You cant go against the nfl. They will squash you. Narrator next, league of denial the nfls concussion crisis. Im really wondering if every single Football Player doesnt have this. Frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from and by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontline is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional funding is provided by the park foundation. Dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The wyncote foundation. And by tfrontline Journalism Fund with a grant from and scott nathan and laura debonis. Second and ball on the three. In motion. Wide open. Touchdown the brains are precious cargo. Now back to the third, and he goes outside. We have to get the brain usually within hours of the death. Touchdown. Play action. Going deep. You have a brain thats intact; its been removed from the upper spinal cord. Picks it up, looks for running room. Hes at the 40, hes at the 45, midfield, hes gonna go Desean Jackson narrator it is the brain of a former Football Player. This is a process that is aweinspiring in the Old Fashioned sense of the word. You have the responsibility of actually possessing somebodys brain, which is probably the best representation of who they were. You really treat it with the utmost respect. From a scientific perspective, theres this secret thats being unlocked. We take it out, we weigh it, we photograph it, all the external surfaces. The attitude is so careful about that this is a person thats being delivered into their care. I never forget that the brain is the human being. I feel very privileged that someone has trusted me with this duty. Narrator in 2008, dr. Ann mckee was a leading alzheimers researcher. This is what i do. I look at brains, im fascinated by it. I can spend hours doing it. In fact, if i want to relax, thats one way i can relax. Narrator then one day, she received a phone call from the Boston University medical school. I called her and said, are you interested in looking at the brains of former Football Players . And she didnt drop a beat, and said, are you kidding . I had no idea that she was a super football fan. I was born with football. My brothers, my dad. I played football when i was a kid. I mean, you know, it was part of life, its part of growing up. Its, you know, its a way of life, so i get it. Narrator now dr. Mckee was joining a team of researchers to build on the recent discovery of a brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy cte. Shes learnd a little bit about the work that had previously been done on this issue, and she is eager to find some brains. Narrator mckee and colleagues from Boston University were determined to examine as many brains as they could. And this man knew how to get them. Chris nowinski shows up and says, look, ill find the brains for you, ill bring them to you, and theyre going to be Football Players. Are you interested . And she says, absolutely. You know, she describes this as the greatest collision on earth for her. Narrator for nowinski, the issue of cte is personal. He worries he has it. Id be a fool not to worry about cte personally. And i took as much brain trauma as anybody. I think i have more than enough reasons to believe that im going to be fighting this myself, i am fighting it. Narrator at harvard, nowinski was a punishing tackr. He suffered countless head injuries. Then, instead of the nfl, he became a professional wrestler. He ends up with the nickname chris harvard, the persona of this sort of snobbish wrestler whos smarter than all the fans. You people should be grateful to have someone of my intelligence in your presence. Narrator for chris harvard, the performance often ended with a blow to the head. Chris harvard landed on his head quite a bit. You know, as much as wrestling is performance, theres a very, very small margin of error. And especially when youre learning the thing, you fall on your head a lot. Narrator nowinski began to have violent nightmares and migraine headaches. And i said, theres something really wrong with me. And the headache didnt go away for five years. Narrator brain trauma became an obsession. What motivated me every day was the fact that my head was killing me and i knew that i felt awful and i knew that i wasnt the only person, but i was a person in a position to make a difference. Narrator he would take on the task of finding brains of former Football Players for dr. Mckee. They call him the designated brain chaser, like thats his job, to go out and get the brains. Narrator almost right away, nowinski secured a portion of the brain of a 45yearold former tampa bay buccaneer, tom mchale. Tom mchale was a brilliant guy,ent to cornell, had been playing football since a kid. His brilliance intellectually was matched by being an incredible athlete. Narrator tom and lisa mchale had three sons. Once his career was over, mchale ran a successful chain of restaurants. But then, uncharacteristically, trouble. Restlessness, irritability and discontent describe tom to a t today, but no way is it anywhere near the man i had known and the man i had been married to for years. The change was so diabolical. He became a drug addict, he became depressed, he became. Had irate moments of violent temper. Narrator mchales addictions spiraled out of control painkillers, cocaine. I remember so clearly him looking at me and this is going back, you know, in the final months of his life and saying, lisa, when i look in your eyes, all i see is disappointment. And i honestly dont know whether he was seeing my disappointment, or whether it was his own disappointment that he was seeing reflected back. But it pains me to think of how much that hurt him. A former tampa bay buccaneer was found dead this morning. