Hall of Fame Linebacker on CTE and Football

Hall of Fame Linebacker on CTE and Football, from FRONTLINE PBS. This is a roughly 25 minute interview, and it is one of the most raw, unflinching conversations you will ever hear from a professional athlete about what football does to the brain.

Section 1. The Players Who Signed Up

The interview opens with Harry Carson, the legendary New York Giants linebacker and Pro Football Hall of Famer, being asked about the players who joined the concussion lawsuit against the NFL. Carson explains that many of them signed up to protect themselves. Some had not yet developed symptoms, but they knew enough about the link between concussions and conditions like dementia, Alzheimer's, and Lou Gehrig's disease that they wanted to get ahead of it. Others, Carson says, were already in the early stages. He says he spoke to some of them directly, encouraged them to join. If he named names, you would recognize them immediately. Their exits from the league, he says, were directly tied to concussions.

Carson paints a vivid picture of what these men are going through. Some are deathly afraid of speaking in public, terrified of losing their train of thought. They deal with depression, anger issues, forgetfulness, and they are only in their 40s and 50s. Many feel shafted by the NFL, frustrated that they have had to travel to California just to get some kind of settlement for their injuries, unable to get any relief in their own states like New Jersey or New York.

This frustration is what drove Carson to use his Hall of Fame induction speech not as a victory lap, but as a platform. He told the world that if the league called these players the best of the NFL, then the league had to do a much better job of taking care of its own. He could have just gotten up and said the usual, he notes, but he was not happy being a Hall of Famer knowing that so many of his brethren were struggling, suffering, and dying without dignity or respect.

Section 2. Mike Webster and the Players Association Betrayal

Carson zeroes in on the case of Mike Webster, the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer whose tragic decline became the catalyst for the entire CTE movement. The league and the Players Association, Carson says, sided against Webster when it came to benefits. The Players Association, which is supposed to represent the players, went against one of their own constituents. Carson finds that deeply troubling.

He frames the NFL's approach to these issues as a series of dark clouds that the league must make disappear. Whether it is player benefits, pensions, or the concussion settlement, the league's priority is always protecting the shield, keeping its image pristine. Carson sees right through it, and he is not shy about saying so.

When asked how strongly players felt about potentially dragging the NFL into open court to testify about what they knew and when they knew it about concussions going back to 1994, Carson says most players did not necessarily want that fight. They wanted the lawsuit to make people notice the issue. Most expected a settlement rather than a trial.

Section 3. A Personal Diagnosis

Carson shares his own story with remarkable candor. He was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome, and he knew that if he had it, there were probably many others dealing with the same thing. His mission became getting the message out to players that they are not going crazy, that what they are experiencing is manageable and is a direct result of having played the game.

He raises a profound question about when the damage actually occurs. Was it from hits in the NFL? In college? In high school? In Pop Warner youth football? At every level, he says, you have been concussed at one time or another. He cannot pinpoint exactly when his own damage occurred, but he knows it is there. He does not need to wait until he dies and donates his brain to a scientific organization. As he puts it bluntly, he knows what the deal is.

When asked about the discovery of CTE by researchers like Bennet Omalu and Ann McKee, Carson says he was not surprised at all. It simply validated what he had always known. If you played the game, if you hit people and got hit, you sustained damage that you carry for the rest of your life. He says that back in 1990 when he was diagnosed, he could have predicted that players would one day commit suicide. And they did.

Section 4. Feeling Suicidal as an Active Player

This is where the interview becomes deeply personal and harrowing. Carson reveals that he felt suicidal not after retirement, but while he was still an active player. He was dealing with depression and did not understand why. He was a pro football player, everything should have been fine, but he would slip into dark moods.

He describes a specific moment on the Tappan Zee Bridge around 1981. He lived in Ossining, New York and drove to Giants Stadium every day. One day, he was so depressed that he thought about accelerating and driving through the guardrail and going over the edge. What stopped him was his daughter. He knew he had to raise her. She was his saving grace.

Carson describes the cycling nature of his depression. He would feel it coming on, stay in a dark place for hours or maybe a day, then come out of it. During those low periods, he would eat something that lifted his spirits, or read the Bible, or pick up a motivational book. Over time, he learned to recognize the onset and manage it, knowing he needed to stay away from people and that it was only temporary. His teammate Gary Jeter once told him he had the right initials, HC, because he was hot and cold. Sometimes everything was great, and other times he did not want to deal with anyone.

Section 5. The Rage and the Violence

Carson does not hold back about the darker manifestations of brain injury. He describes an incident where he lost his composure and hit his daughter's mother. He had never hit a woman before and prided himself on being a gentleman. But she said something that triggered him, and he just lost it. He was a pro football player, strong enough that he probably could have killed her, and the realization of what he had done shocked him. He sat down, started writing checks, and waited for the police to come arrest him for domestic violence.

