League of Denial

Commissioner Tagliabue’s MTBI committee would hold its first meeting at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis in February of 1995. Lovell, who had been invited to attend based on his creation of ImPACT, expected to be “joining a veritable dream team of concussion experts” but found very few (126). The committee did have one neurologist in Ira Casson, who had experience studying boxers, and one neurosurgeon in Hank Feuer, who worked for the Indianapolis Colts, but it was headed by Elliot Pellman, a rheumatologist and the team doctor for the New York Jets. Despite having “not produced a single piece of scientific literature on the subject” (127), Pellman was Tagliabue’s handpicked chairman. Pellman’s opinion that concussion rates were low and not a major problem aligned perfectly with Tagliabue’s opinion. The committee’s first act was to establish a standard definition for concussion; its second act was to set up a study to monitor concussions across the League on a weekly basis. The committee then turned its attention to creating a more protective helmet, an idea that sounded great but was considered unrealistic by the experts.

By 2003, the committee was ready to publish its research, and it found a more than willing academic journal in Neurosurgery, whose editor-in-chief, Michael Apuzzo, was an NFL consultant.