As many of you may be unaware of, along with his criticism this weekend about those kneeling during the National Anthem, Trump criticized the NFL for cracking down on certain aggressive hits to the head during games. He stated that the NFL was being ruined for trying to prevent head injuries.
Studies have proven that after prolonged injuries to the head, permanent brain damage is can be inevitable. The CDC reports that many brain disorders can be linked to repeated concussions, thus the NFL has made some changes to their rules to prevent head injury as well as banning hits using the top of the helmet as a weapon, and hits targeting the head.
Last week, the NFL was under fire when an investigation revealed that Aaron Hernandez suffered from Stage III CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a neurodegenerative disease linked to bruising hits to the head during football games. For his age, he had one of the most severe cases of this disease.
Due to the fact that pre season exams are usually done to show signs of this disease early on, a lawsuit was filed against the NFL because of their negligence in handling Aaron Hernandez. While it hasn't necessarily been linked as a cause to his crimes, the lawsuit condemns the NFL for depriving Hernandez's daughter, Avielle, of a father who was emotionally and mentally stable.
With this being a recent finding as of last week, also around the time of Trump condemning the NFL for being ruined in altering their rules of head injury prevention, it almost seems like the comment about kneeling during games was meant to draw attention from the CTE issue.
I'm no conspiracy theorist but, the fact that kneeling during the National anthem hasn't been a big thing since last year, I do find the timeline of Trump's comments in correlation to the lawsuit on the NFL quite interesting.
It would almost seem as if Trump wanted to take the pressure of his comments about the NFL being ruined for something that he knew would get a lot more media attention and take the heat off of himself. Kneeling during the National Anthem and calling out NFL players really does seem like the perfect scape goat.
However everything could all be coincidental, these are just the facts that I've been presented with and the theory that I've come up with based on that. In the coming weeks, I hope to see more in the news about the Hernandez case.