The National Football League — one of the country’s most recognizable organizations is  so popular it owns a day of the week. Since forming in 1922, it has expanded into 32 teams, spanning coast to coast.  

The dream of playing in the NFL has been in the minds of millions of football players for years, and will continue to be for many to come. Playing in stadiums full of 50,000 people, or making it all the way to Super Bowl and hoisting the world famous Lombardi trophy, has fueled the passion and drive of all those with the ambition to play at the highest level.

Football is notorious for being a tough, hard hitting, aggressive sport. It’s not just in the pros or even college. In 2007, the Journal of Athletic Training released a study of youth football injuries. Twenty-eight percent of players, aged five to 14, suffered injuries, with almost 200,000 requiring immediate medical care.

It’s no secret that NFL players have their fair share of collisions, along with most professional sports. However, they are notorious for their head-on-head collisions, and have encountered a new adversary, chronic traumatic encephalopathy

For many years, the world didn’t know about chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is defined as a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head. The symptoms of CTE involve motor impairment, vision and focusing problems, aggression, and speech and language difficulties.

Dr. Bennet Omalu was the first to discover that NFL athletes were suffering from CTE, and published his findings in 2005. While the NFL had knowledge of the problems that were caused by concussions, they did not publicly acknowledge CTE until 2009.

Since the publishing of Omalus’ findings, an increasing number of current and former players have been diagnosed with CTE. The scandal surrounding the NFL’s knowledge and neglect of CTE has hurt their reputation.

At the front of this scandal is the Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL.

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety, announced that there was an unequivocal link between football and CTE. Goodell has been reluctant to admit it himself, and it has rightfully caused his reputation to plummet.

Goodell has not acted in the best interest for the players, and they know it. In fact, a recent poll showed that 61% players despise him.  

Goodell has been putting money before the players’ health. He knows that if he admits the link, participation in the NFL could plummet, and he could lose millions of dollars.

As a commissioner, his job is to make sure the players are safe and in an environment where their injuries are treated properly. He has not done that, as he would prefer to pretend the link between football and CTE does not exist.

All Goodell accomplishes is putting his players at risk, which is the very opposite of what he should be doing. If Goodell doesn’t want his reputation to be completely ruined, which it may already be, his only hope is to admit the link, and start looking out for his players, not himself.