Brain games

Show of hands, here on the morning after the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers gave America another dose of its favorite bread-and-circus (and were engaged, apparently, in an Ugly-Ass Uniform fight to the death).

Who is surprised that another dead former NFL player was found to have advanced CTE, the degenerative  brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head?

Who is shocked, shocked that the player in question was Aaron Hernandez?

The former New England Patriots tight end who was serving a life stretch for murder hung himself in his cell a few months back, and how much CTE contributed to all of it now becomes a matter of conjecture. According to Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the CTE Center at Boston University, Hernandez had stage 3 (out of 4) CTE, an astounding diagnosis given he was only his mid-20s. CTE can cause violent mood swings, depression and other cognitive disorders.

And so you also will not be shocked, shocked to learn that Hernandez' attorney is filing suit against the NFL and the Patriots for hiding the true dangers of the sport, leading to Hernandez' acquiring of CTE.

At first blush the suit wouldn't seem to have legs. Ten, even five years ago, you could reasonably argue the league and its member teams were indeed culpable in not informing its players of the long-term effects of repeated head trauma. The league was in deep denial then -- to the extent it even tried to discredit the findings of its own report on the issue. But the concussion protocols and rule changes on targeting and what-not put in place in the last five years or so would seem to make it hard to prove that the NFL was doing nothing to protect players.

And if the suit goes on to intimate that the league's negligence somehow led to the crimes that put Hernandez behind bars, it will be on even shakier ground. There is abundant evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, that Hernandez was displaying a particular sociopathy long before he got to the NFL. That the symptoms of CTE might have exacerbated that might well be true, but they didn't cause it.

In truth, Hernandez' diagnosis is yet another cautionary tale that if you decide you love football and want to follow it to the end, the end may be exactly what you wind up with. And it is one more brick in the wall that separates reality from the CTE truthers -- who continue to insist there's no definitive science behind CTE and that it is, in fact, an Evil Plot To Bring Down A Wholesome American Sport.

Which is, of course, absurd, and the very sort of hysteria the truthers accuse doctors such as McKee of displaying. Contrary to the Chicken Littles who claim the eggheads are all trying to kill football, there is not a shred of evidence that football is going away anytime soon. If participation in youth football is declining generally, it also got a mild bump in the last year documented (2015). And the teaching of new techniques and protocols designed to protect young noggins reaches down into the youth leagues now.

Football, in other words, will adjust and survive. It might not be the game you grew up with, but the game you grew up with wasn't the game your father and grandfather grew up with, either. If there's one constant about football, it's that there's never been any constants about it.

Except, of course, that it's a violent game that can hurt you badly, and from which there are serious consequences that could follow you all the rest of your life. And so proceed accordingly.