How We Forgot About CTE with Domonique Foxworth

Speaker 1 Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Speaker 1 Another amazing episode created by me.

Speaker 1 Right after this app.

Speaker 4 AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed.

Speaker 5 But agents make mistakes.

Speaker 6 Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Speaker 9 Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk.

Speaker 7 Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com.

Speaker 3 That's r-u-b-r-i-k.com.

Speaker 1 Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America. I never looked so good.
You look the same. But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

Speaker 1 You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Speaker 1 Selfies? Check, please.

Speaker 12 With Verizon, get the new iPhone 17 Pro, designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever, plus a new iPad and Apple One.

Speaker 14 No trade-in needed.

Speaker 15 Offer ends November 5th with a new line on Unlimited Ultimate.

Speaker 17 Best 5G source root metrics data in United States 1H2025.

Speaker 18 All rights reserved. Additional terms apply for all offers.
See Verizon.com for details.

Speaker 19 You know Hannah and I love a good bed rotting session, reality TV, snacks nearby.

Speaker 19 And now I've leveled up with my self-care game with this Shark Beauty Cryo Glow, the number one skincare facial device in the U.S.

Speaker 20 Wait, I'm obsessed with it. I've had it for a while actually, and it's the only mask that combines high energy LEDs, infrared, and under-eye cooling.

Speaker 20 I really need this because nothing wakes me up in the morning. You could do four treatments in one.

Speaker 20 Better aging, skin clearing, skin sustain, and my favorite, the under-eye revive with insta-chill cold tech. You put it on and it just feels so good under your eyes.

Speaker 20 Like I actually feel like I got eight hours of sleep.

Speaker 19 It's truly like a luxury spa moment while you're literally horizontal. It's perfect for post-workout, Sunday scaries, or when you just want to glow while rotting.

Speaker 20 To treat yourself to the number one LED beauty mask this holiday season, go to sharkninja.com and use promo code GigglySquad for 10% off your cryo glow.

Speaker 20 That's sharkninja.com and use promo code giggly squad for 10% off your cryo glow.

Speaker 1 Cool guy with cool pants and cool jacket. What happened to your voice? F ⁇ man, why is everyone pointing this out? You sound like a man.
It's weird. I sound sound like a man yeah

Speaker 1 i thought you were gonna make fun of me because i i i feel a little congested you sound a little bassy yeah i mean yeah

Speaker 1 yeah i mean not like talk about football

Speaker 1 brother oh gosh talk about football

Speaker 1 hold on let's make sure that our microphones are placed correctly oh

Speaker 1 it is placed correctly brother Should I explain why I asked you to do this specifically? Should we get into the premise of this episode? Are you excited for the premise of this episode?

Speaker 1 I mean, I know what you texted me, but it doesn't feel like much of a premise of an episode.

Speaker 1 All right, so let's recreate the premise of this episode. Because what I did was scroll through Instagram

Speaker 1 and I saw a video of Greg Olson, who you may recall from his time as an NFL tight end, and the best color commentary guy in the business. I thought you're gonna go with best college rapper.

Speaker 1 What's your name? G-Reg, what you do, get hit.

Speaker 1 Drop my drawers and let us see my third leg. Chilling on the seventh flow.
I gotta let these chickens know. McGregor's in the house and I finna make these hoes joke.
I'm gonna go to the next stage.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I'm not gonna do that.

Speaker 1 Freikman's the better rapper, too. The white Jay-Z.
Of course. A separate but related investigation.
I did see that Greg Olson weighed in on a topic that I

Speaker 1 wanted to talk to you about and was sort of jarred that he was so blunt about.

Speaker 1 And I guess we should just play it as you take off your jacket. I probably have a less PC answer than most people.
I think there's a very individual component to head injuries and concussions.

Speaker 1 I think the guys that we see, the horrible stories that are real,

Speaker 1 mental health, depression, suicide, those are real and they're awful. They're tragic.
I think to put all of that on NFL is a little misleading.

Speaker 1 I think there's a lot of guys that have CTE and have mental health issues and have drug addiction and have steroid abuse.

Speaker 1 To say which one of those was the final straw to break the camel's back, I don't pretend to know. I've had many concussions in my life.
If you cut my brain open right now, do I have CTE? Probably.

Speaker 1 Can I live as a functioning husband, father?

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But if you were able to right now do a CTE and I was diagnosed with CTE, I think people would look differently at CTE and say, okay, that's a little different than the story we've heard of guys driving their cars off a bridge.

Speaker 1 And so in there. I hadn't seen that clip.
You just said said yes to it. You didn't even click on it when I messaged you? Of course not.
I don't click on anything you sent me.

Speaker 1 That was a lot of words. And he said a lot of things there that are pretty

Speaker 1 interesting. I would say that there's a lot in there that I

Speaker 1 thought a lot harder about like a dozen years ago. Yeah.
The reason I reached out to you is not only because you're my best football player friend.

Speaker 1 I was just going through my head to see who other football player friends I'm in competition with, or I was hoping I could think of somebody to put above me.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, Dan Orlaski doesn't like you, right? Why?

Speaker 1 I don't know. He just said he doesn't like you.
Because I put hot sauce on my chicken breasts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he hates seasoning and he hates you. Well, you know what? It's the season.
It's the season that, you know, maybe he's a Clippers fan.

Speaker 1 Dan Orlaski's carbon footprint is out of control. And I'm going to get to the bottom of it.

Speaker 1 What is amusing to me is that there was a time in media when the number one topic of like hand-wringing importance was CTE.

Speaker 1 And like Malcolm Gladwell was out here talking about how football, college football especially, should be banned, that football as a business would go extinct.

