Latest news with #N.F.L
New York Times
29-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
In Violent Attack, Gunman Brings Issue of C.T.E. to N.F.L.'s Door
The Midtown Manhattan shooting involving Shane Tamura, a former high school football player, recalled previous cases of violent behavior — including murder and suicide — by other former players who believed they were suffering from brain trauma sustained on the field. It also echoed a case that had nothing to do with football: The murder of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare who was killed in Midtown Manhattan in December by a gunman who said in a manifesto that he saw the killing as a direct challenge to the health care industry's 'corruption' and 'power games.' After years of public relations crises over the sport's long-term cognitive and neurological toll on players, the N.F.L. seemed to largely move past the subject with a legal settlement that has paid out $1.5 billion since 2017. But the subject of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease known as C.T.E., arrived at the league's front door on Monday in a terrifying way. The building that houses the league's headquarters became the scene of a shooting spree that left five people dead. It is not clear whether the gunman's claims of cognitive issues were related to playing football, or whether he had any connection to the N.F.L. Yet the police believe Mr. Tamura, a former high school football player, was seeking vengeance on the league. They cited a three-page note found in Mr. Tamura's wallet that referred to C.T.E., which has been associated with repeated hits to the head, and which can only be definitively diagnosed after death. The note, from which the police released excerpts, also inveighed against the N.F.L., which has offices at 345 Park Avenue, where the shooting took place, saying it had concealed the danger of the sport in favor of profits. The note made reference to Terry Long, a former N.F.L. player, and drinking 'a gallon of antifreeze' — the way Mr. Long killed himself in 2005. Mr. Tamura shot himself in the chest, rather than the head. 'Study my brain please,' the note said. 'I'm sorry.' It may take several weeks or more for the medical examiner's office to determine whether Mr. Tamura, 27, had C.T.E. And even if he is found to have had the disease, it will be difficult to know whether it was caused by head trauma sustained in football or elsewhere, or whether other conditions played a role in his actions. 'I would never draw a direct line between someone's brain pathology and any specific violent act because the majority of people who have C.T.E. never committed anything like this,' said Dr. Daniel H. Daneshvar, chief of brain injury rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. 'The majority of people with C.T.E. never engage in violent behavior at all,' he added. Mr. Tamura does not appear to have played football in college, let alone in the N.F.L. It is unclear whether he had any contact with the league before Monday. A league spokesman did not reply to a request for comment. 'The short answer is we all think this is undeserved to place this at the feet of the N.F.L., but it is sadly part of being the biggest league,' said Robert Boland, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who worked as a New York City prosecutor and an N.F.L. player agent. 'Football still exists and it is important that everyone involved in the game do what they can to make it safer.' For decades, the N.F.L. celebrated violence in its promotional films and broadcasts. Popular players had nicknames like the Assassin and the Purple People Eaters. That changed in the 1990s, when several players retired from the effects of too many head injuries. Then, in 2002, C.T.E. was discovered in the addled brain of the former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike 'Iron Man' Webster, who died at age 50. The disease had been found in boxers decades earlier. But football was the nation's most popular, lucrative and glamorous sport. For years after Mr. Webster's diagnosis, the league was dogged by accusations — from former players, fans and researchers — that it was covering up growing evidence that football was linked to brain disease, and that the league was not doing enough to shield players from the ravages of the game. The league's Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee published numerous reports that downplayed the growing body of research linking head hits to brain damage. It wasn't until 2016, after the league's settlement was initially approved, that an N.F.L. executive acknowledged that there was a link between football and degenerative brain disorders like C.T.E. By that point, dozens of former players had been found to have C.T.E.; Dave Duerson and Junior Seau had shot themselves in the chest to preserve their brains so they could be studied. Former players pledged their brains to science, and the 2015 movie 'Concussion,' starring Will Smith, lionized the doctor who found the disease in Mr. Webster's brain. Nervous parents began steering their sons toward soccer, baseball and other sports. Worried that the pipeline of young players might dry up, the N.F.L., a $23 billion league guided by lawyers and marketing executives, tried to reframe the conversation and move past accusations that it sanctioned junk science. The league held clinics that taught young players and their mothers 'safe tackling' techniques, eliminated some dangerous plays from the game and, prominently, reached a landmark settlement with former players that included up to $4 million to families of deceased players found with C.T.E. The league's efforts largely worked. News of the disease popped up less frequently, though sometimes in disastrous ways. Aaron Hernandez, a tight end for the New England Patriots who was convicted of murder and killed himself in prison, was found to have a severe form of C.T.E. In 2021, Phillip Adams, a cornerback who played six seasons in the N.F.L., shot six people and himself in his hometown, Rock Hill, S.C. By that point, Mr. Adams had been out of the league for six years. His motivations remain unclear. In recent years, the league has promoted flag football as a safer alternative to the tackle version of the game, particularly for younger athletes. It has also eliminated some of the most dangerous plays and strengthened protocols to remove players who may have been concussed during games. Yet C.T.E. is still associated with repeated hits to the head and remains a vexing problem for all collision sports, including football, hockey and rugby. Juliet Macur contributed reporting.
