We worry about too big to fail. Yet bank losses pale in comparison to the degree to which the National Football League, has been too big to tell the truth. Its denials have seemingly directly resulted in the death of NFL players. Even worse, it has created untold dangers to young kids playing football, because their parents believed the leagues denials about the risk of brain injury coming from concussion and repetitive head trauma. When seen in its totality, it’s hard to deny that this ten billion dollar Park Avenue business, that is the NFL, does not have blood on its hands.
We’ve all heard the debate questioning the impacts of repeated concussions and head trauma on NFL players. But the facts are are not up for debate. This is not a case where the cover up is worse than the crime. For the NFL, the cover up is the crime.
Two of the top investigative journalists, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru look inside twenty years of denial on the part of the NFL in their book and Frontline documentary League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth.
My conversation with Mark Fainaru-Wada & Steve Fainaru: