OT: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

[Patspsycho]

In what is sure to be a benchmark discovery, ex-Bengals receiver Chris Henry's brain was found to have degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head.

Henry's mother gave the go ahead for the Brain Injury Research Institute (BIRI) to examine his brain.

I believe that this is the first find of its kind, where the brain of a NFL player at his peak was examined at this point in his life, and so early.

This is not good news for current players or former players, and may mark the beginning of significant changes in terms of post-career health care.

Report: Henry had degenerative brain damage - NFL- nbcsports.msnbc.com

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

Please...such disconcerting information is counterproductive to the owners' mad rush to grow revenue by expanding to an 18 game season

 

[BradyManny]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

In what is sure to be a benchmark discovery, ex-Bengals receiver Chris Henry's brain was found to have degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head.

Henry's mother gave the go ahead for the Brain Injury Research Institute (BIRI) to examine his brain.

I believe that this is the first find of its kind, where the brain of a NFL player at his peak was examined at this point in his life, and so early.

This is not good news for current players or former players, and may mark the beginning of significant changes in terms of post-career health care.

Report: Henry had degenerative brain damage - NFL- nbcsports.msnbc.com

I hope this gets enough attention in the media to deter any talk of adding more games for these players.

I also hope it makes people realize that old-school football is a thing of the past, and should be. The athletes are too fast, big and violent these days. The game needs to be reined in.

There's nothing manly about being an invalid by the time you hit 50.

 

[patriotscpfc]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

18 game season is ridiculous anyway.

But this is pretty shocking.

Bearing in mind that he didn't play a massive amount anyway in the few years he was in the NFL, to have that much damage is bad.

 

[Kontradiction]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

Someone refresh my memory because I couldn't find evidence of it on Google, but did Chris Henry ever have a concussion in his professional career?

 

[MassPats38]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

Someone refresh my memory because I couldn't find evidence of it on Google, but did Chris Henry ever have a concussion in his professional career?

This article says he was never diagnosed with a concussion during his career.

 

[Kontradiction]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

This article says he was never diagnosed with a concussion during his career.

This is especially bad news for guys like Ted Johnson, Steve Young, and Ben Roethlisberger. If Henry had that much damage, imagine what their brains must look like.

 

[Tunescribe]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

More fodder for Goodell to push further legislation toward flag football. But seriously, I don't see how things could be any worse now than they were in the '50s or '60s when players led with their heads and had inferior helmet protection.

 

[MassPats38]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

These guys take huge hits, regardless of whether they get concussions as a result. Given his young age, it certainly says something. Then again, given the NFL's history with concussions, the fact he was not "diagnosed" with concussions may not mean much. But I agree, it doesn't bode well for the guys with significant career damage.

Then again, if your options are poor and healthy or rich and damaged, what choice do you make? Fans will not pay $120 to watch frisbee football, so the violence stays. Hopefully, the protective gear continues to improve. In the modern NFL with its quick, athletic monstrosities at every position, it would be tough to make the game completely safe without removing the contact emphasis, and then it isn't football anymore.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

I hope this gets enough attention in the media to deter any talk of adding more games for these players.

I also hope it makes people realize that old-school football is a thing of the past, and should be. The athletes are too fast, big and violent these days. The game needs to be reined in.

There's nothing manly about being an invalid by the time you hit 50.

Bingo. Frankly, as the consumers who make the NFL as lucrative and high-stakes as it is, I do think that we have some responsibility in making sure that reforms are made. What we've learned about the nature of brain trauma in recent years is a game-changer, and it's exposed some pretty terrible consequences to our entertainment. Before, we just didn't know, but now we do and we really need to demand change. And yes, that means voting with your wallet if the league doesn't adequately address these issues.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

These guys take huge hits, regardless of whether they get concussions as a result. Given his young age, it certainly says something. Then again, given the NFL's history with concussions, the fact he was not "diagnosed" with concussions may not mean much. But I agree, it doesn't bode well for the guys with significant career damage.

Then again, if your options are poor and healthy or rich and damaged, what choice do you make? Fans will not pay $120 to watch frisbee football, so the violence stays. Hopefully, the protective gear continues to improve. In the modern NFL with its quick, athletic monstrosities at every position, it would be tough to make the game completely safe without removing the contact emphasis, and then it isn't football anymore.

True, and I think one of the most troubling things of all is that evidence shows that it's not the massive, concussion-causing hits that are the problem. Mandatory benchings after concussions are a good step, but they're not a solution, because the bulk of the trauma comes from 'average' hits to the head, which happen repetitively over the course of the game. There's no simple, easy-to-implement fix here, because it's not as simple as removing the most extreme hits from the equation.

This is especially bad news for guys like Ted Johnson, Steve Young, and Ben Roethlisberger. If Henry had that much damage, imagine what their brains must look like.

For anyone that hasn't seen it, this article on Wayne Chrebet from 2007 is pretty telling. Among retired NFL players, I'm sure that what he struggles with is very common.

 

[Patspsycho]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

NFL players reactions:

Players express concern over Chris Henry findings | ProFootballTalk.com

 

[Synovia]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

This article says he was never diagnosed with a concussion during his career.

Right.


There's very little evidence that any of this has anything to do with the NFL. Its significantly more likely that the damage was done during college, or even in highschool. Or, it could be that he fell off the monkey bars in elementary school.

Its a data point, but there's no conclusions to make. It does however, possibly explain his behavioral issues.

 

[Ghost of Ben Dreith]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

Right.


There's very little evidence that any of this has anything to do with the NFL. Its significantly more likely that the damage was done during college, or even in highschool. Or, it could be that he fell off the monkey bars in elementary school.

Its a data point, but there's no conclusions to make. It does however, possibly explain his behavioral issues.

