Due to the sensitive nature of today's episode, listener discretion is advised this episode includes discussions of suicide that may be upsetting for some listeners. We advise extreme caution for children under 13.

In February 2011, police arrived at a luxury condo overlooking Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. They entered the eerily silent apartment. The smell of smoke lingered in the air.

A massive item sat on the living room table. At first they appeared random, but upon closer inspection, it was as if someone was trying to tell them something.

There was a DVD case for a psychological thriller called Trapped, a workers compensation claim related to brain trauma and a copy of Sports Illustrated. The hits that are changing the game and the hits no one is noticing, when the cops entered the master bedroom, they saw the large deceased body of Dave Duerson, a former safety for the Chicago Bears. He was sprawled naked on his bed. A revolver lay beside him.

Though suicide seemed probable, the method was strange. Duerson had shot himself in his chest, not the head, which potentially meant a slower, more excruciating death.

It later became clear that this final act was one of rebellion, a fourth down Hail Mary, a last stand against a disease that had taken his mind. Duerson had shot himself in the torso to preserve the evidence.

On the last page of his suicide note, Duerson wrote One final instruction. Please see that my brain is given to the NFL's brain bank. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify original from cast every Monday and Wednesday, we dig into the complicated stories behind the world's most controversial events and search for the truth on Carter Roy. And I'm Molly Brandenburg.

And neither of us are conspiracy theorists, but we are open minded, skeptical and curious.

Don't get us wrong.

Sometimes the official version is the truth, but sometimes it's not.

You can find episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from Park asked for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This is our first episode on the National Football League's attempts to cover up the detrimental effects of repeated concussions. Evidence suggested that multiple hits to the head have caused alarming mental health issues later in life instead of taking the science seriously. The NFL seemed to go on the offensive, denying the claims. This left many athletes to endure the consequences of a job in which head trauma was nearly inevitable.

This week, we'll meet the doctors who discovered the condition and fought to bring it to public attention. We'll also learn about former players whose lives fell apart after taking too many hits.

Next week, we'll explore a few conspiracy theories, including evidence that the NFL orchestrated a full blown cover up and that racism allowed the league to ignore the problem. We'll also examine the other side of the argument that fears about concussions may be overblown.

We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. I mean, it was the first day of training camp for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a final opportunity to get into shape before the 1974 season started, players prepared for a ruthless drill, which was so brutal that it earned the nickname The Nutcracker.

Twenty two year old newcomer Mike Webster stepped onto the field. His strength had been forged, carrying 100 pound sacks of potatoes on the family farm, the same places alcoholic father had beaten him senseless. But it was this history of heavy field work and rough abuse that made him the greatest center in NFL history. It also earned him his nickname, Iron Mike. Then, during his first nutcracker, his relentless power was on full display.

When the whistle blew iron, Mike slammed his helmet into another Steelers chest. The opposing linebacker was driven to the ground with such force that everyone was left speechless.

It was plays like this that led the Steelers to call themselves a collision football team. Smashing opponents wasn't part of their strategy. It was their strategy. And Webster's weapon of choice was his skull years into his career.

Another player named Jerry Sullivan noticed a thick layer of scar tissue on Webster's forehead. But Sullivan didn't see it as a bad thing. It was a badge of commitment, he admitted.

I was kind of disappointed that my forehead wasn't disfigured, except Webster's head was never properly examined. In the 80s and 90s, sports scientists focused on what could be measured if you couldn't X-ray it or bandage it up. It probably wasn't serious. As ESPN writers Mark Fainaru, WADA and Steve Fainaru put it in their book League of Denial, the concussion was still regarded as the neurological equivalent of a stubbed toe.

Before we go further, let's take a second to explain what exactly a concussion is. When someone experiences a blow to the head, the brain slaps against the skull, distorting or cutting the organs, microscopic fibers known as axons. Sometimes the victim goes blind for a second. Others lose their balance. When the jolt is severe, the whole system can malfunction and the person may become unconscious.

When football players collide, their skulls connect with up to one hundred and fifty G forces. To put it into perspective, think of this example. If you are to drive a car into a wall at 25 miles per hour without a seatbelt, you'd smack your head into the windshield with a force of around 100 GS. This kind of crash occurs several times in each football game.

