Pittsburgh Steelers' doctor says CTE is 'rare' and 'overexaggerated'

The sudden retirement of San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland over future health concerns once again brought up questions about the safety of football.

Some, though, don't feel there's a major problem with the way the game is played.

Pittsburgh Steelers neurosurgeon Dr. Joseph Maroon is one that feels the game has never been safer and said so Wednesday on NFL Network.

"I really believe it's never been safer in terms of the sport," Maroon said. The rule changes, the safer tackling techniques, the medical management of concussions is so much better than it ever has been in the history of this sport."

He also added that he feels the fear of chronic traumatic encephalopathy is somewhat overblown and playing youth football is safer than skateboarding or bike riding. 

"I think the problem of CTE, although real, is it's being overexaggerated and being extrapolated to youth football and to high school football.

"We came up with 63 total cases of CTE (and) in the last two years a few more," he said. "But there have been 30-40 million kids who have played football during that period of time. It's a rare phenomena. We have no idea the incidence. There are ... more injuries to kids falling off bikes, scooters, falling in playgrounds than there are in youth football. I think again, it's never been safer. Can we improve? Yes. We have to do better all the time to make it safer."

Chris Nowinski of the Sports Legacy Institute disagrees. He told ESPN the comparison to riding a bike or skateboard doesn't make sense.

"The most likely reason that more 5-9-year-old boys go to the ER with brain injuries resulting from bike accidents is that far more boys ride bikes than play football," Nowinski said. "It is unfortunate that this important information is being miscommunicated in the media.

"In addition, it is not just concussions that make football dangerous for the brain, but it is also hundreds of subconcussive blows per year. Riding a bike or a skateboard are not known to cause hundreds of impact to the head in a year."

Jeff Miller, the NFL's senior vice president of health and safety, spoke to Pro Football Talk on Wednesday and said Maroon's views don't speak for the league:

Joe Maroon doesn’t speak for the NFL, nor we for him. He is well-known neurosurgeon who has a great deal of experience in this field, and his opinion, like those of many other neurosurgeons and neuroscientists, deserves respect. There are obviously competing views on this. We’ve heard perspectives from many different quarters on exactly this issue of CTE. We hear it from the International Consensus Conference in Zurich that meets regularly, from the leading sports concussion experts around the world. We’ve heard it from the National Academy of Sciences, the government body that looked into CTE and causation, and what the state of the science is there.

Miller clarified the NFL's position:

So a lot of people have a lot of important opinions on it. What the NFL’s position is is that we need to act conservatively to make sure that our players get the treatment that they need, that their injuries are identified when they are, and that we are acting in their best interests. And that’s our position on the science.

It remains to be seen whether others will follow Borland's lead and retire early. That could ultimately force the NFL to take a long look at the way the game is played.