In the Titans' words on concussions: "Whether I have it or not, why quit now?"

The CTE issue has fatigued fans in much the same way steroids in baseball once did, and that’s just fine with the NFL. Before getting to the best of the comments on CTE that I gathered from the Tennessee Titans on the matter over a few weeks of the preseason, let’s deal with the league.

If you missed the ESPN Outside the Lines report from last week on what the NFL has been doing with all the money set aside for concussion research, please take the time. Spoiler: They haven’t been doing much good. Please don't try to tell me the NFL has finally learned its lesson and is approaching this issue earnestly.

More:Titans on kids and football: 'A tough question down the road'

More:Titans and CTE: Polling an entire NFL locker room on the league's biggest issue

A line in that story from one of the NFL’s chosen “co-researchers,” outspoken CTE skeptic Paul McCrory, on all the media “carry on and hoo-ha” about this issue pertains to the discussion. The NFL wants its laborers, and future laborers, to look at this as a case of the media blowing something out of proportion, sensationalizing an issue for clicks, etc. But this remains the biggest story in football. CTE has taken lives. Players are retiring because of it. An announcer retired because of it. And making a big deal of it is not the same as saying: “Everyone who plays a snap of football will get CTE.”

The NFL has been consistently Big Tobacco on this and, while the league has been forced to make several changes that have made things safer, all the focus on helmets is a classic case of misdirection. Helmets don’t have much to do with this. If the focus on education and safer play doesn’t end up reducing CTE to minuscule levels among today’s players, the game is going to have to change significantly to survive – primarily, in the trenches. And the labor pool will shrink, though I’ve never bought the idea that it could be in danger of disappearing completely. There’s too much interest in this game, too much money, too many fantasy footballers, too many people who don’t want to hear about CTE, though football in that scenario will never be again what it is now.

And if these measures do work, great. We don’t know that they won’t. We don’t know why some people who play the game get CTE and why some don’t. We don’t know what outside factors are involved in each case. There’s no formula that says X number of blows to the head = CTE. Just as there’s no absolute rule that says X amount of smoking = cancer. But we sure know there are correlations. And that the NFL has demonstrated at every turn that it cannot be trusted on its own to seek truth in this matter and serve the interests of its work force.

Titans weigh in on the NFL keeping them safe

Here’s what some of the Titans said when asked if the NFL is doing enough to keep them safe. The overwhelming answer was “Yes,” but there were plenty of thoughtful responses:

Eric Decker: “You’d like to see it be more of an open conversation, which now it is because, whether it’s the players that have committed suicide or the movie ‘Concussion’ or other things that are out there, the dialogue is important. They say player safety is a main concern for the NFL, but Thursday night games I think don’t help that cause. And there’s things that, as players, we have to do to be able to go to the table and explain our side of it. I get it, it’s a business, these guys have a lot of money at stake. But for us, it’s our lives, we’re making money too but it’s our safety. I think it’s up the players to represent us as a union and make changes if we want them.”

Johnathan Cyprien: “They’re going to do exactly what they can do. The thing about the NFL is, they need to make this game as safe as possible because the future Johnathan Cypriens, Odell Beckhams, Cam Newtons are kids right now, and if their mothers don’t feel safe signing them up for football, the league will not be what it is today. I’m sure they’ll make it as safe as possible so parents will feel comfortable letting their kids play football.”

Karl Klug: “That’s out of my pay grade, I don’t know. The thing is, you’re going to hit heads every day in football, you know you’re going to do that. Common sense tells you that’s probably not great for the head. But we all know what we’re signing up for.”

Brian Orakpo: “Luckily for me I haven’t had any serious head trauma, injuries, concussions. But speaking to guys that have, it’s definitely serious, and I’m glad it’s now taken more seriously. I’m glad coaches and teams are taking it more seriously, because before it used to be just ‘Hey, are you OK? Ready to go back in?’ And they throw you back in. Now it’s a process. But we can do more. We can definitely do more. We’re making strides and going in the right direction. But we definitely can do more. You see so many guys with mental health issues and you don’t know where it stems from. You’re playing a violent game and constantly head butting players.”