Speaker 21 Now, there is all of this, I think, powerfully suggestive evidence that some portion of football players are going to come down with

Speaker 21 a serious degenerative neurological disorder known as CTE, which is directly the consequence of being hit in the head repeatedly over the course of playing football.

Speaker 21 And at a certain point, you you have to ask yourself as a fan or as anyone who is in any way connected to football,

Speaker 21 is it appropriate in the modern day and age for us to support and participate in a game that has such a serious risk of physical harm to its players?

Speaker 1 Mark Cuban, my old friend who sat in the chair recently that you're sitting in now, he was saying famously, quote, I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion.

Speaker 1 The famous quote he went on to say was, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, and they're getting hoggy,

Speaker 1 which is and everybody should buy into the NBA. That's right.
And then he sold out. Well,

Speaker 1 and the NFL, despite all of these sort of like thought leaders saying this stuff, really did shed the premise of CTE, neurological damage, as this existential threat. And

Speaker 1 so did I, as a guy who like thought about such things once upon a time.

Speaker 1 And I think I know why I did, but I'm curious how you have evolved or not

Speaker 1 about that. Yeah, I mean

Speaker 1 the information is, I mean, I think honestly, like

Speaker 1 what I heard in what Greg was doing is a lot of like reasonable

Speaker 1 mental gymnastics that we all do for various things. And like, I think it's important to be honest with yourself or try to be as honest with yourself as possible.

Speaker 1 None of us are are truly honest with ourselves, but like

Speaker 1 football is dope

Speaker 1 and there's a price to pay for that game that we all enjoy and is like so ingrained in our culture.

Speaker 1 I think all of us want to be heroes and we all want to be good guys and we want to be able to paint the things that all the things that we do as like morally justified.

Speaker 1 And I think you can still justify it and be comfortable with it, but you also like, let's not pretend that what's happening isn't happening.

Speaker 1 And like, I cover football, I enjoy football. My son, seventh grade, it's the first year I let him play tackle football.
And I had told him I wasn't going to let him play tackle football.

Speaker 1 He'd been begging me to play forever and forever and forever. And was like, all right, you do well in school, sixth grade.
We'll let you play seventh grade, see how it goes. And so I let him play.

Speaker 1 And like, I recognized the risk. And that's why we were a flag family up until then.
I'm on TV talking about football all the time. I played football and we only played flag up until last year.

Speaker 1 Now he's on a team that I very strategically selected because they are really, really good. And they've allowed one touchdown this year.
Oh my God. And he doesn't have to play that much.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. So your solution to football's neurological crisis is I'm going to stack my team.
It's not my team. It's a team that was already stacked.
And I put my son on the stack team. I see.

Speaker 1 And so he doesn't start and he gets in when they're blowing teams out. It's wonderful.
So your solution has been

Speaker 1 put your son on a team that is so good that he doesn't actually need to take the damage. Ain't been hit yet.
Ain't made a hit.

Speaker 1 Ain't hit nothing.

Speaker 1 He got a carry last week.

Speaker 1 He looked good. He got tackle, but he looked good.
I'm not here to telestrate like Dan Orlovsky Declan's highlights. Yeah.
Though that would be a great segment. No, thank you.

Speaker 1 I'm also pointing this out, though, because I similarly, like full disclosure, I probably watch football more than any other sport recreationally at this point.

Speaker 1 We all, America, I mean, again, if you've been asleep, like it's the one thing that culturally matters beyond dispute.

Speaker 1 And for me, the way that I reconciled it as media analyst person who claims to have a conscience is like I have covered and watched boxing for decades now.

Speaker 1 And boxing is literally consensual concussions. But that's not reconciling it.
Well, what I reconcile is that in boxing, there is a full transparency of this shit is getting you hit. What?

Speaker 1 Why are you calling it timeout? Because I just, what I just said, let's do it, man. Let's not pretend.
Like, you're doing all this bullshit. The same bullshit that

Speaker 1 Greg Olson was doing. Greg is doing right there.
It's like, it's the same. Like, all right, if you have to do this to live with yourself, then why you invite me here?

Speaker 1 Like, if you want to live in your life.

Speaker 1 I'm not looking for you. No, you're trying to make it about me.
It's about you, though. You don't like that.
No, I'm. I got a show, too.
I know how to host motherfuckers. I can host out of this shit.

Speaker 1 Am I hosting better than you? Are you trying to Oklahoma drill

Speaker 1 on my own damn podcast?

Speaker 1 Not Oklahoma and you. Listen, what I'm saying, it's a fair point.

Speaker 1 It's a fair point. It's a fair point.
What I'm saying is in boxing, the boxers always knew what they were there to do. No, they didn't.

Speaker 1 The boxers didn't? They know what they're getting themselves into is a justification. Even if they did know what they were getting themselves into, it doesn't change that you are still participating.

Speaker 1 You could point out that boxers are disproportionately from very tough situations normally.

Speaker 1 Like you won't find a lot of boxers who are like, man, should I take this scholarship to go to college or should I go fight? Like it's a rarity.

Speaker 1 Phillips Exeter Academy is not producing a lot of heavyweights. It's a rare rarity.
So like that's a form of like, you could argue exploitation. And so like, I don't know.
I guess.

Speaker 1 But what I'm saying, what I'm saying is football for me. You're no better than Greg is all I'd wanted to establish.

Speaker 1 And you're no better than me or Greg. Because we all rationalize it.
You want to be honest? You want to have me on the show?

Speaker 1 I have. Cut it.
I have a leg, maybe even a third leg to stand on. Stop it.
I'm here to make it work. It's definitely seven back work.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to make seven crew jokes.

Speaker 1 I could tell by the way. Stop it.

Speaker 1 Stop it.

Speaker 1 What I'm trying to say is my discomfort with football was it didn't seem like the players necessarily knew what the actual medical risk was.

