An investigative piece by David Gambacorta in the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a unique—and engrossing—angle on the issue of brain injuries among football players. Gambacorta looks specifically at the city’s famed 1980 Super Bowl team to get a sense of how those celebrated Eagles players are faring four decades later. The answer is troubling:
This was an era in which linemen were taught to “lead with your head” when tackling, as 76-year-old Stan Walters recalls. An era when players “got dinged” and were encouraged to shake it off and quickly return. A leading medical textbook on football injuries at the time deemed that to be a safe practice, notes Gambacorta. “How many concussions? Daily. I was getting them daily,” says Jerry Sisemore, 73, who was diagnosed with neurological impairment in 2019 through an NFL settlement program and received $175,000. “Now I’m starting to stumble a lot. I get lost.”
A good part of the story deals with former players’ difficulty in navigating the settlement process, including the Catch-22-like issue of being unable to complete the tests needed to qualify. Three members of the team have been posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, including center Guy Morriss, whose condition has not been previously disclosed. Read the full piece, which notes that former coach Dick Vermeil, now 87, has become one of his former players’ strongest advocates. (Or check out other longform recaps.)
The NFL didn’t buy the T-shirt cannon excuse.The league fined Falcons receiver Drake London $14,069 for a touchdown celeb
Derek Carr's seventh career rushing touchdown in the NFL gave the New Orleans Saints a 35-13 lead over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2. It also resulted in the qua
The Patriots went off to a rough start to the season, and while the Nov. 5 trade deadline is still a ways away, it might not be too early to think of
The Wisconsin Badgers have started off their season 2-1, and they’ll now look to focus their efforts on their Big Ten schedule, with their first game comin