The NFL has known for some time that serious brain damage could be caused by the head trauma that is part of a normal football game.

The sudden serious jarring of a football player’s head in normal tackling and blocking has been suspected for decades of causing lasting health problems. But it took the sensational film, Concussion (2015), about Dr.

Bennet Omalu’s discovery that this head trauma was linked to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and that the NFL was covering it up for many years to raise the public’s awareness to the full extent of the problem.

Dr. Omalu, a medical examiner in Pittsburgh, began his studies in 2002.

Although the NFL began studying the problem in 1994, the NFL initially denied or downplayed the risks and began to introduce preventive measures only in 2009. By 2013, the NFL required players suspected of suffering concussions during a game to submit to specific sideline tests conducted by an independent neurologist before returning to play. The NFL has committed

\($130\) million to research and has agreed to a payment of \($765\) million to settle a lawsuit from retired players.

Many NFL players have reportedly committed suicide because of the depression and dementia associated with the head trauma they suffered while playing the game they loved. Others have reportedly suffered CTE and other brain disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease. According to Boston University, Chronic traumatic encephalopathy

(CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes

(and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic sub concussive hits to the head.… This trauma triggers progressive degeneration of the brain tissue, including the build-up of an abnormal protein called tau. These changes in the brain can begin months, years, or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of active athletic involvement. The brain degeneration is associated with memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.

Although questions are continually raised about the efficacy of the NFL’s measures to protect players from head injuries, the NFL continues to play. Many owners, management, players and fans consider CTE to be just an occupational hazard.

Questions:-

1. Is the NFL’s stance on controlling the harm of concussions ethical?
2. Should the NFL have moved earlier on the concussion problem? If so, when and how?
3. If the concussion problem had been analysed using virtue ethics, what would the analysis have included and concluded?
4. Should the NFL continue to play football?
Consider consequences, impacts on rights, and virtue ethics in your answer.