Dave Zirin argues in The Nation that sports media has largely abandoned CTE coverage despite nine former and current NFL players under 48 dying in 2025. Seven of those deaths were suicides, involved circumstances suggesting severe mental distress, or remain unexplained.
Zirin’s reporting found nothing comparable in other major sports leagues, including boxing and MMA. Yet the sports media apparatus that once dedicated significant airtime to chronic traumatic encephalopathy has largely moved on to gambling content and surface-level analysis.
Zirin uses the blue tent — where players are evaluated for concussions away from cameras — as a metaphor for how the league handles the issue. The NFL wants brain injuries treated out of sight, unlike torn ACLs or dislocated ankles that play out in full view. The media has obliged by letting the story disappear into that tent.
“The blue tent is now as much a part of NFL Sunday as the national anthem. It sits in full view on one sideline, and it’s where players are sent to be assessed for concussions after receiving a blow to the head. Their injury is then checked by an independent concussion evaluator—and thank God for this shred of progress. But the tent is also a symbol of what the league wants to obscure: We see players being treated and carted off for dislocated ankles, torn Achilles tendons, and twisted knees, yet concussion testing is now done away from the eyes of the fans. We watch players cry out in pain with compound fractures, but we rarely see the dazed looks, unsteady steps, or vomiting that can result from a traumatic brain injury.
The blue tent makes it seem like the NFL is taking care of an issue that had been dragged into the light by both off-field tragedies and a science-based movement of player advocates: that the repeated concussions endemic to football can cause Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). In recent years, the CTE discourse has mostly disappeared—as if the whole topic had been pulled into a blue tent. But CTE should still be at the center of discussions about the country’s most popular sports league.”
According to Zirin, ESPN published at least seven articles on concussion effects from August to November 2024. During the same period in 2025, amid multiple player deaths, The Nation could identify only one article. Zirin points to ESPN’s business relationship with the NFL — the league now owns 10 percent of the network (pending regulatory approval) — as a potential factor in the coverage decline.
When 24-year-old Dallas Cowboys player Marshawn Kneeland died by suicide just a few days after scoring his first touchdown, Dallas media raised questions about CTE’s potential role. ESPN’s coverage didn’t mention it. Neither did the tributes before Monday Night Football.
The pattern extends beyond Kneeland. Former Bengals running back Rudi Johnson took his own life in September after telling people he believed he had CTE. Doug Martin, a 36-year-old ex-Pro Bowl running back, died in police custody after an alleged home invasion — his family announced his brain would be tested for CTE. Shane Tamura, a former high school running back, killed four people at NFL headquarters with an AR-15 before shooting himself in the chest. His suicide note cited CTE destroying his brain. The autopsy confirmed he had it.
Chris Nowinski, CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, told Zirin the lack of coverage is frustrating.
“The NFL has strategically built business relationships with media organizations,” he said, adding that investigative reporting has historically driven safety improvements and resources for struggling football families.
The NFL Players Association hasn’t filled the void. When The Nation reached out, the NFLPA offered a generic statement about supporting player mental health that didn’t address CTE at all. Former executive director DeMaurice Smith was at least a bit more direct, telling Zirin that while research and safety protocols matter, the league and union have a duty to push for more progress rather than accept the current state of player safety.
ESPN declined to comment for Zirin’s piece. So did the NFL. The league’s media partners have effectively decided the CTE story is over, even as the evidence suggests it’s very much ongoing. Whether that’s because of financial entanglements, shrinking newsrooms, or simple fatigue, it doesn’t change the fact that players are dying, and sports media has stopped asking why.