Speaker 1 And now we're at a point where that seems disclosed almost parallel to the way that boxers clearly know what they're getting into.

Speaker 1 And that was my concern was like, is the league, is the science, is that all being

Speaker 1 hidden

Speaker 1 from you guys? It was. And there's reason to believe because it was that there's more that we don't know.

Speaker 1 The problem is you want to talk about the way that I view it and how it impacts me, but it feels like the way that you're framing this question is about how the rest of us, like me as a spectator, now I'm in the same place as you.

Speaker 1 So like, I don't understand how my perception of this is any different than yours. If you want to talk about me as a player or the father of a son who plays, those are different conversations.

Speaker 1 But in this one, we all are in the same boat and we're all like finding different ways to lie to ourselves or rationalize or justify.

Speaker 1 And of course, you can do this for a number of different things in our lives.

Speaker 1 I am no better than anyone else, but I try to be honest about the fact about where the precious metals come from that are in my iPhone or in my wife's wedding ring.

Speaker 1 You got those rare earths? Yeah, I try to be honest about it. Like it sucks, but like, I don't know.
It doesn't,

Speaker 1 it doesn't make me any better or worse. It's just like, why we,

Speaker 1 I'm incapable of tricking myself at that level. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Genuinely, that summary is why I wanted you to talk about this is because I think to put the pun aside, there are three legs to assess here.

Speaker 1 There are. There really are.
You just laid them out. And look, all of this is going back now almost 10 years ago because January 5th, 2016, I opened up my copy of USA Today.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 What, you don't want to confront yourself?

Speaker 1 No, I don't. Here's the headline.
Seven-year NFL veteran Dominique Foxworth saw concussion, the movie, and it made him question everything.

Speaker 1 And this is a column. And I bring this up not just because it's very funny to imagine you watching Will Smith.
and having your life changed.

Speaker 1 It's because the column is actually incredibly interesting to the point where our mutual friend Wyatt Senak has long mused about like this perspective, this you being the former player, former NFLPA president.

Speaker 1 This perspective is actually like cinematically interesting. Wyatt thinks it's funny.
And it's also funny. He's a comedian.
He thinks it's funny. CTE Dad was the,

Speaker 1 if we can just stomp on his IP claims.

Speaker 1 So it makes me cringe because

Speaker 1 I thought I was a good writer and I wasn't. So that's why I cringed at that.
But yeah, I mean, mean, I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's, I didn't expect this to be some sort of exploration of the fears that I have about what has happened to my brain and the brains of people that I care about.

Speaker 1 And I don't have this research with me at this point, but and maybe it's just I'm more attuned to football players, but it just seems like of the athletes, and it's a bigger league, so there's more players.

Speaker 1 That's part of it also.

Speaker 1 It seems like the, those type of like mental health horror stories and deaths and suicides are disproportionately football players and it sucks and by the way that's that's some of what greg olson was touching on which is that there are like multivariate equations where it's hard to isolate is this addiction is this mental health is this something that can isolate in some sort of clear way such that someone can be held liable right beyond the individual for it but in this case i am curious like

Speaker 1 having played the sport for people who did not read this column What about watching a movie, a cinematic adaptation of the sport's foremost controversy at this time, 2016, made you feel something that actually did get your brain going, in a sense.

Speaker 1 So, I'll tell you what's in it. You don't have to go read it and experience

Speaker 1 the bed writing. I think it's like any movie that you watch.

Speaker 1 And anyone who has a line of work that gets turned into something cinematic, like you view it differently. So, I think that was it.

Speaker 1 And I think this is probably a function of being a man who's like comfortable and physically athletic and strong.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't go through my life much being like worried about things and having fear and being like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I remember our friend Mina Kimes, one of the first like work trips that we were ever on in Super Bowl together was like whenever she rides the elevator with men, she makes sure that they get out the elevator first.

Speaker 1 And it was like shocking to me.

Speaker 1 And I was like, and then just generally, I think it was Chappelle who told a joke about how he got paid $10,000 or something for a show in cash and he took it home on the subway in a paper bag.

Speaker 1 And he was just thinking if anyone knew what I had in this bag, they would, they would hurt me.

Speaker 1 And he was like, women, his joke was essentially that women walk around with that all the time and everyone knows they have it. And so I think that is somewhat of just privilege.

Speaker 1 It's like also being like a black man, a younger black man. No one looks at me and it's like, oh, that guy looks like a target.

Speaker 1 I bet that black dude in a hoodie has a lot of money. It'll be an easy get, an easy win.
So like, I just don't walk around life like that.

Speaker 1 And so I think it was the first time that I feel, really felt like I could be a victim and be helpless. So that was like a little, it was a different experience.
Yeah. This is one line that you wrote.

Speaker 1 Stop it. It's a good line.
I'm not here to dunk on the line. I don't, it's a bad line.
This wasn't good writing. Just

Speaker 1 paraphrase it. Basically, what you write is that the boogeyman in this horror movie was not vanquished at the end and actually could be lying in wait in your brain.
So you took that home with you.

Speaker 1 I didn't write vanquished. That's disgusting.
I did write vanquished.

Speaker 1 That is embarrassing. It's so embarrassing.
Forsooth, the villain. Vanquished?

Speaker 1 You three Musketeers-ass writer. You could tell I was trying too hard.
Don't you know that?

Speaker 1 The word vanquished.

Speaker 1 I was like, man, I'm going to show them. I'm going to use vanquished.
That's right.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 1 Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America. I never looked so good.
You look the same. But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

Speaker 1 You haven't changed your hair in 15 years. Sylvie's check, please.

Speaker 12 With Verizon, get the new iPhone 17 Pro, designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever, plus a new iPad and Apple one.