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers player. Narrator he had died of an overdose. We dissect and section his brain, do a whole series of microscopic slides, look at it with all sorts of different stains for different things, and then come to a conclusion about what the diagnosis is. Narrator what she saw was that telltale protein tau. This is a 45yearold with terrific disease. I mean, he had florid disease. He has tau in all these regions of his brain. Narrator it was chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease where the end stage leaves tau protein deposition in distinctive areas of the brain, in distinctive locations that separate this disease from any other, like alzheimers or some other dementia. The tau is effectively closing in around the brain cells and choking them and its impacting the way the brain is working and ultimately erupting in issues around memory, agitation, anger. I remember my feeling. I was scared. I was really scared. It really was a turning point. It was a new understanding that, hey, this might be bigger than we think. Narrator dr. Mckee soon had three brains, all with cte, but rather than just publish in scientific journals, Chris Nowinski was determined to get the word out. Nowinski, who is not a scientist, says, there are people getting hit here. If we speak up now, we may be able to, if not save lives, at least prevent the damage that we are seeing on ann mckees table. Narrator nowinski decided to take on the nfl in a very public way at their biggest event, the 2009 super bowl. All right, what a night its finally here. Super bowl sundays kicking into high gear. Narrator the glitz and glamour of the nfl production machine was in full gear, developed over decades. Highly choreographed. Running and hitting with all their might. Narrator a National Event with a carefully crafted story. The whole worlds ready, kick that ball off the tee. Narrator in tampa, before the big game, nowinski and mckee tried to crash the festivities by holding a press conference. This is the genius of nowinski, really, i mean, right . I mean, were going to present her findings. Where do we want to announce that . Oh, lets go to tampa bay where the super bowls about to play out, where theres 4,000 media members who are there waiting to watch. And i can tell you, i have examined thousands of brains and this is not a normal part of aging. This is not something you normally see in the brain. They were saying, football caused this, this is an issue. I think mckee uses the word crisis. She says, this is a crisis d anybody who doesnt believe it is in denial. Narrator also on the panel, nowinskis other star, lisa mchale. Eight months ago, i lost my best friend, my College Sweetheart and my husband of 18 years. Narrator lisa mchale had decided to go public with her husbands story. I never hesitated to be public with toms findings because i was so fully blown away to know that tom could have had the kind of injury he had to his brain and that it could have been caused by football, and i said, my god, of course, this is information that i would have liked to have had. Narrator and after her husbands death, mchale decided to become an advocate for dr. Mckees research. He is now the sixth confirmed case of cte among former nfl players. And bearing in mind that only six former nfl players have been examined for cte, i find these results to be not only incredibly significant, but profoundly disturbing. Narrator but that day, there were few reporters listening. There were thousands of reporters across the street and probably two dozen were willing to walk across and learn about cte. That was the shocking part. You know, here we were in the midst of everything and this potentially giant story was being told, and virtually no one was there. Everyone, thank you so much for your time, and were available if you want to stick around. Narrator nowinskis press conference was no match for the show the nfl was putting on across town. The buildup is over, and away we go in super bowl 43. Narrator then, one of the most watched Television Broadcasts in history. A 30second ad sold for 3 million. Its all right, were here now narrator it was the crowning event for a year in which the nfl earned almost 8 billion. Heres the runup, and super bowl 43 is underway with the flashbulbs apoppin. The league is this Massive Force financially. The super bowl is a spectacle. Tv is paying huge money to televise the sport. He gets it away quickly and finds the tight end over the middle, and its heath miller. Mi the nfl is broadcast over five networks. Espn, where we work, their new contract with the nfl is worth almost 2 billion a year. And he hits Anquan Boldin so theyre basically paying around 120 million per game. Thats like the budget of a harry potter movie every week, week in, week out. And the Pittsburgh Steelers become the First Franchise in history to win six super bowls. Ladies and gentlemen, here to present the Vince Lombardi trophy, the commissioner of the National Football league, Roger Goodell. Well, some said that we could not top last years super bowl, but the steelers and cardinals did that tonight. Narrator presiding over it all, the most powerful man in sports. All the steelers fans, congratulations on your sixth world championship. Narrator he sat atop a multibilliondollar empire that he was determined to protect. One of his mantras was to protect the shield, the nfl shield; to protect the integrity of the game. Narrator but now, the league might face huge lawsuits and a tarnished image if dr. Mckees findings about cte held up. Theyr directly from dr. Mckee. She was invited to their headquarters. We head on up to a very, very fancy conference room, nice wood paneling, jerseys and trophies in the glass, and it was probably 15 members of the committee. Narrator for years the nfls mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee had been Publishing Research claiming there was no evidence of