TACKLE THE ISSUE: AHEAD OF THE GAME

A third of former NFL players believe they have a chronic brain condition linked to football. A new blood test could help

- Joe Kozlowski

PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES ARE MEANT to be real-life superheroes, Miami Dolphins star Tua Tagovailoa looked remarkably mor tal on September 12. With his team down 31-10 in the third quarter against the Buffalo Bills, the quarterback spotted a gap at the line of scrimmage and decided to scramble for a first down. When he encountered Bills' defender Damar Hamlin, Tagovailoa lowered his head and ran straight into him. Tagovailoa stayed down injured after the play. He had suffered the third concussion of his NFL career, on top of the one he was diagnosed with during his time in the collegiate ranks.

As many as one in three former NFL players believe they have a chronic brain condition linked to repeated trauma to the head, recent research from Harvard has shown. It's a shocking statistic and, currently, the condition can only be definitively diagnosed through a postmortem examination. However, a simple blood test could one day help identify these invisible head injuries, which even a CT scan can't spot, and prevent a player from returning to the game before their brain has healed.

On paper, Tagovailoa did what a quarterback is supposed to do: sacrifice his body for the good of the team. But, in 2024, that mantra of self-sacrifice rings hollow, particularly when it comes to blows to the head. This isn't an NFL-specific issue, either. The NHL, for example, has tried to weed out checks from behind and hits to the head, even as fighting persists.

In the world of soccer, which is traditionally viewed as a less physical sport, concussion substitutes now allow managers to remove a player with a suspected head injury from a match with fewer drawbacks. And heading the ball is being phased out at the youth level.