Speaker 14 No trade-in needed.

Speaker 15 Offer ends November 5th with a new line on Unlimited Ultimate.

Speaker 17 Best 5G source route metrics data in the United States 1H2025.

Speaker 18 All rights reserved. Additional terms apply for all offers.
See Verizon.com for details.

Speaker 22 Florence Florence and the Machine presents the Everybody Screen Tour with special guests. Rachel Chinneriri, Sophia Isella, C-MAT, and Mannequin Pussy.
Sign up for presale at FlorenceIndemachine.net.

Speaker 22 Line up very spice city.

Speaker 4 AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed.

Speaker 5 But agents make mistakes.

Speaker 6 Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Speaker 9 Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk.

Speaker 7 Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com.

Speaker 3 That's r-u-b-r-i-k.com.

Speaker 1 Part of what you did establish at this time,

Speaker 1 you know, almost 10 years ago, was that your

Speaker 1 as football guy was also as the smart football guy.

Speaker 1 NFLPA president, guy went to grad school, guy who, and you have all the disclaimers in here that you say you're probably of average intelligence, but you sort of had this identity that made it such that you're branded as a smart guy.

Speaker 1 Right. And that was a factor in just, again, feeling, wait a minute, I am maybe vulnerable here in ways that I didn't realize.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I think the, so the horror stories about things going wrong for athletes is not new, especially for football football players.

Speaker 1 But I think positioning myself as the guy who's going to go to business school and go do things afterwards is like, yeah, none of that stuff's going to happen to me. I think that was the part.

Speaker 1 That was part of it that was like, there's nothing I can do about this.

Speaker 1 I don't know if there are like, lots of people can probably relate to having some sort of family history of something where it's like.

Speaker 1 No matter how well you eat, how much you work out, you're predisposed to whatever bullsh ⁇ you're predisposed to. Yeah, the hypertension movie for me is less

Speaker 1 less haunting though i i'm i'm probably watching that movie with you you know the pre-diabetes oh yeah

Speaker 1 will smith absolutely pointing out my gp you watch tell the truth i watch the sickle cell movie and you're not gonna feel nothing

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 but me and my brothers and sisters watch the sickle cell movie a little bit more concerned well but this is part of the whole thing with me is that I we have made jokes in passing yeah where you forget something and it's like, you know, I always make the joke.

Speaker 1 Like it's, it's, uh, my wife doesn't think it's funny, but like, uh, if anything goes wrong, if I forget anything, get anything wrong, it's like

Speaker 1 CTE. It's getting to me.
That's, that's how I cope. One of the coping mechanisms with the fear that it could.
it could happen to me. And you can't see it.
You don't understand anything.

Speaker 1 That's the scary part. And it's like, I don't walk around my life being scared, but like, it's in the back of my head.

Speaker 1 And, and it's like a little reminder every time you forget something is like you or

Speaker 1 you get angry faster than you think you should or you feel like sad over something that's not super big. Anytime something like that happens, you're like,

Speaker 1 am I emotionally maturing or am I neurodegenerating? Yeah, that's that's the question that is just lingering in the back of your head all the time. One of the other lines here about...

Speaker 1 about Ashley, and look, Ashley, shout out to Ashley. She has a line that she hits you with where it's about Declan, actually.
Do you remember the line?

Speaker 1 Because this paragraph is about how... Nope.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, what Ashley replied in a jokingly defiant tone was, quote, if you were to lash out at your family the way that people, of course, players, there are scenes in the movie where retired players lashed out violently at their families.

Speaker 1 So now you're using my whole family. You're using your old family.
Sell your podcast. I'm using you using it.
Okay. All right.

Speaker 1 What she says is, don't worry, your son will be strong enough to restrain you by then. He won't be.

Speaker 1 I'll still work out, baby.

Speaker 1 What you're saying for Declan, when Declan, you listen to this, just know that your dad will, quote, vanquish you.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. Yeah.
I mean, we joke, but it's. And I want to be clear, too, about like how I feel about this, which is there are lots of dangerous jobs.

Speaker 1 Like ice road trucking or whatever the f ⁇ .

Speaker 1 Like the people who go off deadliest catch, that seems dangerous oh my god deep sea fishermen it's like in the middle of the ocean and it's just like these tick tock videos where they throw like meat into the water and all the sharks show up i have not seen those i went out deep sea fishing one time with my son and

Speaker 1 just was nauseous the whole time forget about all the deadliness just like shaking around i was like oh let me read another passage from here oh you asshole

Speaker 1 i want to find some of your early writings oh it's bad

Speaker 1 i bet you wrote vanquish I mean, I proclaimed things flippantly, which is a phrase that you say in this article. Oh, gosh, did I say that? As many men proclaim flippantly.

Speaker 1 Who was I trying to be? Me. I hate you.
Yeah. I mean, my ass.
I was trying to be you, and it failed almost as miserably as you trying to be me. Oh,

Speaker 1 God.

Speaker 1 Here's,

Speaker 1 you want, you want something? I don't, actually, but you're going to read it anyway. Dripping with the pride of a living martyr.

Speaker 1 Don't read any of that. I know the risk.
I would do it all again. No, even if I were guaranteed it, it would end in a way we all fear because,

Speaker 1 with the money I have made, comma, I am able to grow up my children with advantages and opportunities I didn't even know existed. I hated it.
I have changed the trajectory of my family's future.

Speaker 1 I would trade my quality of life, even years off my life, for a better chance at a prosperous future for my kids and their kids. I think you feel that, though.
That's a version of what you just...

Speaker 1 I mean, it is.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, we could, you want to make fun of it first or you want me to respond to it because it deserves to be made fun of. It already was, though.

Speaker 1 I mean, you do call it in the next paragraph a dignified canned response that shuts them up and gives you the moral high ground. So I think you were self-aware at the time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's horse.