It's no surprise then that these weekly beatings eventually caught up to Webster. And in 1991, he decided to retire at age 39 after 17 years of football that's around. When his wife noticed his strange behavior, he had frequent bouts of rage and was plagued with paranoia. Physically, he looked like himself, but mentally he behaved like a dementia ridden man.

Twice his age, no one connected this transformation to Iron Mike's career. At the time, the long term effects of concussions were completely unknown. However, the Steelers brain specialist, Joe Maroon, had a hunch that they might be connected.

He saw how players returned to the field minutes after recovering from a knockout, even if they complained of headaches. Maroon thought the lack of recovery time might amplify the symptoms, but he had no proof.

So he teamed up with Mark Lovell, the chief neuropsychologist at Allegheny General Hospital. Together, they refined a diagnostic test to measure the severity of these head injuries. That way, they could tell if a player risked further damage by continuing to play. Just after implementing the test, one athlete was sent out of the game for good.

Merril Hodge was a running back with the Chicago Bears.

After he was clobbered, somebody noticed him in the locker room unconscious. He'd stopped breathing for a whole twenty seconds. The next day, he couldn't remember his daughter's name. A few days later, Hodge called Maroon and Lovel.

Hodge couldn't complete the most basic parts of the diagnostic test, like connecting a series of twenty five dots. Maroon told him to quit football. Hodge was scared of losing out, but ultimately he. Follow the doctor's orders in 1994, he retired at the age of 29, Hoj wasn't the only player who was badly battered that year. In fact, three quarterbacks were knocked out on one vicious Sunday. Chris Miller of the L.A. Rams was launched backward when a player slammed into his chest, causing him to smack his head against the turf.

Vinny Testaverde, a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, also lost consciousness during the game. He sat out the next two due to blurred vision and head pain. When Wilbur Marshall, a 240 pound linebacker, speared his helmet into the chin of Cowboys' quarterback Troy Aikman, the impact was so hard that it splattered blood across his face after three quarterbacks all suffered head traumas.

The period was deemed the season of the concussion. And yet, despite this ominous label, it took an unlikely figure to draw attention to the issue.

A sports agent named Leigh Steinberg, who was also the inspiration for Jerry Maguire, was a Eichmanns representative that year during a winning conference championship game against the San Francisco 49ers. A defensive lineman accidentally kneed Aikman in the head. The team doctor thought he was OK, but they sent him to the Baylor University Medical Center just in case. Outside crowds were cheering and horns were honking. Aikman had just won the city a trip to the Super Bowl. But inside his darkened hospital room, Aikman was alone and confused.

He looked at his agent and asked Lee, Why am I here? Steinberg was shocked.

He realized that most agents encouraged their athletes to play every game. But now he felt guilty for pushing Aikman to the brink. It spurred Steinberg to take action. In 1995, he held a seminar in Newport Beach, California, where athletes talked openly about head injuries. Afterwards, concussions were on everyone's mind and in every newspaper sports section.

In response to the so-called season of the concussion, a Cleveland columnist took aim at the NFL directly. He accused them of creating a culture that thrived on violence and for making money off of the pain of players. The NFL's commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, described the article as pack journalism, essentially accusing the writers of ganging up to push the same biased and sensationalized talking points. But Tagliabue couldn't ignore the problem forever, so he created the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, or TBI, to investigate the issue.

But his choice for chairman raised eyebrows.

He appointed Elliott Pelman, a doctor who specializes in rheumatology. In other words, Pelman had very little brain science experience.

Perhaps that's why, in an interview with Sports Illustrated, Pelman dismissed concussions as a mere occupational risk. He also claimed that veteran players were less affected by the condition because they could unscramble their brains faster than rookies.

Except Iron Mike Webster was no rookie and his mental health was far from unscrambled, despite earning one million dollars during his last few seasons. He lost his house because he suddenly stopped paying the bills. In addition, Webster left his family for weeks on end to pursue Get-Rich-Quick schemes, which all failed. Eventually, he began sleeping at a Greyhound station in downtown Pittsburgh.

