When National Football League (NFL) player Dave Duerson killed himself in 2011, he left behind a note explaining that he had shot himself in the chest so that his brain could go to scientists studying chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease that occurs in athletes and others who have been repeatedly hit in the head.
His suicide helped prompt a class action lawsuit against the NFL, which must now provide up to $5 million each to retired players with medical conditions associated with repeated head trauma. And in 2016, the NFL launched a $100 million "Play Smart. Play Safe" initiative that will support medical research on head injuries, engineering research on safer helmets and other strategies for enhancing player safety. "[W]hen it comes to addressing head injuries in our game, I'm not satisfied, and neither are the owners of the NFL's 32 clubs," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a statement announcing the initiative. "We can and will do better."