Speaker 1 Because, because, I mean, I believe that it's. It's that full quote, ready.
It's horse shit. Dominique Foxworth on Dominique Foxworth.
I mean, it's not that it's horse completely. It's that I

Speaker 1 don't have a choice now. And that's like, yeah, that's, I, and I, I mean, to to be fair, in this episode, I feel like I'm trying to be as honest with myself as possible.

Speaker 1 So to be fair, like, I genuinely believe that. However, I hope at some point I make it clear that I haven't experienced like the worst parts of this.

Speaker 1 It's like, I can't imagine ever feeling as low as to feel like there's no other option than to take one's own life. I mean, look, by the way,

Speaker 1 July 2025 at NFL headquarters, just to put some of the real world into this, you know, that shooting that happens, it was carried out by somebody who was posthumously diagnosed with CTE, who apparently, according to his own, again, incredibly,

Speaker 1 incredibly terrifying planning, went there because of this. And again, that's where I believe some of the impetus for the Greg Olson conversation was.
It's like, what do we do with this? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And if all of this is a roulette wheel and it lands on us

Speaker 1 with some degree of randomness, but with some degree of consent.

Speaker 1 And I get in consent is where I return to. How has this conversation when it comes to people you played with or other football players? Is there a difference as time, as the last decade has gone on?

Speaker 1 Not really. I mean, I think there's differences in how the game is played and how conscious you are.
Like with my son's team, like they barely hit in practice. And I think the NFL is similar to that.

Speaker 1 And there's a evolution in like from Bear Bear Bryant saying you're not allowed to have water because it means you're weak. You're weak to like

Speaker 1 people

Speaker 1 taking water breaks and really aggressive physical practices to maturing to like the ability to get up from a concussion and return to play was a badge of honor. To now I think teammates are

Speaker 1 less likely to encourage someone to do that.

Speaker 1 So it's always, and honestly, to be fair, the teammates have always been the ones that were more likely to protect you than anyone else, else like including yourself you won't find any stories of players pushing other players who got concussed to get back on the field you'll find stories of coaches and fans and people around them what you will find though is a lot of players like telling on other players guys would be like hey he's not something's wrong you could tell because sometimes somebody would come back to the huddle after like

Speaker 1 head bouncing off the ground or something come back to the huddle and they're just looking past you

Speaker 1 and somebody will recognize it and be like,

Speaker 1 nah, nah, he got to go. Like, you got to go check him out.
Then you go to the sideline, you pass the tests, and they send your ass back in the game.

Speaker 1 One of the other football friends that I do have, who is not as good a friend as you, unfortunately, for Alex Smith.

Speaker 1 Alex told me the guy who wanted to lie to the test administrator more than anyone else was him. Yeah.
Job insecurity.

Speaker 1 So the whole idea of like, who's going to police this stuff, like you can't expect the actual players to do it because the incentives are such that there is no luxury in disclosure.

Speaker 1 You risk your employment, even if you're a quarterback, especially maybe if you're a quarterback. And so then the question becomes, who watches the watchers?

Speaker 1 And we're living, I'm watching football, and one of the great memes of this season is Cam Scataboo

Speaker 1 CTEing all over the place. It's a joke now.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to hold in my head at the same time, like, why it is that I found this alarmism, if not outright justified concern, that was at the basis of this movie, Concussion, and how it is that not that long after, that we're here.

Speaker 1 And it's funny to me. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 man, you can't say that word. We can, as former football players.

Speaker 1 CTE. Oh.
Yeah. It's your word.
It's our word. And we can laugh at the jokes.
You better not be.

Speaker 1 However. I have a stiff upper lip watching Cam Scataboo being transposed at the Juggernaut X-Men meme.
And I'm surprised that

Speaker 1 you are confused by it. The funniest shit is all like the discomforts and pains that we feel together or apart.
So like, yeah, the fact, the reason why that...

Speaker 1 Colin making CT jokes about Cam Scataboo is funny is because it's a little bit taboo. And so yeah, like I guess I'm not surprised that it's funny.
It would be weird. Like everything

Speaker 1 that is terrible has a line of jokes that I would laugh at if they were good enough. I think that's, that's correct.
I think I'm really sort of like identifying, though, the way in which

Speaker 1 there used to be this thing. Right.
I remember going on ESPN and it would be like

Speaker 1 how, how,

Speaker 1 and I think it's even more embarrassing in fairness to you to go back and watch me on television at this time because I'm saying a bunch of stuff that I clearly don't stand by now when it comes to like what needs to be done.

Speaker 1 And by the way, I don't even know now what's left to do because, by the way, like guys like Chris Nowinski, who runs the Concussion Institute, and all these people, we both know some of them, this is their bag, raising concerns about this.

Speaker 1 I assume. If I'm going to be sort of a realist here, a pragmatist, that you do still want some people who are going to watch the watchers.

Speaker 1 I'm glad those people are still super sincerely invested in monitoring this.

Speaker 1 What I'm identifying is that fewer people seem to give a shit that those guys exist.

Speaker 1 And I wonder if that's just

Speaker 1 maybe just we found our equilibrium.

Speaker 1 It's not going to go away. I think that's

Speaker 1 a relatively newer concept to me that I've been hearing, especially with like bigger, more important issues in sports, is just about how everyone has

Speaker 1 their roles to be played. And

Speaker 1 not everyone is in position to take the stand all the time, but there is a value to people trying to pull in.

Speaker 1 a futile way at something that they will never get accomplished right because it allows for like the Overton's window to be moved to a place to where the person who does have have the power to make these decisions is free to make the decision that they want to make because previously without some counterbalance.

Speaker 1 So, like,

Speaker 1 if that's the point that you're making, yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that at all.