His 19 year old son, Colin, started taking care of him, but Webster was gone in both mind and body. He downed Ritalin, a drug to treat ADHD like candy. Cracks in his feet made it painful to walk. But the worst sign of his neurological degeneration occurred one night when Colin found Webster urinating into the oven. In explanation, Webster said. Oh, Jesus, I thought I was going in a urinal instead of seeing a doctor.

Webster tried his hand at grizzly home remedies, for instance, because Webster's diet consisted of junk food and sweets. His teeth fell out. Instead of going to the dentist, he used superglue to put them back in to fix the fissures in his feet. He wrapped his souls with duct tape. Even more horrifying, Webster had so much trouble sleeping that he used a stun gun to electrocute himself until he passed out. In 1998, a lawyer helped Webster file for disability benefits with the NFL, but the application process was arduous.

As a result, his attorneys sent him to a series of doctors to back up his case. When one asked if he'd ever been in a car wreck, Webster replied, Oh, probably about 25000 times or so.

In 1999, the NFL's disability board finally ruled that Webster could receive benefits. They admitted that he was totally and permanently disabled as a direct result of the injuries sustained in football. However, the ruling was kept completely secret. The NFL had whispered a confession. Meanwhile, they continued to loudly deny any link between long term disability and concussions sustained during football. In other words, Webster's benefits were a hollow victory that did nothing to change the institution that had saddled him with lifelong injuries.

Worse, Webster didn't receive benefits for long. Three years later, he suffered a heart attack in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Then, in the early morning of September 24th, 2002, Webster was pronounced dead. He was only 50 years old.

In the midst of his grief, Webster's lawyer received a phone call from the coroner's office with an odd request. It was clear that Webster died of a heart attack, but they weren't interested in the cause of death. They wanted permission to open up the player's head.

Coming up, the secrets ingrained in Iron Mike's brain. Listeners, they say there's someone for everyone, a soul to share your secrets with, a companion to grow old with, a conspirator to commit crimes with starting this February on Spotify, learn about the lethal and legendary lovers who fought the law in the past. Limited series, criminal couples. If you've ever referred to your best friend or beloved as your partner in crime. This exclusive series is for you.

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Now back to the story. The legendary Pittsburgh Steeler Iron Mike Webster was famous for his resilience and strength after bowing out of football, he formed dementia like symptoms.

Then he descended into a torrent of financial trouble, likely brought on by his compromise decision making faculties. Webster's untimely death at age 50 sent shockwaves throughout the country.

This caused scientists to heighten their efforts, surveying the disastrous effects of head collisions. Meanwhile, the NFL continued insisting that there were no long term consequences. Their denials were bolstered by the fact that no one had ever opened up a player's skull to see if there was any neurological damage. And then Nigerian born pathologist Bennett Momolu came along on Mallu.

Unlike other three year olds living in Pittsburgh wasn't a big football fan. He viewed the sport as a pointless ritual. But even he was familiar with the recent death of Iron Mike Webster. He'd seen the players most embarrassing moments aired for entertainment. He wondered how this once revered athlete could have sunk so low a spiritual man.

It could be said that O'Malley viewed being a forensic pathologist as a religious calling. An autopsy was the last chance to give the deceased a voice before they were silenced forever on receiving Webster's body. He spoke to it saying, You need to help me tell the world what happened to you. The death certificate said that Webster suffered from depression secondary to post concussion syndrome. Momolu saw the players curled fingers shaped as if forever holding a football.

He noted the thick shelf of scar tissue where Webster had used his head like a battering ram. However, his brain showed no obvious signs of trauma. At three point five pounds, it appeared healthy. And yet Momolu sensed that something was amiss. He sliced the brain tissue and bathed it in a chemical to show abnormalities when who placed a specimen under the microscope, he was baffled by what he saw.

Insidious brown spots splattered the tissue like a Jackson Pollock painting. These marks indicated an excessive buildup of a compound called tau protein.

Alzheimer's disease also creates abnormal levels of tau protein referred to as neurofibrillary tangles, which sweep around healthy brain tissue.

It prevents neurons and various parts of the brain from communicating properly, which can in turn affect someone's mood, emotions and memory.

However, Webster's brain wasn't like an Alzheimer's patients, among other differences. It didn't have any of the beta amyloid plaques that one would expect to see in someone with the degenerative disease. It was unlike anything O'Malia had ever heard of while Momolu worked on Webster.

