The NFL’s recent admission that there may be a link to football and CTE was called out by a lawyer suggesting the league contradicted itself. On Wednesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell countered, saying the league’s stance on CTE and football has not been altered.
“The statements that were made by Jeff Miller and others is consistent with our position over the years,” Goodell said Wednesday at an annual NFL meeting.
Miller is the NFL’s vice-president for health and safety. He recently spoke at the United States House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce roundtable when he was asked by a representative if there was a connection between playing football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
“The answer to that question is certainly yes,” said Miller, via ESPN.com.
Upon hearing that stance from Miller, Steven Molo, a lawyer representing multiple players in a legal dispute over a settlement with the NFL, said Miller’s comments were “a stark turn from its position before the district court, which relied on the NFL’s experts to dismiss the significance of the same research.”
Goodell defended the NFL, as he typically does, by suggesting the league has been attempting to be progressive about such concerns.
“The most important thing for us is to support the medicine and scientists who determine what those connections are,” Goodell said, according to ESPN. “We think that the statements that have been made by Jeff Miller and others have consistent with our position over the years. We’ve actually funded those studies. So we’re not only aware of those and recognize them but we support those studies. “A lot of the research is still in its infancy, but we’re trying to find ways to accelerate that.”
The NFL has taken strides in funding research and development with player safety in mind, but it has seemed to struggle to keep up and embrace the latest information as it becomes available. We know much more today than we ever have before when it comes to head trauma and long-lasting effects on players after retiring. Of course, Goodell says the NFL looks forward to change sin technology as they become available in an effort to continue improving the safety of the players.
“There are exciting technological changes that I think are going to make our game safer,” Goodell said. “We’re advancing that. We’re driving that. So our view is to try to continue to do that. We’ll support science and medicine and allow them to make those decisions and try to see what we can do to support that and advance it.”