Full agreement with this comment.

I have no medical expertise, but I would be willing to bet that different people will also have different resistance to having this specific type of injury from hits. This seems especially so in light of no identified NFL concussions and the lack of significant time playing relative to other players who have had a significant number of concussions and did not show the behavioural issues this guy had.

His behaviour issues and lack of serious NFL concussions tends to point to there being a good chance of the genesis of this being at an earlier point in time. Teen age years, college.....don't know. But I find it highly unlikely that this is all NFL related.

Wasn't it Al Toon who retired from the Jesters with concussion issues? He was a total class act so you could logically ask if Toon has the same issues after a lot of major hits/concussions and also if if he doesn't have this condition, was the condition part of Henry's behaviour issues or were they just upbringing/self determined. You know Toon had a ton of MRI's (?) done to look at his head over the years.....don't know if this would show up on it though. Any medical knowledge on this here?

My medical expertise doesn't extend beyond band-aids, but this was more an exercise in logic.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

As much as I admire guys like Welker for taking on hits fearlessly (and dishing some out in return), I've never thought of guys who routinely duck hits like Randy Moss or Marvin Harrison as wimps. There's a lot of life to live after football and perhaps their approach to the game maximizes their enjoyment of that life.

Regards,
Chris

 

[jmt57]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

Full agreement with this comment.

I have no medical expertise, but I would be willing to bet that different people will also have different resistance to having this specific type of injury from hits. This seems especially so in light of no identified NFL concussions and the lack of significant time playing relative to other players who have had a significant number of concussions and did not show the behavioural issues this guy had.

I'm not a medical expert, but that does make sense. Think of boxing, where some have 'glass jaws' and others 'can really take a punch'. Different people have different threshholds of pain; it stands to reason different players are more (or less) susceptible to not only concussions, but also to this type of cumulative damage.

It may be a seemingly insignificant step, but I wouldn't mind seeing all football players use the Maher mouth guard - I believe all the Patriots players still use it. I'd also like to see the NFLPA push the league in this CBA to commission an independent group to develop safer equipment. It seems as if the current equipment is not doing that great a job in protection, while too often is used as a weapon meant to inflict pain.

As far as violence being here to stay, there's nothing that can be done about it, I think there are some subtle things the league could do. For example, they could pressure their business partners such as espn to get away from their 'all jacked up' segment that highlights the days most violent (and often illegal) hits. It's really not all that different from professional sports leagues getting networks to stop showing fans who run onto the field during a broadcast.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Re: Ex-Bengals Chris Henry said to have had degenerative brain damage

Full agreement with this comment.


Wasn't it Al Toon who retired from the Jesters with concussion issues? He was a total class act so you could logically ask if Toon has the same issues after a lot of major hits/concussions and also if if he doesn't have this condition, was the condition part of Henry's behaviour issues or were they just upbringing/self determined. You know Toon had a ton of MRI's (?) done to look at his head over the years.....don't know if this would show up on it though. Any medical knowledge on this here?

My medical expertise doesn't extend beyond band-aids, but this was more an exercise in logic.

Good post. Some additional info on Al Toon. I don't know Henry's medical situation but it seems Toon intelligently execercised the logic you speak of.

This former Jets wide receiver is singing a happy Toon in Wisconsin

Clearly Toon felt that with the depression and vertigo that accompanied his concussions, he decided that enough was enough.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

At the end of the day this isn't an NFL problem, it's a football is a contact sport problem. Turns out Henry suffered 2 concussions in HS. No report on whether he was held out or the teams who recruited him for college were even aware of their existence...

In wake of Chris Henry's brain damage, how dangerous is football? - Paul Daugherty - SI.com

 

[STUB STUB]

Obviously, as a society, it is a moral question to decide how much we value entertainment/competition vs. human health, but I think this side of the coin is overlooked:

Males (i.e. athletes) have been risking their well-being for the sake of winning, prestige and all the associated benefits (sexual opportunities, financial resources, respect of peers) since the dawn of civilization.

This risk and sacrifice is part of what makes the payoff so significant.

If the NFL starts protecting player health at the expense of the pure display of ability (which, in the NFL, includes hitting other humans really, really hard), not only will the entertainment appeal decrease, but the rewards for the players will also drop commensurately.

You can think of this as a decrease in income for the league, or as a matter of collective/tacit social admiration.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

At the end of the day all the calls for disclosure will amount to little because former players speaking honestly will still tell you that had they known the risks they wouldn't have changed a thing.

That said, anyone catch Ryan apparently making an ass of himself on the airwaves again... If any scribe's performance was more significantly tied to print media, and it's requisite editing, I don't know who that might be. Smart guy, no filter and totally lacking common sense unless challenged...

But we also need to realize that the risk arises in any sport involving "repeated impacts of the brain." Hockey has it. Boxing, wrestling, and MMA entail such trauma, too.

Then there's soccer, where the "header" presents plenty of risk of brain injury -- especially for girls playing at the high school level, as Alan Schwarz of the New York Times explained in 2007.

So before writers like Bob Ryan pontificate (as he did on today's edition of The Sports Reporters) about the evils of football, repeatedly asking "Who are we?," as if enjoying football mirrors the blood lust of those who attended gruesome death duels at the Roman Coliseum, we need to realize that we are a people who enjoy sports, and who will take risks in a wide variety of activities, whether it's playing football, hockey, baseball, basketball, or soccer, riding motorcycles or horses, or golfing with a thunderstorm approaching during that elusive round of 66.

Americans, by our very nature, take risks. And if we didn't take risks, we wouldn't be celebrating 234 years of independence today.

Collinsworth says he'd still choose football, despite concussion risks | ProFootballTalk.com