On Christmas Day, a movie is expected to bring to public attention to the rising incidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) among National Football League (NFL) players.

"Concussion," which opens on Dec 25 in US theatres, stars Will Smith as neuropathologist Dr Bennet Omalu who discovers CTE in the brains of two NFL player who eventually commit suicide, reports 247 Sports. One of them was Mike Webster, an NFL Hall of Fame awardee.

Football or soccer means so much physical action, inevitably, players endure damage on their brains caused by head butts despite wearing protective gear such as helmet. The repeated head trauma could cause memory loss, dementia and depression which explains why some NFL players in the movie took their own lives.

Based on his discovery, Omalu initiates a one-man mission for the NFL to recognise his work. But his plea is ignored by the NFL, which instead of hearing his findings, insists it “comes from nowhere.” NFL threatened Omalu to drop his crusade or else he would be the next corpse to undergo autopsy. However, the doctor was insistent that NFL protect the sport’s “warriors” against CTE.

Outside the movie, after medical experts found a few years ago that a football concussion could result in a permanent head trauma, the league put in place several rules to enforce players’ safety. The measures include stricter penalties on unnecessary roughness and moving the kickoffs to the 45-yard-line to increase touchbacks.

In spite of these measures, there were still injuries in the current NFL season which 247 described at a “frenzied pitch.” According to USA Today, on Week 9, Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Marionat sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee due to a low hit by Olivier Vernono, defensive end of the Miami Dolphins, during a 38-10 loss on Oct. 18.

Other than Marionat, other injured players were Sammy Watkins of Buffalo Bills WR who has an ankle injury, DeSean Jackson of Washington Redskins WE for hamstring injury, Vincent Jackson of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers WR who suffers a knee injury, New York Jets player Brandon Marshall who hurt his ankle and toe, T.Y. Hilton of Indianapolis Colts WR for foot injury and Ryan Matthews of Philadelphia Eagles RB who sustained a groin injury.

In September, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University, in a study published in Frontline, reported that 96 percent of dead NFL players tested over the last 10 years had CTE, or 87 of 91 NFL players. Of all football players studied, CTE was confirmed in 79 percent, or 131 of 165 players, reports ESPN.

Dr Ann Mckee, operator of the laboratory which is a collaboration between the department and the university, says that CTE is a very real disease, stressing, “We have no problem identifying it in hundreds of players.”

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