The NFL continued its own research. The organization's Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee collaborated with Joe Maroon, the man who had formed the diagnostic test for concussions. They published their analyses in a respected journal called Neurosurgery. However, some studies fumbled the ball. For example, one paper said that repeated concussions posed no danger to players. Their reasoning was since athletes headed back into the field after being concussed, they must be fine. Otherwise the medical staff wouldn't have cleared them.

They also implied that there was no brain damage in NFL athletes because none had been found. Essentially, if you close your eyes, the problem didn't exist.

After the paper reviewers ridiculed the MTBE as industry funded research. Normally, neurosurgery might not have published such illogical claims, but the editor in chief knew the story would bring his staid academic magazine more mainstream readers. So in a likely bid to garner exposure, he was happy to turn his paper into a megaphone for the NFL.

As a result, study after study asserted that head trauma wasn't an issue for football players. The research was so clearly biased that in academic circles, neurosurgery gained a new nickname, Journal of No NFL concussions.

Meanwhile, the carnage continued. Every Sunday, pile ups in the pit sent athletes into a veritable meat grinder. Then, when they retired, players were spit out to face the consequences on their own with no disability support. Justin Strzelczyk, a Steelers lineman, certainly could have used to help. After years of thrashings, he'd shifted from a fun loving, intelligent husband into a delusional wreck. Strzelczyk complained of depression and was haunted by mysterious voices he called the evil ones.

Then, in September 2004, at age 36, he dialed up old friends to apologize for things that were long. In the past, they thought he sounded strange.

The next day, Strzelczyk hopped in his pickup truck and sped down the interstate. When state troopers flashed their lights, he'd led them on a 37 mile chase. The pursuit ended when Strzelczyk swerved across the median at one hundred miles per hour into oncoming traffic. He slammed into an oil tanker carrying corrosive acid. The resulting explosion was massive. Strzelczyk was killed instantly.

Strzelczyk death was a mystery. No one knew where he was going or why it had happened.

But Dr. Ramallo was confident that Webster's brain health the answer who had read about a phenomenon called dementia pugilistica or punch drunk syndrome. The disorder was first discovered in boxers who experienced similar symptoms delusion, violent behavior and memory loss. If punches could slowly demolish a brain, maybe tackles could, too.

As a result, Amala wanted to give the condition a new name, one that didn't infer that Punch Drunk Syndrome was exclusive to boxers. So in 2005, he coined the term chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and then a Mallu submitted his research to the neurosurgery magazine almost immediately, the NFL.

Launched a blitz against his work, calling for his study to be retracted, if it was among his scientific career, would be over.

About this moment, a WHO later said there were times I wished I'd never looked at Mike Webster's brain. I didn't know it would mean walking into a minefield.

Luckily, the NFL's request to pull the article was denied a man who had done solid work. And what's more, he would soon have another brain to back up his research.

Like Webster, Terry Long was a big hearted offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers. However Long used steroids to pack muscle onto his compact frame when he was suspended for drugs in 1991, he tried taking his own life first by running his car in the garage, then by eating rat poison.

Lung also spiraled into depression and ill advised financial schemes after he retired. In one of these gambits, he claimed a one point one million dollars in insurance money after one of his businesses burned down. When authorities found out that the fire had been set by long himself, he drank a gallon of Drano in an attempt to end his life. Then, on June 7th, 2005, Long's efforts were finally successful. He died by suicide after consuming antifreeze.

When Namaliu examined Long's brain, he found the same buildup of tau protein. This meant that he had one more piece of evidence of CTE in a football player. Once again, Amalia's findings were shared with the public.

The MTBE committee saw this move as an outright declaration of war. As a result, they launched another counterattack on Namaliu. This time, Moroun criticized his findings as preposterous, not appropriate and just not right. But Maroons aggressive denials might have been more personally motivated.

Moroun had been the Steelers neurological consultant during Long's tenure with the team. If Amala was right, it was not only a condemnation of the NFL, it meant that Maroon was partially responsible for the player's death. It's not surprising, then, that he fought tooth and nail against the claim to him. It wasn't science. It was a personal accusation.