Speaker 1 I think it's important that it doesn't go away because there's no motivation for anyone in this enterprise, like the players, the coaches, the owners, the commissioner, the referees, like no one is really incentivized to do the best, most healthy thing.

Speaker 1 So the idea that there's someone always pulling you to like banish it, then it makes no-padded practices feel like a reasonable thing to suggest. Oh, those guardian helmets.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Those insane. I mean, look, and instinctively, I'm like, that looks dumb as hell.
And yet I'm like, that's truly like a function of the argument that took place. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, we can all agree they look stupid,

Speaker 1 but they're just a little big. And yeah, and they're just a little big.

Speaker 1 It makes everybody look like a kid. Like a little kid running around.
Everyone looks like Kyler Murray out there.

Speaker 1 Like a kid out there, as it were.

Speaker 1 Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon. The best 5G network in America.
I never looked so good. You look the same.
But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

Speaker 1 You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Speaker 1 Selfies? Check, please.

Speaker 12 With Verizon, get the new iPhone 17 Pro, designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever, plus a new iPad and Apple I.

Speaker 14 No trade-in needed.

Speaker 15 Offer ends November 5th with a new line on Unlimited Ultimate.

Speaker 17 Best 5G source route metrics data in United States 1H2025.

Speaker 18 All rights reserved. Additional terms apply for all offers.
See Verizon.com for details.

Speaker 4 AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed.

Speaker 5 But agents make mistakes.

Speaker 6 Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Speaker 9 Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk.

Speaker 7 Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com.

Speaker 3 That's r-u-b-r-i-k.com.

Speaker 23 Most people overpay for car insurance, not because they're careless, but because switching feels like too much hassle. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant.

Speaker 23 Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop.
No spam calls, no hidden fees.

Speaker 23 Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence.
Download the Jerry app or visit jerry.ai/slashacast today.

Speaker 1 The NFL in February of this year, I want to be, again, fair to their data collection, as much as this must be taken with the obvious grain of salt that this is the NFL's own data collection.

Speaker 1 Operations.nfl.com announced injury data for the 2024 season, which revealed a significant decrease in concussions.

Speaker 1 A historic low, 17% reduction compared to the 2023 season, including off practices and games in both the preseason and the regular season.

Speaker 1 Largest safety improvement in helmets worn on field since 2021. There's a lot of things that you said.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Host it better than me, please, because I threw a lot at you. No, the concussion.

Speaker 1 So the reduction in concussions, like,

Speaker 1 of course, like, you have to take the NFL data with a grain of salt, obviously.

Speaker 1 But you can also reasonably conclude that immediately after we started to be more vigilant about concussions, like the number went up. Yes.

Speaker 1 And that seems like the normal response is like, all right, they're not more concussions. We're just recognizing them more.

Speaker 1 And then since then, there's been like changes to the style, to the game, and there have been changing to equipment.

Speaker 1 And like logically, the argument would suggest that maybe these things over time would have an effect and they should go down.

Speaker 1 The problem is, though, measuring concussions seems like you don't fully understand the science

Speaker 1 of this.

Speaker 1 This is the wrong. Is that the variable that we should be tracking? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And explain that, though. So, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's pretty intuitive when you think about it. It's like the big knockout concussions have effect that sticks in your mind.
You're like, yeah, that's what did it.

Speaker 1 When in actuality, like, there are players who have been found with CTE who never had one of those plays after they died.

Speaker 1 All the sub-concussive episodes that happen in the course of a game that are just natural football plays, they don't knock me unconscious. They don't make me feel whatever.

Speaker 1 But the concept is like, Yeah, you pluck your brain enough times that there's going to be some damage. So like, yeah, I mean, reduction of concussions, wonderful.
That's good.

Speaker 1 I'm sure those aren't good for you.

Speaker 1 But I don't know that that means that we actually have taken a chunk out of the future of CTE.

Speaker 1 I kind of feel like you play this enough times and it doesn't even have to, it doesn't even feel like it has to be a real long time that you're going to be exposed to it.

Speaker 1 And then that's when you get to Greg Olson's point. There are plenty of people who live fine lives having played high school, college, professional football.
But then it's like all this other stuff.

Speaker 1 It's like, are we sure that it's not some medical predisposition? Are we sure that it's not a function of all these other things? But we do know that this is a factor.

Speaker 1 That's the one thing that we can't avoid no matter how hard we try. Yeah, the subcomcussive thing, the fact that linemen in the trenches

Speaker 1 on every play are accumulating these things that can't be identified as.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a thing that would go into the jacked up montage that they also, by the way, function of the times, eventually got rid of on espn and those such shows but part of me i want to sort of broaden it out to like how i feel about such things because it's not merely an analogy to boxing that i think of it's an analogy to any sort of thing where i understand that there are costs and risks and i do have a general opinion when it comes to all sorts of drugs for instance Consenting adults who know the scientific risks and the medical disclosures should be able to to make choices about what they spin the roulette wheel on.

Speaker 1 And that's my general perspective when it comes to gambling, when it comes to legalizing drugs, when it comes to

Speaker 1 things. It's different.
I mean, I think. Why is it different?

Speaker 1 It's different because I imagine if there was people who would argue for the legalization of drugs and understanding the risk.

Speaker 1 If there was a drug that did not have any risk, you would advocate for that. Right.

Speaker 1 And so this is different because I think that people believe that they could find a way to remove the violence from football and it still be fun and interesting, which like

Speaker 1 I'm not sure we can. And even if it's subliminal, you love it.

Speaker 1 Like we love it. I recognize this because when I was, when I was six, I wanted to be a pro football player in large part because I thought that was like the most masculine thing.

