death of former San Diego Chargers linebacker may show further evidence of link between concussion and mental illness</p><p>Junior Seau's death by an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest adds his name to a growing list of <a title="More from guardian.co.uk on NFL" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/nfl">NFL</a> stars who have killed themselves in retirement.</p>
<p>There
are little known details about the circumstances of Seau's death, but
police have said they have found no evidence of foul play and are
investigating it as a suicide.</p><p>If so, this will be the second
suicide of a retired football star in two weeks, and the third recently
that hints at a connection between football's physicality, and long-term
brain damage that may result from repeated blows to the head.</p><p>Ray
Easterling, a safety for the Atlanta Falcons in the 1970s, died on
April 19, also of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Easterling was the
lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the NFL over concussion-related
injuries.</p><p>Easterling's lawsuit, filed by his attorney Larry Coben
last August and joined by more than 1,000 former players, claimed that
the NFL "continuously and vehemently denied that it knew, should have
known or believed that there is any relationship between NFL players
suffering concussions while playing … and long-term problems such as
headaches, dizziness, dementia and/or Alzheimer's disease that many
retired players have experienced."</p><p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/sport/nfl-lawsuit/index.html">Another lawsuit</a>,
filed on Thursday in US district court in Atlanta by attorney Mike
McGlamry on behalf of more than 100 former pro players, claims that the
NFL "repeatedly refuted the connection between concussions and brain
injury."</p><p>In 2011, Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson, like Seau,
shot himself in the chest, leaving a note that he said he wanted his
brain donated to be studied.</p><p>When doctors examined Duerson's brain
they found he had extensive damage from repeated trauma to his head
over his years in the league. Researchers at Boston University's Center
for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy have found – <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/27/AR2009102703547.html">and testified before Congress</a> – that repeated concussions in football have long-term effects and can lead to dementia at a young age. </p>
<p>"We
don't know what has gone on with Junior Seau, but he could fit the
pattern of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, especially with it ending
in suicide," Julian Bailes, a Chicago neurosurgeon, told the Guardian. </p><p>Bailes
has studied the brains of more than 30 former football players as well
as wrestlers, boxers and some returning military veterans who sustained
repeated mild head injuries. </p><p>Bailes added: "These athletes end up
having, after they retire, a latency period after which they have
problems with failed relationships, marriages, business failures,
depression, often drug and alcohol abuse. There can be some form of
dementia but they usually end in suicide. And most of it has only been
expressed after they've stopped playing their sport." </p><p>League
commissioner Roger Goodell has in the past made efforts to the make the
game safer, tweaking rules that relate to illegal use of the helmet and
hits to the head and neck. </p><p>Bailes, an NFL fan and former team physician, is supportive of such moves. </p><p>"Ultimately
what is going to have to happen is they have to take head contact out
of the game," he said. "I realize that's much easier said than done. I
think that's where we're going with this. Head contact and repetitive
blows to the brain are going to have to be removed from the game." </p><p>Some
players have balked at such moves. "It's football, you know. If people
want to watch soccer, they can watch soccer," Troy Polamalu of the
Pittsburgh Steelers <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/breaking/polamalu-goodell-has-too-much-power-271368/">told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a>. </p><p>But
Seau, 43, a San Diego Chargers linebacker who played through multiple
concussions during his time in the league, had defended Goodell's
efforts. "It has to happen," he told <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/jim_trotter/05/02/junior.seau/index.html#ixzz1tnjD7Q8T">his friend, the Sports Illustrated writer Jim Trotter</a>. </p>
<p>"Those
who are saying the game is changing for the worse, well, they don't
have a father who can't remember his name because of the game. I'm
pretty sure if everybody had to wake with their dad not knowing his
name, not knowing his kids' name, not being able to function at a normal
rate after football, they would understand that the game needs to
change.</p><p>"If it doesn't, there are going to be more players, more
great players being affected by the things that we know of and aren't
changing. That's not right."</p><p>Although Seau's behaviour had become
erratic in retirement, there were few glaring clues in the immediate
run-up to the former Pro Bowl veteran's death. The day before his death,
Seau, a gregarious and beloved future hall of famer, texted his ex-wife
and three children simply to say: "Love you."</p><p>Seau spoke to his distraught mother the day before his death. "He know I heard a bad voice on Wednesday morning," she <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/future-football-hall-famer-junior-seau-dead-43-self-inflicted-gunshot-wound-article-1.1071694?print">told the New York Daily News</a>.</p>
<p>In
2010, Seau was in an accident in which he drove his car off of a 30ft
cliff after an arrest on suspicion of assaulting his girlfriend. Seau
emerged uninjured and no charges were filed, but police initially investigated that incident as a possible suicide attempt.</p><p>---------------------------------------</p><p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p> </p><p> </p><p>charges were filed, but police initially
investigated that incident as a possible suicide attempt.</p>
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