PD Editorial: A heads up for athletes and the NFL

Chris Borland weighed the risks and rewards of an NFL career, and he walked away.

For this young San Francisco 49ers star, age 24 and headed into his second season with a reported salary of about $540,000, the money and adulation weren’t reason enough to chance a life-changing brain injury.

Does this portend bad things for the National Football League?

Certainly not now. Plenty of young athletes are clamoring to play pro football, and the TV networks, season-ticket holders and rank-and-file fans who made the NFL an $11 billion a year behemoth aren’t abandoning the league either.

But head injuries aren’t just another PR problem for the NFL.

They’re an omnipresent threat on the football field, and much is unknown about the long-term effects of concussions and other brain injuries.

As a result, many parents are steering youngsters toward other sports, with polls showing 50 percent don’t want their children on the gridiron. Some former players, most recently Mike Ditka, also have expressed reservations about allowing youngsters to play football.

In explaining his decision to retire, Borland mentioned Dave Duerson and several other former players who, after years of banging heads on the field, died prematurely.

You don’t have to be a football fan to know the story of Duerson, an All-American at Notre Dame who played on two Super Bowl champions and won the NFL’s Man of the Year award for his off-the-field community service. Plagued by piercing headaches, mood swings and memory lapses, he took his own life, shooting himself in the chest, he said in a note, to ensure that his brain would be preserved for research. Duerson suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease associated with sports-related head injuries and wartime bomb blasts.

“I just honestly want to do what’s best for my health,” Borland told ESPN. “From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

He isn’t alone.

Sidney Rice, a wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks, retired last year, citing the risk of brain injury. Rice and another player, New York Giants punter Steve Weatherford, recently announced that he will donate their brains for research when they die.

Many others players and ex-players have done the same, including Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau, who took his own life in 2012. Four days later, Jacob Bell, a young running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, decided to find another line of work. “I’m jeopardizing my true health for money pretty much,” he said. “For money and for celebrity.”

About 70 former players, a group that includes relative unknowns and Hall-of-Famers, have been diagnosed with progressive brain disease.

After years of contesting any link between football and long-term brain injuries, the NFL has enacted new safety rules, upgraded equipment, developed medical protocols to ensure that players aren’t allowed to stay on the field after suffering a head injury and committed funding to the study of concussion prevention. NFL officials said concussions were down 25 percent in the 2014 season, though that still adds up to more than 120 for the year.

The league also is working actively to complete a $765 million settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of former players suffering from debilitating conditions caused by head injuries during their playing days.

Boxing once was at the pinnacle of American spectator sports, but fans drifted away as the prevalence of Parkinson’s and other brain diseases became clear. Maybe football’s investments in safety will prevent a repeat of boxing’s decline. Maybe football’s popularity will preserve the pipeline of young athletes seeking to compete in the NFL.

But many parents will heed Borland’s words, and any league official who doubts that head injuries are a problem should too: “For me, it’s wanting to be proactive. I’m concerned that if you wait till you have symptoms, it’s too late.”