Speaker 1 Like I didn't want to play basketball. Like I would play basketball, but like basketball was for the guys who weren't tough enough to play football.

Speaker 1 It's like, in actuality, they're for the guys who are tall enough and smart enough not to play football.

Speaker 1 But, your screen name, once again, for people who have not listened to your previous appearances on this show, your screen name, your AL screen name was NFL Bound.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Long time ago.
NFL Bound. What number again? It was 36.
Yeah. It was my number for like two weeks in college.
Because I came in early because 36 is an ugly number.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't want anybody to think that

Speaker 1 anybody to think that I'm actually a 36. Stop it.
I was six in college. But anyway, I mean, I think that's the part.

Speaker 1 But that, right? Like, we all like it. And, like, I wanted to be a part of it.
I recognize that the fact that you could get knocked out in it was part of the reason why I wanted to be there.

Speaker 1 And the fact that it is very, it has a level of physicality is probably the most differentiating factor of football from a lot of other popular sports. And it's why it's the most popular.

Speaker 1 So the popularity to me, how I think about football, has radically changed in this way.

Speaker 1 In the last 10, 12, 15 years, since we were having these like real ethical dilemmas, in which I was going on television and talking and hearing about people point out that football without concussions is like making a safer cigarette, right?

Speaker 1 It doesn't really exist. It's a story you tell yourself about yourself so you can keep smoking cigarettes.

Speaker 1 But the popularity of the game has gone from this thing that was 15 years ago part of the indictment

Speaker 1 to now being part of the virtue. We're living in this time when everything is fragmented.
No one watches anything together.

Speaker 1 I can't walk into a room with somebody who votes the opposite from me and be cheering for the same thing anymore.

Speaker 1 But that shit happens every Sunday, every Saturday, every Friday, and now every day of the week, depending on how effective Roger Goodell's risk board is going to be. What?

Speaker 1 Are concussions going to save our republic?

Speaker 1 Is that what you're arguing? It feels like you're mounting an argument for.

Speaker 1 Hold on, hold on. Hold on.

Speaker 1 Are you about to write a vanquished sentence? Is that what you're doing? I'm doing the thing where, like, in a video game, you like charge up.

Speaker 1 I'm holding on the B button. I'm about to argue that concussions are going to save the Republic.

Speaker 1 I genuinely watch football and I think to myself, thank God we got something that is this popular. It's a throwback to a time when things were popular.

Speaker 1 Everything now is subcultures and it's a zillion little substack subscriptions or channels that don't interact. And here we have this thing where I'm like, I'm,

Speaker 1 I've reconciled with the fact that America, of course, is a violent country. That's not something I faint about.
But this,

Speaker 1 it feels so not just uncool. but unproductive to be the guy saying, you should stop watching this.

Speaker 1 And by the way, I really do love watching it. So there's that.
You led with that, acknowledged, asked and answered. But then I'm just like,

Speaker 1 I actually don't want people to stop watching it. I want people to continue to get into buildings together, to enjoy something, even if it's the fucking coliseum.

Speaker 1 And I mean, even to your point, like there's there, even if you're not on the same team, or you're not rooting for the same team, there is still like some, for the most part, there's some like shared experience and camaraderie.

Speaker 1 And it's an early question, I think, that comes up when you're meeting someone new. And they don't need you to say the same team as them.
They just need you to know that

Speaker 1 football exists and something's going on.

Speaker 1 And then that's like the obvious like conversation piece that then breaks the ice where it's, oh, you're Jet, you're just saying, oh, then you start making some jokes. And then they get along.

Speaker 1 And they're like, man, I was born in this darkness. And then you have a conversation before you know it.
Can't get a win. You're just like onto a zillion reference points that microwave connection.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think that that's incredibly valuable. And the whole thing about why do I still like think sports are incredibly important for all sorts of reasons.

Speaker 1 One of them is they're a passport to every other part of the country. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I did literally go to a wedding in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And guess what I'm talking about? I'm talking about the Razorbacks.
Talking about Darren McFadden. Are they bringing back Bobby Petrino?

Speaker 1 Is that the plan?

Speaker 1 They're building a statue of him with the neck brace. Are they really? No.

Speaker 1 I mean, I believe anything now. Honestly, they should.

Speaker 1 Jeff Saturday is a really close friend of mine. Without football, I don't think he and I would see eye to eye.
And I love him because

Speaker 1 he's someone that I would trust.

Speaker 1 with anything. But if I was exposed to his social media feed and he was exposed to mine, I would be like, I don't like this dude.
With some of the recent events, we've had conversations about it.

Speaker 1 And because I such a long track record and trust and love for him we were able to come to the conclusion that we live in different realities and we see different things and like the things that bother me about whatever's happening and the things that bother him are because He don't know the things that I know and I don't know, or I don't see the things that he sees.

Speaker 1 And so we wouldn't have had that relationship without football.

Speaker 1 And to your point, it's one of the locker room is one of the places where you bring a bunch of people together that share share football and that's about it.

Speaker 1 I feel like one of the things that's hard to distinguish in your ongoing

Speaker 1 aging is, am I maturing emotionally? Am I experiencing neurological degeneration?

Speaker 1 Am I just becoming like an old, crusty dad for whom cliches?

Speaker 1 Like the locker room is where Earlier today in a conversation with Jeff, not the locker room thing is, but like the older I get, the more I realize that cliches are right. I'm with you.

Speaker 1 And we were talking about leadership and about coaches and culture.

Speaker 1 And he and I were talking about how we characterize people as culture setters and whatever, but like the culture is actually carried out by everyone underneath.

Speaker 1 And like those are the people who really set the culture. And we're talking about the story and how Mike Vrabel told everyone to pick up washcloths in the locker room when you first got there.

