In recent years, the conversation surrounding concussions in the NFL have certainly intensified, and the league has changed several in-game rules meant to lessen the rate at which NFL players are concussed after a hit. However, it was Will Smith’s holiday mystery-thriller, Concussion, that brought the NFL under international scrutiny, as he portrayed Dr. Bennet Omalu, the founder of the disease C.T.E.–or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy–a brain disease that, for lack of a more politically correct term, often causes former NFL players who have suffered several concussions to go mad, sometimes resulting in accidental death or suicide.
The O.J. Simpson trial has been over for in excess of two decades, but Cuba Gooding Jr. will portray the controversial former NFL star in an FX series, American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson, commemorating the 20th anniversary of O.J. being tried for double-murder, and so folks have once again begun to replay the events of 1994 and 1995. One of those folks is Dr. Bennet Omalu, who told People magazine that he is willing to “bet my medical license” that Simpson suffers from C.T.E. Symptoms of C.T.E. include domestic violence, which surely is likely not the only red flag Simpson’s alleged behavior raises, but it’s a big one. He also mentions how Simpson’s head is significantly larger than that of other football players, which allows for a simple physics explanation as to why he may have been more prone to head injury. “If you have a bigger head that means your head is heavier. That means the momentum of your impact would be bigger. It’s basic physics.”
Simpson is currently serving a 33-year prison sentence for armed robbery.
