They already have this. It's called the Bengals' media guide...

Take away the pads and helmets. Players won't be launching themselves like weapons if they don't feel that nothing will hapen to them because of all the pads.

Isn't that called rugby?

My next suggestion was taking away the forward pass.

Sad news.. :(

Damn.

Sad. Just, sad. RIP :'(

Aside from the fact that a man everybody seemingly loved and admired...

What my mind fails to grasp is how a man could have seemingly anything and everything we could dream of, wake up, and decide that putting a bullet in his chest is better than even finishing that day.

He had a great career as a player. A broadcast career. Could have practically any woman most of us could only dream of... and he picked up a gun and shot himself.

I would take practically any job that calls me back, have no prospects for a woman (much less one that knows where a gym is) and yet I can't imagine actually killing myself. And yes, I am depressed.

What the fuck.

I mean, it's pure speculation, and something that you normally have to steer clear of, right? But, the damage to his brain has to be a large role, right? With the studies already done can there really be any doubt what the results would show of a study of Junior Seau's brain if tests are actually done? I don't think you can say it was THE CAUSE, but if he has a mental illness then the added state of his brain can only raise the stakes that much more.

You can say all you want about damage to his brain, but a fact most people forget is that by and large most football players do not kill themselves.

If we blamed every problem on everything but the individual, then we would find the stress of life in general to be too much for mankind. There are guys who are in their 80's who played football at a time when knocking somebody's head off was commonplace. Frank Fucking Gifford can still carry on a coherent conversation.

Should we do all we can to protect players? Absolutely. But a few guys have killed themselves that people liked and the discussion goes to blame the game. Accountants and lawyers kill themselves too. Depression is a bitch.

From what Wiley recounted, Seau was the type who HAD to keep pain from others. He HAD to be admired. I doubt there has ever been a study on this, but I would bet that the suicide rates are higher in those who are need to be admired than in those who don't give a damn.

People are jumping to conclusions WAY too much in this thread.

In 2007, 34,598 killed themselves. The overall rate was 11.3 suicide deaths per 100,000 people, which is about 1 in 9,000.

At this point we have no idea whether or not Seau playing football had anything to do with the fact he killed himself. We obviously saw a certain Seau in the public eye, but that does not mean that when he went home at the end of the day, he didn't suffer from extreme depression.

Now, I am not saying his football career did not have anything to do with his suicide either, but at this point, speculating that it did is ridiculous. I certainly haven't noticed a trend of Ex NFL players killing themselves more than the general population. Seau just happened to be a high profile guy.

From what I've read, it's very reminiscent of the death of Gary Speed earlier this year. Speed was a Welsh football international who played well beyond the average age of retirement, was the current manager of the Welsh national team, and was found by his wfie one morning hanging in his garage. Pretty much completely without warning. Similar age too.

Who knows what the reasons were, but the conclusion that it is to do with concussion is a leap at the moment. Just as likely to be finding it difficult to find reason after their sporting careers, as both extended them as long as they could have, beyond the norm

Tremendously sad to see this news

This.

Not to mention that some people just can't cope with that kind of life change. It's a big deal, and perfectionists can't move past the point that they aren't doing the only thing that they have been doing for their whole lives. And then there is the age. Perfect for a midlife crisis. There had been reports that he had been unhappy for quite a while now.

You may be absolutely right but here is the problem. Are you or anyone else prepared to wait for the evidence that says football does not have anything to do with it? Or at the very least are you willing to deal with the public perception of such a person would be? It is hard to fight public perception if people are actually strategically putting bullets in themselves in order to preserve a second part of their body to be research.

It's early and we may find out that football has nothing to do with this. Or we may find out that football had something to do with it. Your response to that may vary. The fact that many people went straight to that place is telling.

Also, in terms of impact on the NFL, concussion awareness, and measures taken for the protection of players - perception is all that matters. Right now, it looks like Seau believed his depression was related to football in that he wanted his brain preserved, and obviously that's the angle the media has embraced.

And he was also cleary mentally unstable, so his beliefs dont mean a whole lot.

And to the above poster, of course the media jumped there, they love a good story.

That said, i am defintely in favor of increased safety precausions for players.

Beliefs mean a ton if the media and the public react to them and the popularity/rules of the NFL are impacted because of them, that's my only point.

For those who keep wondering "how could he do that?" "he had so much", etc. you really don't understand depression and how incredibly bad severe depression is. I saw EF27 here so I won't try to be a doctor, but it is way way worse than you think it is and to say "he had so much to live for" is laughable, because it doesn't even register.

Todd makes a great point, severe depression completely nullifies most to all positives a person has in their life. Your focus on how bad you feel can become an obsession and not much else matters.

Fame and fortune are all fine and good, but not sure I would want the baggage that comes with it.....Especially when the spotlight goes away.

Really wondering how Rodney Harrison is doing right now. Haven't seen anything from him since this occurred.

What a bummer. I'm just waiting for OJ to use concussions as an excuse for killing fools.

Thanks for posting this, cool story!!

I wouldn't doubt it contributed

I guess the concussion king of my youth, some who said had more concussions that any other player of his era, Roger Staubach will be on the 6th floor of the schoolbook depository building anytime now.

So it looks like Seau's family agreed to let Boston University study his brain.

Really weird to know that someone that close to my age, and that I went to high school with, just ended it this way.

