Young Bengals Player’s Death Linked to Brain Trauma. Time to Rethink How We Play Football?

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There is an important cautionary tale for anyone who has a son playing football—on any level—in the New York Times today: your son may be a at risk.

Grave risk.

The Times is reporting that Chris Henry, the Bengals wide receiver who died tragically last year after falling or jumping out of a moving pickup truck driven by his financee, had trauma-induced brain damage while still active in the NFL. Dr. Julian Bailes and Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University have found that Henry, 26, had already developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive brain disease.

Here’s the scary thing: Henry was not known as a big hitter and had no history of concussions. The NFL, which for years had stonewalled research into chronic brain injuries, is finally working with the players union to address this issue. (All it took was 22 players diagnosised with CTE, a year-long series of excellent stories by Alan Schwartz of Times, and several Congressional Hearings.)

As we got the results, my emotion was sad — it’s so profound,” Bailes, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia and a former team physician for the Steelers, told the Times. “I was surprised in a way because of his age and because he was not known as a concussion sufferer or a big hitter. Is there some lower threshold when you become at risk for this disease? I’m struggling to see if something can come out positive out of this.”

And even scarier: researchers are saying this problem is clearly not limited to the NFL. Kids play football for a dozen years or more before—or if—they reach the pros. A story in Time Magazine this year estimated that 43,000 and 67,000 high-school football players suffer concussions each year, and even that is likely a serious underestimation, “as more than 50 percent of concussed athletes are suspected of failing to report their symptoms.” Playing with injuries is common on every level in the macho world of football. Getting your bell rung and rushing back into the game is a sign of manhood. Now coaches should be thinking of it as a sign of trouble.

I don’t want to imply that this is an N.F.L.-only phenomenon,” Bailes told the Times. Bailes who wonders if problems are set up “while the brain is young and vulnerable, and it sustains an injury.” “Players spend 17 years banging heads in the pros on every play and you think it’s exposure based,” he added. “Now with Chris Henry being so young, we have to rethink that.”

Henry was having an argument with his fiancee Loleini Tonga at their home in Charlotte when Tonga started to drive off and Henry jumped into the bed of the pickup truck, police in Charlotte said. Doctors are now wondering if the incident was linked to Henry’s C.T.E. Henry had many behavioral problems:  he was arrested five times for assault, driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of marijuana. He was suspended several times by the NFL for violating personal conduct policy.

Maybe these had nothing to do C.T.E. But problems like these are often linked to depression, common in people who develop this disorder. Think about that the next time you watch endless replays of an NFL player taking a big hit to the head after making a great play.

And remember that is someone’s son you’re watching.