‘Super Bowl Special: NFL PR Tests Whether Best Defense Is a Good Offense’ … today at Beyond Chron

by Irvin Muchnick

In our new ebook OUT OF MY HEAD: My Life In and Out of Football, George Visger, a member of the San Francisco 49ers’ first Super Bowl champions from 30 years ago, writes, “In America we already have an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I think we need a new one: Mothers Against Damaged Players.” The Visger book is available at http://amzn.to/znZuiL. That was a plug.

Comes now the National Football League with a PR blitz out of the school holding that the best defense is a good offense. Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast will include a 60-second NFL “public service announcement” recapping the history of its bold efforts to make football safer. An existing feel-good website, nflhealthandsafety.com, soon will be supplemented by a new one promoting rules for a safer sport.

(Nflhealthandsafety has Pittsburgh Steelers neurosurgeon and ImPACT “concussion management software” entrepreneur Dr. Joseph Maroon demonstrating that a concussed player can be assessed for return to play in a “two-minute drill” of neurological benchmarks. The site also pictures Zack Lystedt – the brain-maimed Seattle youth player who inspired state-by-state “Lystedt Laws” pushing “solutions” like ImPACT – getting one of the thrills of his life when he meets Baltimore Ravens thug Ray Lewis.)

CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Super_Bowl_Special_NFL_PR_Tests_Whether_Best_Defense_Is_a_Good_Offense_9866.html