The ideas of serious brain trauma from playing the game of football that we all know and love has been discussed at length during this offseason by the NFL. The volume of those conversations is likely to increase a bit more with the evidence found in the autopsy of former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry. After some microscopic tissue analysis of Henry’s brain, doctor have determined that prior to his death he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy This sort of condition is believed to be caused by repetitive blows to the head causing accumulations of tau proteins in the area of the brain responsible for controlling mood, emotions, and executive functioning.

Although many thought that Henry was simply a bad apple, it now becomes a possibility that he merely had issues as a result of football and could not control his decision making. We are all familiar with the tragic circumstances under which Henry’s life came to an end in December when he fell or leapt from a moving truck being driven by his fiancée. This action taken by Henry was not only irrational but incredibly reckless and ultimately resulted in a loss of life. If the incident that cost him his life can be attributed to football when traced back to repeated head trauma, this could open up Pandora’s Box for the NFL and its retired players.

It’s strange to think that players making multiple millions of dollars during their playing careers would need money after retirement to pay for healthcare, but it has been seen time after time that many have little to no savings not very far down the line. One potential solution to this would be a social security style of NFL trust set up where a portion of each paycheck is deposited into an account to be used only after a player’s retirement for healthcare purposes. This way the league can avoid the healthcare debate for players altogether while still taking care of its former employees.

The only real regrettable part of these findings is that none of this can be used to help Henry now. Hopefully the league will use this information to create a better plan for its athletes who make the revenues that these owners all covet so fondly. Without the players on the field in tip top condition, the NFL is merely a shadow of itself trying to compete with the other professional sports. It is inarguably unfortunate that it took a tragedy like this to open up eyes around the league to the problems facing its players, but at least it may prevent a similar circumstance from replaying itself in the future.

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