Soon after, Amala had yet another chance to confirm his theory. Philadelphia Eagles safety. Andre Waters was one of the most feared hitters in the NFL.

The Philadelphia Inquirer once asked Waters how many concussions he'd had in his career. He replied, I think I lost count at fifteen. I just wouldn't say anything. I'd sniff some smelling salts, then go right back in there.

But after retirement, nothing could wake waters from his deep depression. Then, in November 2006, Waters shot himself in the head.

Chris Nowinski, a former wrestler, saw the news as an opportunity after his own traumatic brain injury concussion awareness became his crusade. He knew a man who had found CTE in Webster, and long a third discovery could help turn the Nigerian scientists hypothesis into a proven fact.

Nowinski gave water sister a call. He explained his own experiences and told her about Webster.

In long, gentle giants whose brains had degraded, the family agreed to let O'Malley examine what his brain, despite the bullet wound, there was enough tissue left for an autopsy.

Again, Namaliu found signs of CTE in the athlete's cerebral matter, but Namaliu now had second thoughts about publishing his work.

He challenged one of the most powerful organizations in the world and nearly lost his job over it. He didn't like his odds.

Then in 2006, O'Malley, who received a call from a well-known neurosurgeon named Julian Bailes Bailes had also been researching the brains of NFL players with dementia like symptoms. But the league's doctors were dismissing his findings just as they had tried to discredit Amalia's. Bales' wanted to help.

The two doctors held a meeting. Bales' even invited Maroon, the Steelers neurosurgeon who'd criticized Amol, whose work Bales' believe Maroon could be reasonable. He gambled that if a Mallu presented the evidence to him in person, perhaps maroon switch teams more than a decade before.

Maroon was the one blowing the whistle on the NFL, but as he sat before a Mallu watching his presentation, he realized that he had grown complacent. His attacks against Momolu were on the wrong side of science.

As a result, when Namaliu finished explaining his findings, Maroon leaned back to take it in. Finally, he responded. If only 10 percent of mothers in America begin to conceive of football as a dangerous game, that is the end of football. Despite this risk, Maria knew it was time to make this information public. He had no idea that the former wrestler Chris Nowinski had set that ball in motion. The Andre Waters scoop was already on its way to The New York Times.

The paper ran the piece on the front page next to a picture of Andre Waters. The headline was Blunt Reading Expertize explain his suicide to brain damage. With that, CTE was no longer a niche theory that the NFL could just bat away. As the authors of League of Denial put it, January 18th, 2007, was the day the NFL's concussion problem hit the mainstream. Coming up, a fight breaks out in the halls of Congress. Now back to the story when Dr.

Bennett O'Malia discovered brain damage in deceased NFL players. The league responded with rabid denials. The MTBE committee published claims that concussions were rare in the NFL. They went further, saying that when concussions did occur, they didn't cause long term damage at all.

IRA Casson, a neurologist, was one of the leading members of the MTBE committee. In 2007, he appeared on HBO's Real Sports. When he was asked if there was any evidence to link head injuries with depression, Carson said no. How about dementia? Carson said no. What about early onset Alzheimer's? No. Again, Cousins denials were so fervent that he earned himself a new nickname that night. Dr. No.

But it was difficult for the NFL to continue its strategy of deny, deny, deny. So in the summer of 2007, they convened to discuss families research. One man was glaringly missing from the invite list. Amala himself, Julian Bailes, said they were trying to blackball him, lock him out, marginalize him.

They succeeded. Momolu was pushed to the fringe and with his self promoting style, he became a polarizing figure even in the scientific community. New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson thought a fall from the spotlight occurred for two reasons. He wasn't American and he was black. Carson joined the chorus of voices that became critical of the league. He struggled with depression after his 1988 retirement, but years later, a doctor finally diagnosed him with post concussion syndrome. Suddenly, his symptoms made sense.

He felt validated, but also angry the NFL had abandoned players like him and Mike Webster.

When Carson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006, he used his acceptance speech to spotlight the issue. He pleaded with his former employer saying, you have to take better care of your own.

With so much public pressure, the NFL was forced to provide a solution. One of these fixes was the 88 plan named for John Mackey, whose jersey shared the same number.

