The National Football League is blitzing Congress to highlight its efforts to pay for research in head injuries – and get ahead of a player safety issue that's dogged the organization.
Kicking off the effort will be closed-door meetings with the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Commerce Committee, which have jurisdiction over sports-related commercial issues,
Politico reports.
"It is easy to have intuitive feelings and it's also easy to react to headlines," Cynthia Hogan, the league's top lobbyist, tells Politico. "I think for us what the important message is, is understand what the real information is out there."
According to Politico, the lobbying push comes ahead of expected political demands to address player injuries – including changes in practice schedules, equipment upgrades and perhaps even scratching kickoffs as an end-around plays that often produce some of the hardest open-field tackles.
The concerns are focused on the growing awareness of the effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy – a type of brain damage often found in athletes with a history or repetitive head trauma. The issue is the focus of an upcoming film,
"Concussion," starring Will Smith, about a forensic neuropathologist who made the first discovery of CTE in a pro player.
CTE is suspected to have
played a role in the suicides of former NFL superstars Junior Seau and Dave Duerson.
Politico notes the NFL is the only major sports league to run a full-time lobbying operation in the nation's capitol, just blocks from the White House.
And they're busy: The league has run into flak because of football's violence, Commissioner Roger Goodell's handling of player discipline, and over criticism of the Washington Redskins' nickname – and most recently, the suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for its football-tampering "Deflategate" controversy that has now been
overturned by a federal judge.
But "Concussion" could cast an especially harsh light on the league.
"The movie 'Concussion,' I think, is a snapshot of a specific period in the past," Hogan tells the website. "I think what we are hopeful is that this is an opportunity for us to get out to people information on where we are now."
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