Book Log 2017 #1: League of Denial by Mark Fainaru-Wada

Part of me thinks I really should finish the 2016 entries before moving on to 2017, but then there's the other part that says if I don't start 2017 now I probably won't get them done before the end of 2018.

Anyway, seems fitting that I started off the NFL playoffs by reading this comprehensive - and frustrating - account of how the NFL tried to keep the concussion crisis at bay.  It's an interesting combination of PR and (willful?) ignorance on many parts, which will often have you wishing that the league would be razed to the ground... but not if it means the games would stop. I share complicity with fans everywhere who would love to see the NFL get hammered for their role in downplaying this problem, but can't stop watching (even though may are watching less, myself included).

A less noted but also interesting subplot of the book involves the researchers, and how they battle each other to get access - to players, families, funding, former players' brains - and primacy in the research world around concussions and CTE. Working in academia this didn't surprise me, but seeing it play out on the page was a good reminder that the researchers aren't dispassionate observers in this whole thing.

This is very much worth reading, especially for football fans.