Your responses to our NFL Concussion Survey

FRONTLINE’s League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis airs on October 8, 2013. Before this investigation into traumatic brain injury and the NFL is broadcast, we want to hear what you think about the state of the sport and if football players should be compensated.

So far, we’ve heard from a little over a dozen people, and the majority of respondents feel that the NFL should compensate players, and that the game itself should be changed to help reduce brain injuries.

Below are some of the comments survey takers shared. Please add your thoughts and take the survey.

•The NFL ignored it for far too long. The NFL should also not be a non-profit agency. That is ludicrous.

•The NFL should serve as an example for how to prevent similar injuries to all football players, including children and youth.

• Significant changes must be made or the sport’s popularity will take the same path as boxing–followed only by a small, devoted contingent. Without reforms, parents will refused to let their children play.

• What about football players from 1892 to the early 1900’s? All they had was a piece of leather protecting their head….without face masks! Should we settle with their ancestors for the long-term brain injuries that they suffered? There are risks in almost all jobs. Most people, with any sense, know those risks when taking the job, I’m sorry that these players are suffering brain damage. But again, head injuries come with the job.

 • The NFL should do more to reduce brain injuries by modernizing equipment the players wear. There may have been a reluctance to make any real changes which could have been seen as prior knowledge to the severity of the problem. The changes in game rules and regulations made so far have given an unfair advantage to one side of the ball or the other. The court settlement for injuries in the past and near present should be made and in a time frame that all players involved are not dead before payment is received. The Player’s Union should implement some sort of insurance policy made available to the players, of which it would be the individual player’s decision to pay for the coverage and be insured or not. Every player should now be aware of the potential brain injuries that may not have been a focus in the past. It should now be up to the player and not the league to take responsibility for a grown man. Football is a physical sport and that’s why we like it. Any further dilution of the sport through changes in rules and regulation would only be cosmetic and allow the league to say that the are addressing the situation.

• Although the NFL has made changes like the helmet/helmet penalty, fining a player is not enough. What about mandatory game suspension. Hit the players where it hurts, not in the wallet, but sitting on the sidelines.

• I think the RETIRED players that got injured should receive compensation because I don’t think the dangers were made known to them. The NFL should disclose in graphic detail with video the risks of TBI before players sign on and from now on play at your own risk.