Speaker 1 And I related it back to something that Ed Reed did in the Ravens locker when I was there too. And I was saying like those type of little things, when you're young and dumb, you're like, eh, whatever.

Speaker 1 Like, is that going to help me get an interception?

Speaker 1 But when you get older, you're like, no, it's about setting a tone for how you behave and how you live and how you're going to act and how you're going to perform in this specific place.

Speaker 1 This is the culture when you walk in here. It starts with the way you watch film all the way to the way that you wipe your ass.
Like, all of it matters.

Speaker 1 And now that I'm old, I'm like, yeah, them clichés to be right, man. Yeah, you're doing broken windows coaching.

Speaker 1 No, that's what you're doing. You're Rudy Giuliani in that locker room.
Stop it. Stop it.
That's exactly what you're doing. Well, it's not.
No, it's not at all. It's not at all.

Speaker 1 You just literally said everybody in this locker room needs to pull up their pants. Well, I mean, it's a locker room.
You have to pull down your pants.

Speaker 1 What do you mean? You kind of got to get naked in the locker room.

Speaker 1 You never been. Oh, that's right.
You're a debate guy. That's right.
You've never been in a locker room. My locker room is a locker room of the mind.

Speaker 1 That is really awful.

Speaker 1 That's gross. So your teammates, you never saw your teammates' ass? Never seen the ass of a teammate.

Speaker 1 I did have to share like hotel rooms on the road for like debate tournaments. So

Speaker 1 invariably. We are getting way off of the topic, but there is some level of intimacy and connection and as stupid as it sounds and as like, I don't know, homoerotic as it might make people feel, like

Speaker 1 being naked with people is like, hey, we're together, man. It's nothing.
None of this other stuff matters. I mean, I feel like I lost you on this one.

Speaker 1 You were following me anywhere, but we get to nudity, male nudity, and you get all uncomfortable. Don't get uncomfortable with me.

Speaker 1 I'm putting on my shorts underneath a towel to give you a sense of how I move. Oh, that's why I lost you because you've never had this experience.
There are some key differences between you and me.

Speaker 1 One of them is comfort with nudity. I guess you hadn't been exposed to it.
You would have gotten comfortable with it.

Speaker 1 I like to think there's an alternate. I mean, Cortez is texting me right now.
He is pointing out that I wouldn't take my shirt off when I did the Belichick Ring Cam video. That's a good point.

Speaker 1 And that's a good point. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, I defend you on that one.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're a coward. However,

Speaker 1 defense is going to start. No, I mean, it's that it's different.
It's like the world is different than like

Speaker 1 Jeff. Yeah.
I mean, you're going to lie. And I was never on the same team as Jeff, so never seen him naked.
Right.

Speaker 1 But like, I mean, you just like. Not with that attitude.
I'm not trying to. And trust me, Jeff is absolutely not trying to allow that to happen.
Love him. Love him to death.

Speaker 1 We ain't going to play like that.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. So, another amazing episode created by me.

Speaker 1 You're welcome. Do you remember how much I got to pay for this? Do you remember that you used the word genuflection in this column? Now you try to bring me down.
You want to bring me down?

Speaker 1 Was I getting, I was too high on my horse right there. You trying to bring me down? I was irritated by their gasps at footage of real NFL collisions.
In that moment, I guess I wanted genuxion.

Speaker 1 I needed to not feel like we were being viewed as pets dying slowly in front of them because we were too dumb to know not to chase the ball in the traffic. I mean, the sentiments are strong.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was going to say that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it just started to turn up a little bit on that ass, didn't it? It started to turn up on that ass a little bit. The seeds were there.
It's like a great athlete.

Speaker 1 Like, he ain't got it figured out yet, but you know, he got it. You know, he got it.
You can stop right now. We ended right there.

Speaker 1 Now you're going to go back to some bad writing. No, no, no.
I'm not going next. Yes, you are.

Speaker 1 You are. Dominique, there's just one thing I want you to do here.
Gosh, I knew it. It's just the one thing.

Speaker 1 Tell the truth.

Speaker 1 Tell the truth.

Speaker 1 Tell the truth.

Speaker 1 You did it. I don't have to do it.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. Talk about people who have erratic behavior as a result of

Speaker 1 as a result of concussion, the movie. He was being

Speaker 1 method, a method. A method concussion.

Speaker 1 He slap the shit out of Chris. I love that.

Speaker 1 He's so funny.

Speaker 1 This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metalark Media production.

Speaker 1 And I'll talk to you next time.

Speaker 1 Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America. I never looked so good.
You look the same. But with this camera, everything looks better.
Especially me.

Speaker 1 You haven't changed your hair in 15 years. Sylvies? Check, please.

Speaker 12 With Verizon, get the new iPhone 17 Pro, designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever, plus a new iPad and Apple one.

Speaker 14 No trade-in needed.

Speaker 15 Offer ends November 5th with a new line on Unlimited Ultimate.

Speaker 17 Best 5G source route metrics at the United States 1H2025.

Speaker 18 All right, additional terms apply for all offers. See Verizon.com for details.

Speaker 4 AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed.

Speaker 5 But agents make mistakes.

Speaker 6 Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Speaker 9 Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk.

Speaker 7 Accelerate your AI transformation at rubric.com.

Speaker 3 That's r-u-b-r-i-k.com.

Speaker 24 Looking for pieces that go places and last decades? Discover the fall edit from Banana Republic.

Speaker 24 Founded in 1978, Banana Republic creates classics with character that carry you from adventure to the city and everywhere in between.

Speaker 24 Think shearling line leather that feels lived in, sweaters spun from the finest wool and cashmere, and effortless pieces designed for the journey, grounded in heritage, reimagined for today, and made to last.

Speaker 24 Explore the fall edit now at bananarepublic.com.