a link beween football and long term brain damage. Im ut of doubters. Im up against people who dont think that any of this holds any water. So fine, im just going to show them what i have. And they kept interrupting. Narrator Indianapolis ColtTeam Physician dr. Henry feuer was one of the nfl doctors at the meeting. I just have a problem. Ann mckee, she cannot tell me where its starting. We dont know the cause and effect. We dont know that right now. We dont know the incidence. Narrator the Committee Members believed dr. Mckee could not answer two important questions. Causation did football cause cte . And prevalence how many players had it . She was seeing only those that were in trouble, and we know that there are thousands roaming around that are not having problems. So i think thats where we may have had an issue. I think were very early in the evolutionary understanding of cte. A certain percentage of the individuals diagnosed with this have had steroid abuse, alcohol abuse, other substances abuses. We dont know the concussion history in many of these. And there may be other confounding factors in terms of the genetics that we simply dont understand. They were convinced it was wrong, and i felt that they were in a very serious state of denial. I remember at one point one of the nfl doctors asking, couldnt you be misdiagnosing this . These all look like they could be frontal temporal dementia. And ann said, well, actually, i was on the nih committee that defined how you diagnose that disease, so no, theyre definitely different diseases. Like, she had the experience and they didnt. Narrator and according to dr. Mckee, there was Something Else something familiar about the way the nfl committee was acting. I dont want to get into the sexism too much, but sexism plays a big role when youre a doctor of my age whos come up in the ranks with a lot of male doctors. Sexism is part of my life. And getting in that room with a bunch of males who already thought they knew all the answers, more sexism. I mean, you know, it was like, oh, the girl talked. Now we can get back into some serious business. I dont know why she feels that way. I thought that she presented herself, as i recall and its been several years that there was something in her manner. And i think shes a brilliant woman. Shes done a great job. There was just something about the way she said it, and not that everybody was looking down, it was just, um. Narrator dr. Feuer insists dr. Mckee is mistaken about how she was treated. Ab if we, for some reason, came across as being disrespectful, then i would say that everybody else we interviewed over the 15 years must have felt the same way. Thats all i can say about that. And i feel strongly about that, too. We would listen, and thank you, and thats it. Whether she wanted us to start yap. You know, i dont know where shes coming from on that. Narrator the meeting had changed nothing. Just a few blocks from nfl headquarters, the commissioner had another problem. In a midtown manhattan restaurant, an internal nfl Research Document was leaked to a reporter. Documents were passed to me at smith and wollenskys in manhattan, in an envelope i mean, it was great, it was very deep throat by somebody who shall remain nameless. But he literally slid it across the table in an envelope. Narrator it was a Scientific Study of former players commissioned by the National Football league itself. At the bottom of page 32, there it was dementia. Me and they had asked players, or their representatives, their wives, have you been diagnosed by a physician as having alzheimers, dementia, or any other memoryrelated disease . What it showed was that former nfl players seem to have memoryrelated disorders at a much, much higher rate than people in the regular community. And here was a study that the nfl supported, and it came out not looking too good for the nfl. It was the people who the league hired to find out the answers to these questions giving them the answers. And thats what they were. And so, you knew that this was going to be big. Narrator the study went to the heart of the prevalence question. In this case, it showed the prevalence of Brain Disorders was far higher among Football Players than the nfl anticipated. So now schwarz calls up the nfl to get a response, and what he gets from greg aiello, the league spokesman, is more denials. Theyre now denying their own study. Narrator aiello insisted the studys design was flawed, but now the nfls concussion crisis was again national news. And so its becoming almost impossible for the nfl to ignore it. Narrator at the same time, another force was also causing trouble for the nfl and the commissioner the wives and widows of players with cte. I dont think anyone else but the wives, sisters, mothers, daughters and ann mckee could have forced this issue into american consciousness. Narrator Eleanor Perfetto was one of them. Her husband, ralph wenzel, had played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. As the disease progressed, he went from being ill but fairly functional to getting to the point where he could no longer, you know, dress or feed himself. And in the last year and a half to two years before he died, he couldnt even walk anymore. Narrator shed spent years trying to get help from the nfl and its players association. Then perfetto took matters into her own hands. She showed up uninvited to a League Meeting about caring for retired players. Theres going to be a meeting that the commissioner is holding with former players. And her husband, suffering from dementia, obviously cant be represented there by anybody but her. And shes told shes not allowed to enter the room. Narrator it was the commissioner himself who kept perfetto out. And i said, id like to attend this meeting. And he said, no, you cant attend. Its only for players. Its not for anyone els