His family seem like great people; really feel bad for them.

Hmm... so what does this mean?

That unless something comes up on the much deeper investigation, right now it looks like a plain old suicide, not a football-related-head-injury-induced suicide like folks tried to jump on immediately.

On the one hand, we certainly haven't maxed out our understanding of how the brain works, so we can't definitively make conclusions like, "nothing wrong with the dude's brain."

On the other hand, I was thinking a while ago about how EVERY single athlete brain that was studied by that group that is looking for CTE, found CTE. (I can't be 100% sure about the "every", but there's a long list of guys who had it, and no list of all of those who didn't). They've found CTE in high school kids' brains, in college kids' brains. I wondered what meaning that CTE diagnosis had. For Seau not to have it is pretty surprising.

And maybe some depression fueled by a self-fulfilling prophecy. If society tells you're supposed to have mental issues based on your lifestyle, that can't be helpful when you have depression or more treatable disorders.

No suicide note and the sim card to his cell phone is missing. Seems weird, but, not sure how unusual that is in cases like this.

The sim card seems rather unusual.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but, it does seem odd to say the least.

When you live your entire life for one thing, be it a game, a career, another person, doesn't matter; when its taken away or otherwise ends the meaning of your life has many, many questions for lots of people.

[holy shit that has to be random comma syndrome..way too many. but im too tired to try and fix that shat]

I read it in Captain Kirk's voice, if that helps.

Well, Seau was the last holdout, but now it seems to be the case that every single person who ever played football had chronic brain damage. I don't know how useful that is to know because not every person who ever played football kills themselves or others or (though some do, and a lot have other post-career issues of course).

Still, when this group finds what they're looking for in literally EVERY brain they've ever checked, it makes you wonder how much it matters. It's true, they can only check dead brains, so maybe there's some kind of correlation. But a 100% correction? Nobody ever dies unless they have brain damage? I mean, they've found it high school kids. If you played football in high school, you're brain damaged. Edit: One thing I haven't been able to find if is group studies the brains of non-football players. That would be critical I think. Do soccer players have it? Does everyone have it? Does life itself result in a damaged brain?

While I tend to agree that there seems to be significant risk of research for the sake of proving a hypothesis in all this, best I could tell the Seau research was done by the NIH rather than the several other groups that tend to always pop up in these stories. Now whether there's some less obvious cross-pollination between the NIH & those I can't say, but the difference seemed at least fair to note.

Ya, it's the Boston University group that was specifically setup for this purpose that seems suspect - they're something like 33 for 33 in finding CTE in brains they've tested.

Yeah, Sports Legacy Institute aka Chris Nowinski's bunch.

Their BU page looks like it hasn't been updated in a while, but it shows 18 of 19 with former NFL players, FWIW.

Case Studies » Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy | Boston University

I remember similar concerns/studies about soccer at one point in the 90's from continually heading the ball - I think it proved that it can occur in some very rare cases, but it being England people shrugged, said shit happens and carried on playing ;)

Study on Norwegian players

Again without a 'base' comparison its impossible to say how serious anything is and without full knowledge of the players backgrounds (ie. soccer players have notorious social/drinking habits as I expect NFL players also do?) I personally wouldn't rule out other potential causes.

I'd also be interested to know exactly what effect that 'damage' has in real world terms.

PS - I'm also a great believer in 'shit happens' ... frankly there is risk and consequence in everything you do, it doesn't mean you should never do anything.
I already think sports and risk are far too sanitized in life as it is, sports are a great way for men who spend their entire life ignoring their natural instincts (which is frankly still at least partially based around being a hunter/gather imho) to burn off some adrenalin and compete against each other in a manner which isn't normally allowed.

I don't know, in my book, I knew playing sports carried risk. Bum knees, bad feet, aches and pains from playing soccer for 18 years, and when it got to be too much of a pain, I stopped playing at the age of 23. These guys get paid millions of dollars, and I would assume they know there is risk involved. I'm sure other jobs carry higher risk of suicide from stress as well. You don't sign a waiver or ask for more money for those after you're done. I just don't get the whole concept.

I would have more sympathy with the players if they didn't en masse avoid the improved helmets that have been out for a decade or two due to comfort or look, didn't avoid thigh pads because they slow them down, etc.

And they're the ones who drop their head to tackle, drop their head to run into an oncoming tackler, etc.

There's a difference in knowing that there's "some risk" vs. knowing in far greater detail what that risk is.

And even more importantly, the issue is less about "should folks play football" and more "are/were team doctors negligent about protecting their players". Were doctors ignoring clear signs of concussions in their players and sending them back out to play when they shouldn't have.

I don't think it's really fair to completely put this on the players. As recently as 4 or 5 years ago this was barely even a recognized issue. These guys grew up playing a game assuming one set of risks (broken down physical bodies and the very rare chance of paralysis/death/etc), but are just now discovering the additional risk of CTE. And it's not, apparently, a rare risk, but rather almost a given for anyone who plays the sport (or many sports, it seems) for a prolonged period of time. So everything they've done to this point becomes built on a foundation that isn't as solid as they thought it was. Yet what do they do? Just quit? Try to change how they play at the risk of being ineffective? It's not an easy call.

I sort of liken this to when it finally came out that smoking was bad for you. I had trouble faulting anyone from my grandfather's generation who smoked because, as crazy as it seems now, they really didn't know it was so bad for them when they started.