Severe head trauma is an issue that the NFL has been working over the years to try and reduce, whether it's by changing the rules, changing the length of time before players need to recuperate after an injury, or by altering the helmets themselves. But it wasn't always that way. For a time, the NFL fought any new information on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and the discoveries made by Dr. Bennet Omalu on the subject of brain trauma. So the NFL may not be too pleased now that the first trailer for Concussion has arrived, chronicling Omalu's battle to shed some light on a life-threatening subject.
Will Smith headlines the film which is based on the GQ article, "Game Brain", written by Jeanne Marie Laskas. Omalu was the researcher who found the link between repeated blows to the head suffered by NFL players and the neuro-degenerative disease CTE. But not everyone wanted him to bring the issue to the surface, even though it had already claimed the lives of NFL greats Andre Waters and Dave Duerson, who committed suicide. Peter Landesman (Parkland) wrote and directed the film which co-stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje, Arliss Howard, Eddie Marsan, Paul Reiser, David Morse, and Luke Wilson as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Ridley Scott is on board as a producer.
Concussion takes the field on Christmas Day.
MMQB is up. @SI_PeterKing on all 32 teams and exclusive debut of @ConcussionMovie trailer: http://t.co/q0tc3HHgln https://t.co/HNJCF2OoDw
— The MMQB (@theMMQB) August 31, 2015
