THR has obtained a draft of the Concussion script dated May 30, 2014, and titled, "Untitled Concussion." In it, the NFL commissioner, described in the screenplay as "47 and sandy-haired," takes a midnight call at his mansion in Greenwich, Conn.
On the line is Dr. Joe Maroon, team neurosurgeon for the Pittsburgh Steelers (played in the film by Arliss Howard) and Dr. Elliot Pellman (played by Paul Reiser), the former NFL brain-injury research committee chairman and a highly controversial figure in the league's ongoing concussion crisis.
"We have a serious problem," Maroon tells Goodell.
"Dave Duerson killed himself today," Pellman continues, referencing the former NFL safety who committed suicide in 2011 and left his brain to the Boston University School of Medicine for CTE research that would later prove crucial.
"He didn't just kill himself. He shot himself in the chest, Roger. In the heart," Maroon interjects. "He left a note. He wanted his brain donated. To be looked at. For CTE."
Goodell responds: "Good God. Was he symptomatic?"
"I thought he was just an *******," Maroon replies, a suggestion that Duerson may have suffered from aggression and impulse-control problems, two side effects of CTE.
"For the brain’s last act to not just die, but preserve itself in the act of killing, humans don’t do that. We can’t explain it," Maroon continues.
"This is going to unravel," he says, and the scene ends.