Mackey was a legendary tight end, but long after the stadium lights had faded, he was diagnosed with dementia by his late 50s. His wife, Sylvia, described his illness as a slow, deteriorating, ugly caregiver, killing degenerative brain destroying, tragic horror.

The 88 plan promised up to 88000 dollars per year for players experiencing dementia, Parkinson's or other neurological disorders. But the income wasn't even enough to cover the medical needs of the man it was named after.

This was just the beginning of the NFL's very public reckoning. In September 2007, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation convened in Washington. The hearing examined the accusations that the NFL's retirement program was failing its players. And since CTE was inextricably linked to this topic, it dominated the conversation.

Brandt Boyd, who retired after six seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, took to the stand. Unlike Carson's Juvenile Hall of Fame speech, Boyd was ready to hit hard.

He told the room that he was tormented by an invisible illness brought on by his concussions. He alleged that the NFL had destroyed his medical files and denied his disability claims, he said. Their strategy was delay, deny and hope that I put a bullet through my head and their problem.

Dave Duerson, a former defensive back who played for the Chicago Bears, also took the witness stand. But he told a different story.

After retiring, Duerson worked as a trustee on the NFL's disability board. He wholeheartedly defended the league.

He also added a bizarre note since his dad had Alzheimer's and never played a professional sport, then brain damage probably didn't come from the NFL.

Things escalated in the hallway after the hearing, Duerson lobbed profanities at a couple of his former colleagues ready to strip off his tie and throw down. The outburst seemed out of character to those who had known him later. Many would come to understand why he was so reactionary. Duerson was suffering the same condition.

Meanwhile, in Bedford, Massachusetts, another brain disease expert was stepping on to the field. Doctor and McKee. She was a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan and a true cheesehead.

When Dr. McKee first noticed dementia symptoms in boxers, she wondered how many Alzheimer's diagnoses were actually due to preventable injury. She described it saying, I've been looking at oranges for years and all of a sudden it was like, this is a banana.

Soon she'd be able to prove her theory with John Grimsley, a fierce linebacker who had played for the Houston Oilers.

Grimsley was an intelligent guy. He created a successful company during retirement and had a great relationship with his family. But over the years, Grimsley's mental health deteriorated. He'd lose his temper at the slightest annoyance.

When Grimsley's family cut a new segment about CTE, the symptoms looked familiar. His son said, Mom, dad is showing all those signs already.

Shortly after the newscast, Grimsley bought a handgun one day while attempting to clean the pistol. He accidentally shot himself in the chest and died. He was only 45 years old.

Due to their suspicions, his family sent his brain to Dr. McKee. She found that Grimsley's neurological samples were riddled with tau protein. McKee said. It was like a degenerative. On steroids, then after she autopsied and found CTE in another NFL player named Tom McHale, Mickey claimed, I have never seen this disease in the general population, only in these athletes. It's a crisis. And anyone who doesn't recognize the severity of the problem is in tremendous denial.

The NFL wasted no time, the league's Dr. No Caulder up and invited her to headquarters to present her findings. She didn't know the organization's reputation with scientists or that they'd spent the last five years destroying Amalia's name. So Mickey Pacta slides and her bags and headed to New York City.

Mickey walked into the NFL's Park Avenue office. Two dozen men took their seats. The MTBE committee in the flesh outside of the organization's lawyer. She was the only woman in the room.

As soon as she presented her evidence, McKee was peppered with questions. Dr. Carson interrupted the most, at times even mocking her. She felt like they were thinking, is that girl saying something? Could we get a doctor in here, please? Could we get someone in here who actually knows what they're talking about?

Seemingly goaded by Carson, many on the committee bombarded her with their version of the truth. They claim that her so-called CTE symptoms were actually caused by steroids, nutritional supplements and diabetes, not head trauma. They had nothing to back up their claims, but they were in a desperate position for years. They'd taken a very public stance that CTE didn't exist. To say otherwise was to admit that they'd screwed up or worse, outright lied.

On October 28th, 2009, the NFL's new commissioner, Roger Goodell, kept that position in mind when the House Judiciary Committee questioned him about the studies coming out of the scientific community.

Chairman Michigan Democrat John Conyers wasted no time pointing fingers. He started. Everyone that plays football at any level knows it is a dangerous sport. There should be no surprise when a football player separates his shoulder, twisted ankle, busted knee. But there appears to be growing evidence that playing football may be linked to long term brain damage.