New York Times
08-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
During N.F.L. Games, Going to Commercial Requires Its Own Playbook
Television commercial breaks are the bane of every N.F.L. fan. They interrupt a game already riddled with stoppages, bombard viewers with come-ons and force fans and players in the stadium to stand around for about two and a half minutes, sometimes in the freezing cold. Yet commercials are the lifeblood of the N.F.L. Without them, broadcasters could not afford to pay the league billions of dollars for rights fees, money that goes to paying players' salaries and much more. Most games have 18 commercial breaks. A few timeouts, like at the end of the first and third quarters and at the two-minute warnings, are fixed. The league and networks avoid taking breaks if a team's opening drive of the game ends quickly, because they want fans to settle into the broadcast. If all goes well, the last commercials run at the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. Most commercial breaks, though, are chosen in real time as league executives, network producers and officials on the field look for natural breaks in the action. Finding them is more art than science because every game unfolds differently, with long drives, three-and-outs, injury timeouts and coaches' challenges. 'Our fans know that the commercial breaks are coming,' said Mike North, vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling at the N.F.L. 'The whole idea from where we sit is to try to use those breaks to cover downtime: resetting the field after a score; if there happens to be an injury, hopefully a minor one; or an instant replay review when the referee goes to the sideline.' Their decisions will be seen on Sunday by more than 100 million viewers watching the Super Bowl and, advertisers hope, the 30-second commercials, some of which cost more than $8 million. The ads are so valuable that networks — Fox this year — add two extra breaks during the game, bringing the total to 20. The league, networks and officials on the field call a minimum of four commercial breaks a quarter, but they try to balance between taking too many breaks that interrupt the flow of the game and waiting too long and risk having to cram in breaks as the game clock ticks down. The logistics of determining when to call television timeouts require an intricate phone tree over a three-hour game. The referee, who controls when a game starts and stops and can overrule a request for a break, communicates with the back judge, who is in constant contact with two sideline officials standing near the 20-yard line. One of them wears a green hat and represents the league. The other has on orange gloves and works for the network. They speak with Mr. North and other league officials in the press box and producers in the production truck outside the stadium. Sometimes, the decision to go to commercial is obvious, like after a score. At other times, the league and network take a break after an injury or a coach's challenge. The official wearing the orange gloves will cross his arms in an 'X' to signal that the network wants to go to break. The referee will then blow the whistle and stretch his arms out to form a T, meaning play is stopped for about 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Sometimes, the green hat official will hold up a sign with ':30' printed on it to indicate that the network wants to take a 30-second timeout, not a full 2:20 break. When breaks end, the referee twirls his arm above his head three times, and the game clock restarts. If a team calls a timeout but the network does not want to go to commercial break, the official with the orange gloves will spin his arm in a circle above his head. Some commercial timeouts are based on hunches. Early in the divisional round playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles, the Rams' coach, Sean McVay, challenged a call of an incomplete pass on third down. The officials ruled that the receiver had dropped the ball, but the replays were inconclusive, so Mr. North and NBC went to commercial because they bet the review would not be quick. When the break ended, the call was overturned and the Rams' drive continued. Mr. North felt good they could use a break seamlessly. 'As a producer, one of your No. 1 responsibilities is to create the best flow possible for the viewer at home,' said Fred Gaudelli, a longtime producer of prime-time N.F.L. games at ABC, ESPN and NBC. 