Demystifying Generic Depression Is Fine – But the Big Taboo With Duerson Was His Denial of Concussion Syndrome While on NFL Disability Board

Alex Marvez of FoxSports.com has an important new piece up on Dave Duerson, which focuses on Duerson’s battle with depression and uses as its main source former quarterback Eric Hipple. See “Duerson didn’t have to die to have impact,” http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/dave-duerson-didnt-have-to-die-to-have-impact-081511.

Credit Marvez with tackling a subject, mental health, that remains swaddled in taboos. It’s also good to see a prominent football journalist daring to talk at all about whether Duerson’s service on the joint National Football League/NFL Players Association disability claim review board was tainted by his own likely diminished capacity in his last years.

The FoxSports article quotes former defensive end Andrew Stewart, who has pending litigation against the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Retirement plan, using that exact phrase, “diminished capacity,” to describe Duerson’s state when he joined a unanimous board vote in rejecting Stewart’s claim for an increase in disability benefits. At the May news conference announcing the autopsy finding of chronic traumatic encephelopathy after Duerson committed suicide, I used the same words in asking whether there should be renewed review of the case files on which Duerson helped the disability board rule.

What is unfortunate about the Marvez piece is that it quotes Duerson friends as saying they perceived no “noticeable change in his demeanor or acumen,” while failing to document his tirade against retired players who confronted him at a 2007 Congressional hearing in which Duerson downplayed concussion syndrome. (The article does note Duerson’s 2005 domestic violence incident — but rather creepily puts distance between it and an observation by Belinda Lerner, executive director of NFL Player Care, that “he looked fine the last time I saw him.”)

As a useful antidote to the notion that Duerson was fine, I recommend reading my February 24 post, “‘Dave Duerson Knew Nothing About Concussions and Players’ Best Interests’ – My Exclusive Interview With Ex-Minnesota Viking Brent Boyd.”

We can all have our opinions on how fine Dave Duerson was at any particular point before he took his own life and was found to have CTE. But the constellation of facts leads to the conclusion that ex-players with disputes over disability claims that were adjudicated, in part, by Duerson deserve rehearings. Period. That is elemental justice.

Irv Muchnick