However, it was Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of California who made the boldest assertions. She compared the NFL to big tobacco, suggesting that the organization had used its power to discredit scientists, cherry picked data and push forth its own faulty conclusions.

Ultimately, the hearing was a touchdown for science within weeks, Dr. No was removed as co-chair of the TBI committee, NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello told The New York Times that based on the research, it was quite obvious that concussions can lead to long term issues.

It had been 15 years since the NFL created the TBI committee to study the effects of head trauma and seven years since Iron Mike Webster's brain lit up like a Christmas tree with tau protein. But 2009 was the first time the league admitted these concussions had lingering effects.

The tides were turning. Even the league's ardent defenders were jumping ship. The most tragic example was Dave Duerson, the defensive back who shattered at his fellow players during the Senate hearing.

Duerson eventually succumbed to the same illness that plagued Webster Waters and the others. In a last act of rebellion, he shot himself in the chest and donated his brain to Dr. McKee. He hoped his cerebrum could add to the evidence against his former employer.

The NFL took a look at the scoreboard and drew up a new play. In 2013, it announced that an independent neurologist would be on the sidelines at every game. They devised a symptom checklist and stated no player would rejoin the game after getting concussed. However, it was too late. Too much damage had already been done.

A cascade of litigation flooded the desks at the NFL's legal office. More than 3000 retired players were suing almost a quarter of all former athletes. The most striking suit alleged that the NFL had created a fraudulent research arm.

That year, the league agreed to pay seven hundred and sixty five million dollars to former players in their relatives. While this sounds like a large chunk of change, it was a drop in the bucket for the NFL. That year alone, the organization had netted nearly 10 billion in revenue.

In many ways, the league had won in their rivalry with science, there was no admission of guilt, no public condemnation. Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner who created the MTBE committee, was never put to trial.

There was no chance for anyone to ask the famous Watergate question, what did the NFL commissioner know and when did he know?

It also, in relation to players who had already died while displaying signs of CTE, the deal only applied to those who'd passed from 2006 to 2014. This excluded Mike Webster, the first football player to be diagnosed with the condition. It also shut the door on future litigation, even as evidence continues to mount.

In 2017, Dr. McKee published a study in which she'd found CTE in one hundred and seventy seven out of 202 football players she'd examined across the country. This included 14 high schoolers. Dr. McKee's terrifying conclusion was that with each additional year of playing football, a person had a 30 percent higher risk of having CTE at death.

Next time will dive deeper into the theories surrounding the NFL's concussion crisis.

Conspiracy theory number one, CTE is not prevalent in football, and its long term effects are widely overblown.

Conspiracy theory number two, the NFL worked with the tobacco industry to hide the risks of concussions.

Conspiracy theory number three, racism allowed the league to ignore the CTE problem.

The love of American football cannot be understated. In 2012, 23 of the 25 top rated shows on TV were NFL games. Even when a game was moved from Sunday to Tuesday because of snowfall, sports anchors knew the ratings would stay the same. One such journalist said the NFL was protected even from acts of God.

It's too bad that it isn't the same for its players. Every Sunday, they gather on the field. We chant and praise their divine skills and heroic stamina. But football is a strange religion. As we watch our favorite athletes, we're not only worshipping them as idols, we are sacrificing them.

Thanks for tuning in to conspiracy theories. We'll be back Wednesday with part two of the NFL and Keays. For more information on the NFL and Keays, we found League of Denial by Mark Fainaru, Wata and Steve Fainaru. Helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from Cast for free on Spotify.

Until then, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth.

Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify original from podcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, Sound Design by Scott Stronach with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Conspiracy Theories was written by Ben KERO with writing assistance by Lori Gottlieb and Obiageli Oddy Megu, fact checking by Bennett Logan and research by Brad Klein and Brian Peteris. Conspiracy theory stars Molly Brandenberg and Roy. Listeners, don't forget to check out the new Sparkasse limited series, criminal couples from apocalyptic cult leaders to bank robbing bandits.

These couples give new meaning to till death do us part enjoy two part episodes every Monday starting February 1st. Follow criminal couples free and exclusively on Spotify.