'I produced games for 35 years, and I never did a game when all commercials didn't get in. They're going to get in. So don't sweat it. Let's do what's best for the viewer.' Once or twice a season, a referee will restart the game during a break, forcing the network to cut away from the commercials. If networks are unable to play every commercial, they will make it up to an advertiser later in the season. There is no such option with the Super Bowl, because it is the final game of the year. For decades, networks took timeouts whenever they wanted. But since the late 1990s, the N.F.L. has regulated their length, frequency and placement. The N.F.L. standardized breaks to include four 30-second commercials and 10 or so seconds for networks to run promotions for other shows or for the announcers to discuss elements of the game. In 2016, to address complaints from viewers — including Commissioner Roger Goodell, who watches games closely — the league undertook a comprehensive look at how commercial breaks affected the experience of viewers and players and fans in the stadium. It found that the need to cram in 20 or 22 breaks per game led to unnatural stoppages. For instance, networks routinely took commercial breaks after an extra point, returned to the stadium for the kickoff and then went back to commercial. If there was a punt with a few seconds left in the first quarter, the league determined there was no need to take a commercial at the change of possession because there is always a break at the end of the quarter. So in 2017, the N.F.L. cut one of the five in-game breaks taken each quarter, but increased the length of breaks to 2 minutes 20 seconds. 'These changes are meant to give you more of what you want: a competitive game with fewer interruptions and distractions from the action,' Mr. Goodell wrote in a letter to fans explaining the moves. Fewer breaks, it turned out, increased attention on commercials. Networks also introduced 'double boxes' that show an advertisement on one side and a shot of the stadium in the other box. The league tried to improve the flow of the game by, among other things, not going to break during late comebacks and game-winning drives and allowing referees to review calls on a tablet as opposed to large screens on the sideline. When a full break feels too disruptive, networks may introduce an analyst to discuss a controversial call or a sideline reporter to provide updates on a player's injuries. 'You're sort of using natural downtime anyway, so people are never standing around with 'Why aren't we playing?'' said Hans Schroeder, the executive vice president of media distribution at the league. 'That's great for people in the stadium and it's great for people watching at home.'
New York Times
06-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Cleveland Harris, N.F.L. Coach Who Pushed for Diversity, Dies at 79
Cleveland Harris had a dream. As one of the National Football League's top running-back coaches, he had a reputation for getting the best out of his players, who revered him. He hoped one day to become a head coach, at the time a rarity for a Black man in the N.F.L. After the 1996 season, the league had 11 head coaching vacancies. Harris, who grew up in the Jim Crow South, was never even considered. All 11 positions were filled by white men. Although he never fulfilled his dream of being a head coach himself, he pressed the league to make changes that helped open the door for future Black head coaches. He died at 79 on Jan. 6 at his home in Atlanta. His daughter Tarana Mayes said the cause was cancer. In 1997, Harris, known as Chick, led a group of nine Black assistant coaches in a meeting with the league commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, with the aim of finding a system in which minority candidates would be considered for head coaching jobs. The league was made up largely of Black players but had had only four Black head coaches in the modern era. 'We tried to give the commissioner information about our feelings and tell him how people around the country felt,' Harris, then the running-backs coach of the Carolina Panthers, told reporters afterward. 'Any dialogue can raise consciousness.' Tagliabue said Harris had been diplomatic and reasonable. 'He didn't come across as severely wronged,' he recalled in an interview. 'He was the type of guy to reason and listen. He was a very articulate guy. But was there anger at the meeting? Yes.' Gerald Carr, who was then the wide-receivers coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and who attended the meeting, said Harris had been 'integral' to the gathering. 'He described the pathway: How do we get there? And how do we get in front of the owners,' Carr said. From that discussion emerged the idea of establishing a process in which top minority candidates would meet with owners at their regular meetings. 'We wanted them to know us, not just know of us,' Carr said. Herman Edwards, who was then the assistant head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said the group had not asked for any special consideration for Black coaches. 'The whole idea is, you should be hired on your ability to coach, not just because you're Black,' he said. 