Steelers Neurosurgeon Comments Irresponsible

The Steelers and the NFL have a problem with head injuries.

It’s not a perception. It’s not overexaggerated.

Yet that’s just what Steelers neurosurgeon and NFL medical consultant Dr. Joseph Maroon is spouting.

"I think the problem of CTE [Chronic traumatic encephalopathy], although real, is it’s being overexaggerated and being extrapolated to youth football and to high school football."

Maroon appeared on ESPN shortly after an Outside the Lines interview with recently retired 49’ers linebacker Chris Borland (age 24) aired. Borland’s reason for retiring? Plain and simple – protect himself from further risk of brain injury.

Like some pundit or “expert” who is called to sit in front of cameras after a major scientific study furthers the case of climate change, of the FDA newly finds that arsenic is laced on a food, or that fracking is actually really bad for watersheds – Maroon was sent in to reassure our concerns.

He has the nerve to sit in front of a national audience and try to actually convince the majority of the public that football is… safe.

"We came up with 63 total cases of CTE [and] in the last two years a few more. But, there have been 30-40 million kids who have played football during that period of time. It’s a rare phenomena. We have no idea the incidence. There are … more injuries to kids falling off bikes, scooters, falling in playgrounds than there are in youth football. I think again, it’s never been safer. Can we improve? Yes. We have to do better all the time to make it safer."

The sad thing about Maroon’s statement – like a MOR-on – is that he completely dismisses statistical data collected from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) that kids from the age range as early as five years old all the way to 14 shows that kids show up with head injuries due to playing football much more frequently than riding a bike or scooter.

A youth playing pee-wee football through high school and then becoming a marketing manager isn’t exactly high profile enough to track for CTE postmortem if you catch my drift.

Is it CTE these kids suffer from? No. But these kinds of head injuries early on in life pave the way for long term head trauma and its nasty consequences. And, really, we can never expect to now the true number.

The sample size, that 30-40 million is so large that it is quite impossible to track a head injury from the time of incident to when that child becomes a full fledged adult. A youth playing pee-wee football through high school and then becoming a marketing manager isn’t exactly high profile enough to track for CTE postmortem if you catch my drift.

It really strikes a nerve to see someone who is looked upon as an “expert” or, worse yet, someone who has our best interests in mind sit there and actually think anyone believes the garbage he and his study “found.” That annoyance is exasperated since he’s the guy who is working for the Steelers in helping to assess head injuries for our players.

Football is a dangerous sport. Always has, and no matter how much you address the head injury side of the game with new gear and new tackling techniques, it will always be dangerous. It’s an inherent risk players assume when they play football… especially at the collegiate and pro level.

I feel sorry that this came from a guy out of the Steelers camp in a blatant PR stunt. Well done, NFL. Well done.

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