I know we were paid to hurt people,” says Keith McCants, the fourth overall pick in the 1990 draft. “We were paid to give concussions. If we knew that we were killing people, I would have never put on the jersey.” *Keith McCants, the fourth overall pick in the 1990 draft, drove six hours from Tampa to see the movie. When he exited the theater, he retreated to a bench in the lobby. Tear-soaked, the 47-year-old former linebacker hovered over his cane. “This touched my soul,” he said. “It was outstanding, but I can’t process it all, not right now. I watch this movie and I know we were paid to hurt people. We were paid to give concussions. If we knew that we were killing people, I would have never put on the jersey.” *Concussion is based on Jeanne Marie Laskas’s GQ article “Brain Game” from 2009, which painted a picture of the NFL actively undermining Omalu’s findings to protect its business interests. Many of the same issues were also covered in the Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru book League of Denial and subsequent PBS Frontline documentary. What Concussion does best is simplify the degenerative brain disease CTE for the masses. In one scene, Omalu explains how a woodpecker can violently use its head as a battering ram and not suffer injury: its tongue wraps from the back of it mouth, around the skull and through the nostril—a safety belt, if you will, that absorbs the shock and protects the brain. The human brain has no such safety belt. (KNOWCONCUSSION.ORG)
