Government Studies and NFL Money Shouldn't Mix

An ESPN report accusing the NFL of pulling funding from a brain study has led to immediate pushback by the league and the National Institutes of Health. The whole controversy highlights the myriad problems of the NFL funding such research in the first place.

On Tuesday, ESPN's Outside the Lines cited anonymous sources saying that the NFL -- which gave the NIH's nonprofit affiliate, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, $30 million in 2012 -- insisted that its gift not be used to fund a seven-year, $16 million study headed by a Boston University researcher. The scientist, Robert Stern, has been openly critical of the league's handling of brain trauma and of the concussion settlement it reached with players. He's also a highly respected researcher and went through several levels of NIH vetting. The NFL insisted its funding was still readily available, and later that day, the NIH's foundation released a statement that it had decided to fund the BU study itself while using NFL dollars for other research.