He even told his teenage daughter that there was a side of him she did not know and did not want to know. If she pushed the wrong buttons, she would see that side. And one day she did. Carson says the best thing he ever did was leave his daughter's mother and live on his own, where nobody could push his buttons or say the wrong things to set him off. He makes certain he does not drink, that he is always in control, because he never wants alcohol in his system when something happens.

This is not a man making excuses. He is describing, with brutal honesty, the neurological reality of what repeated brain trauma does to impulse control and emotional regulation.

Section 6. Junior Seau and the Culture of Silence

Carson recounts a moment that chills the blood. A couple of years before Junior Seau's suicide, they were both at the Green Bay Packers' opening game. They left early together and rode back to the hotel in Appleton, just talking football, talking in general. When Seau later committed suicide, media called Carson for his reaction. He said he was not surprised.

The reason, Carson explains, is the culture of football. Players are trained to keep things to themselves. Whatever inner turmoil they are dealing with, they do not share it. When Carson was dealing with his own issues, he kept it to himself. Seau did the same. Carson says if he had known what Junior was going through, he would have pulled him aside and told him it was manageable, that he did not have to take that ultimate step.

He also brings up Corwin Brown, a former Jets defensive back who became Notre Dame's defensive coordinator. Brown held his family hostage and then shot himself. His family knew he was having neurological problems. Carson mentions Titus Young, arrested three or four times in a single week. He says he knows exactly what is going on with these men, even when their own families do not, because he has been there himself.

Section 7. The Settlement and Its Consequences

When the NFL concussion settlement was announced at 765 million dollars over 20 years, Carson's reaction was pointed. He saw it as the NFL buying its way out of a problem for two decades. Two entire generations of players, he says, will now have to shut up and go about their business. The league will continue to grow, run commercials showing parents how safe the game is, tout the technology and research.

But Carson insists the issue is not going away. He frames the settlement as a message to parents. When you sign that consent form, your child could develop a brain injury from playing football. He does not have to be knocked out. Seeing stars is a concussion. Getting hit and everything fading to black is a concussion. Offensive and defensive linemen and linebackers sustain mini concussions on almost every play, on every level of football, not just the pros.

As Carson puts it with devastating simplicity, the NFL has given everybody 765 million reasons why you do not want to play football.

Section 8. The Grandson Who Will Not Play

Asked if his grandchildren play football, Carson says simply, nope. He explains that he has a grandson who is the light of his life, and he cannot in good conscience allow him to play knowing what he knows. He wants this young, smart black kid to be intelligent, to be brilliant, to use his brain and not his brawn.

When asked if he thinks he has CTE, Carson says he would bet five dollars that he probably does. He describes headaches that start in his front temporal left lobe, blurred vision, difficulty processing information. He notes something particularly unsettling about his emotional life. There are times when someone passes away and he does not feel what he thinks he should feel. That lack of emotion, that inability to grieve the way most people would grieve, tells him something is wrong.

Section 9. The Truth About Why They Played

Carson takes direct aim at a common public sentiment, the idea that players knew what they were getting into and assumed the risk. His response is emphatic. Bullshit. Nobody told them. Nobody knew the lingering long term effects of concussions. Players were paid based on their skill, not for the injuries they would sustain. There is no clause in any contract that says part of the salary covers future brain damage. His highest payday was 550 thousand dollars in 1987 and 1988. At the height of his career today, he estimates he would make 10 to 12 million.

He reflects on his Hall of Fame induction luncheon, where the great Deacon Jones stood up and said he loved playing the game and would do it all over again. Carson caught himself saying the same thing. Then he thought, you stupid ass, no you would not. Having gone through the concussion issue, seeing fellow Hall of Famers dealing with health problems and dementia, he realized there was absolutely no way, no way in hell, he would do it all over again.

But here is the painful truth Carson arrives at. Nothing can be done about it. Not by the NFL, not by the NCAA, not by high schools, not by Pop Warner. It is the pure nature of the sport. When you have contact, brain damage is going to happen. It is pure physics. The brain is like the yolk of an egg, and when you stop suddenly after running full speed, that brain is going to hit against the inside of the skull, against the little bony areas, and there might be some tearing. How that tearing affects you long term, nobody knows.

Key Takeaways

First, Harry Carson is not an anti football crusader. He is a Hall of Fame captain who loved his teammates and enjoyed the game, but who refuses to pretend the cost was worth it. Second, the NFL concussion settlement was framed by Carson not as justice but as a corporate maneuver to buy silence for two decades. Third, CTE and brain trauma are not just post career problems. Carson felt suicidal and experienced violent episodes while he was still an active player in the 1980s. Fourth, the culture of football trains players to suffer in silence, which is why men like Junior Seau do not seek help. Fifth, Carson's refusal to let his grandson play football is perhaps the most powerful statement of all. A Hall of Famer who says knowing what he knows, there is no way he would let his grandchild play the sport that made him famous.