The link between ALS and football should not be overlooked or downplayed

Player mentions

Article text

In choosing to go public with his ALS diagnosis, former NFL running back Chris Johnson chose not to focus on the link between the disease and football. At one level, it didn't really need to be mentioned. The connection has been established. For example, ALS is one of the specific conditions (along with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, early and moderate dementia, and certain cases of CTE diagnoses after death) that automatically qualified retired players (as of July 7, 2014) for no-questions-asked compensation from the NFL's unlimited concussion settlement fund. And, in 2021, a study of all "19,423 NFL athletes who debuted between 1960 and 2019 and played 1 or more professional game" resulted in a finding that the risks of developing ALS "were nearly 4 times as high as those of the general population." At another level, it was more than a bit awkward that the segment on Good Morning America didn't mention the ties between ALS and football, either during or after the Johnson interview was televised. It came close, a couple of times. Johnson's wife, Brittany, explained that she believed his initial symptoms (weakness in his right hand) may have been the result of a pinched nerve from playing football. And Michael Strahan's narration of the piece addressed the belief that Johnson has a case of "sporadic ALS," which happens with no family history of the illness. Given that, as Strahan said, 90 percent of all ALS cases are sporadic and basically random, the connection to football makes it not quite as random as it would be for someone who didn't play. Via Sean Keeley of Awful Announcing , Jeff Pearlman teed off on the failure to mention the link between ALS and football. (Here's Pearlman's full video .) It absolutely needs to be mentioned. In our initial post regarding Johnson's diagnosis, I focused solely on the fact that Johnson is suffering from a condition that has robbed him of his physical faculties. But, yes, the link needs to be mentioned. It needs to be known, by anyone and everyone who chooses to play, or to let their children play. In his recent appearance on the Stick To Football , Tom Brady tiptoed around the topic of head injuries. " It’s not my favorite thing to talk about ," Brady said. "I think that, like, part of what you sign up for as an athlete is, you're willing to take more risks than what other people are willing to take." He's right; they are. But the full range of risks should be known by everyone who signs up to play, at any and every level. Yes, while playing a game you may suffer concussions — along with all sorts of other injuries, from torn ligaments to broken bones to a ruptured spleen to a serious neck injury causing permanent paralysis or death. It's also important to realize that the accumulation of concussions and subconcussive blows to the head could cause long-term health issues, like ALS, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and/or dementia. The existential threat to the game arising from the possible restriction of the flow of young players who, over time, will hone the best of the best into NFL-caliber athletes is real, but largely unspoken. While enough young men will continue to choose to play football (and will be permitted to do so by their parents), the quality of the athletes who make it to the highest level of the sport could diminish, over time, if the broader pool of players shrinks. It doesn't mean other sports are risk-free. If you've been watching the World Cup, you've seen…