'But you have to have the opportunity.' In 2001, the New York Jets hired Edwards as their first Black head coach. The meeting nudged the league toward taking action. In response to a 2002 study commissioned by the lawyers and activists Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran Jr., titled 'Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities,' the league created a workplace diversity committee to address its hiring practices. In early 2003, to promote minority hiring, Mr. Mehri and Mr. Cochran created the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an advocacy group named for the player who in the 1920s became the league's first Black coach. And that year the league adopted the Rooney Rule, which required teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any head coach opening. (The rule was named after Dan Rooney, the chairman of the diversity committee and the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.) The rule has since been expanded to include openings for coordinators and general managers, and requires teams to interview at least two minority candidates for those positions. Some critics have assailed the Rooney Rule as window-dressing, saying that some teams still ignore minority candidates or interview them knowing that they won't be hired. In the years since the rule took effect, however, about 30 minority assistant coaches have risen to interim and full-time head coaching jobs. Cleveland Harris was born on Sep. 21, 1945, in Durham, N.C., and raised by his single mother, Shirley Sims, a domestic worker, who was 14 when she gave birth to him. His father was Cleauthor Harris. Cleveland, who became known as Chick at a young age, loved football and watched games at North Carolina Central University, a historically Black school in Durham. Typically for that time and place, he had no white friends and had to sit in the back of public buses. So it was a novel experience when, on a stopover in Chicago on a train trip to Long Beach, Calif., in 1957, when he was 12, he sat down at a restaurant with mostly white people. 'I went to the counter and took a place there,' he said in 2020 in an interview with Ms. Mayes, his daughter, on Story Corps, the oral history project. 'And they asked me what I wanted, and I told them I wanted fried chicken.' They brought him fried chicken. No trouble, no questions asked. It was a revelation. After high school, Harris enrolled at Long Beach Community College in California, where he played football as a receiver in 1963 and 1965. After moving to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, he played defensive back and running back in the 1967 and 1968 seasons. He graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in education. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant for Northern Arizona's football team. Beginning in 1970, he went on to assistant coaching jobs at Colorado State University and what is now California State University, Long Beach; with the Detroit Wheels of the short-lived World Football League; and at the University of Washington. Chuck Knox, then the head coach of the Buffalo Bills, hired Harris as a running-backs coach in 1981. He stayed in Buffalo for two years, then moved with Knox first to the Seattle Seahawks in 1983 and then to the Rams in 1992. After two seasons in Los Angeles, Knox promoted him to offensive coordinator. 'Chick Harris has done an outstanding job,' Knox said then. 'He brings experience, dedication and the ability to motivate players.' Harris was known for getting the best out of running backs like Curt Warner of the Seahawks, Jerome Bettis of the Rams and Arian Foster of the Houston Texans. He left the Rams in 1995 for the Panthers, where Dom Capers was the head coach, and then followed Capers to the Texans in 2002. 'No matter the situation, he was upbeat, and he had an infectious personality,' Capers said. 'He could be tough and demanding, but the players loved Chick.' When the Texans hired a new head coach in 2014, nearly all the assistants were dismissed, and Harris retired. After that, he conducted clinics for high school and college players. In addition to Ms. Mayes, he is survived by another daughter, Kara Harris; his son, Tyler; four grandchildren; and his half sisters, Callista Cass and Robin and Cheri Womack. His marriages to Cheryl Avants and Karen Brown ended in divorce. In all, Mr. Harris coached in the N.F.L. for 33 years. At one point, Ms. Mayes said, his goals were limitless. In 1987, he delivered a speech in Seattle about his dream of becoming a head coach. When that didn't happen, he focused on being the best assistant coach he knew how to be, Ms. Mayes said. And after being named offensive coordinator for the Rams, she added, 'I'm not sure those aspirations remained.' 'Dad was always most concerned about the team concept and his players,' she said. 'Returning to running backs coach allowed him to serve both his teams and his players.'
