Sports Betting Community: NFL offers free medical followup

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell plans to tell Congress that the NFL League will offer free follow-up medical work to 56 players who reported dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other memory-related problems in a recent survey that helped spark a hearing Wednesday on head injuries.

In written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee Roger Goodell said that, the NFL League also will reach out to the players to see whether they are receiving money from the 88 Plan, which provides up to $88,000 a year to former players suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, regardless of the cause.

"The recent study, conducted for the NFL by researchers at the University of Michigan, suggested that retired pro football players may have a higher rate than normal of Alzheimer’s disease or other memory afflictions".

"We have directed Dr. Weir to contact in a confidential manner those 56 former players and their families who reported memory problems to see if they are receiving 88 Plan funding and offer them the opportunity to have follow up medical work done at our expense,” Goodell said. “That process has already begun.”

Goodell said the health and welfare of all members of the “NFL family, particularly our retired players,” is personally important to him. “Since becoming commissioner, I can think of no single issue to which I have devoted as much time and attention.”

Goodell said that while this was a “a telephone survey and not a true medical diagnosis, we share the views of the Michigan researchers that the number of retired players reporting memory-related problems is a concern that needed further research.”

Regarding head injuries specifically, he said medical considerations must always trump competitive ones, and that the league has established a toll-free hot line for players if they believe they’re being pressured to return to the field before fully recovering from a concussion or other head injury.

“All return-to-play decisions are made by doctors and doctors only,” the commissioner said. “The decision to return to the game is not made by coaches. Not by players. Not by teammates.”

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