Logan Ryan: “I think the league is doing what they can do. It’s an arms race of gathering information from the league side and the union side. But it’s the game of football, you can’t take away collisions in the game of football. Fining players, taking away money from players, I don’t necessarily agree with that. You try to hit a guy, he ducks, you hit him in his head. And I’m losing an insane amount of money, $20,000 for that.”

Darrius Sims: “Everything’s necessary as far as what the league’s doing. You can’t stop it but trying to prevent it is good for us and our families, who are watching us tear our bodies down for the game we love. Just by the NFL putting in these new helmets and rules, it’s good for us.”

Wesley Woodyard: “There has to be some kind of system where guys are taken care of for laying their lives on the line for the entertainment of others. I think that’s key. That’s a high percentage. That’s almost saying that everyone who plays the game of football is going to have CTE. It changes my mind as far as the game. It’s a violent game, we all welcome that, but at the same time we have to take care of the guys who do get CTE. It’s a serious condition.”

Rishard Matthews: “I think they’re doing as much as they can without making it a two-hand touch league.”

Demontre Hurst: “I think it’s raised a lot of concerns, you see a lot of guys taking action and stepping away from football at an early age. It’s affecting the football world from little league up to now, and I’m hoping the ball is rolling trying to get as much information. Hopefully the NFL is doing what it can to protect us in this dangerous sport we play.”

Justin Staples: “I think they’re doing the best job they can. We have a third party that monitors every player in the field during games to make sure our heads are OK. If a guy seems woozy or something like that, a guy says he has a bell rung or something, they’ll make sure he’s out of the game until he passes protocol. Taking a step like that is really putting player safety first.”

Tim Lelito: “That’s a really loaded question. But listen, it’s a business. It’s a multi-billion dollar business, they’re going to protect themselves. But I do think they still can provide players with good evidence that says, ‘Hey, if you do this, there’s a good chance this is going to happen.’ All they can do is keep us informed as best they possibly can. But also, when guys start showing symptoms, what are some of the alternative medicines that we can get going on and help these guys. Instead of just, guy gets a stinger and they’re pushing pills at him. What else can we do for these guys?”

Taylor Lewan: “I think the NFL should do more research on it. I think the article you saw, all those brains were actually brought in because everyone thought they had CTE. So for them to say 95 percent had them, it was 95 percent of people who thought they had CTE had it, so it’s hard to use that statistic. I think people obviously are affected by it and it needs to be looked into further.”

Erik Walden: “They’re trying to make it safer, but football ain’t going to change. Football’s always going to be football. You just hope you aren’t the one to get a concussion. I don’t like how they handled it at first, trying to hide a lot of stuff when you could just be frankly honest and give a guy a decision over whether he wants to play football or not. There’s no sense in how they tried to keep that information from us. I think they’re doing a better job now, but you just hope you’re not that guy.”

Jimmy Staten: “I trust that the NFL and the helmet protocol are going to keep me safe. I’m cool.”

Tre McBride: “Time will tell, but at least they’re doing something.”

Josh Kline: “I’m going to stay away from that one.”

Titans on whether they look at football differently

We all do our share of rationalizing, and you can really get a nice game of hot potato going in an NFL locker room if you start asking players whether the new information about CTE makes them think differently at all about playing football.

Long snapper Beau Brinkley said “I could hurt myself walking across the street, stepping in a pothole,” and he also pointed out that he only sees the field for 10-12 plays a game.

“I take a few hits,” Brinkley said. “But it’s nothing like Rak (Brian Orakpo) or somebody on the D-line or a fullback especially.”

The fullback, Jalston Fowler, said: “I haven’t paid any attention to it, so I don’t really know what it is. I don’t even know what CTE stands for.”

Of course, Fowler also sees limited plays during a game compared with linemen. And linemen deliver and absorb those subconcussive hits – not big enough to result in a clinical concussion, but big enough to cause damage over time – all game long.

But …

“Us tackles, we’re out of the junk,” left tackle Jack Conklin said. “We don’t get caught in the middle with people’s heads and we’re usually taller than our outside linebackers, so we aren’t taking those head-to-head hits like the guards and centers are.”

And to that, Ben Jones said: “I really don’t have high impact, I have a guy usually an inch away from me at all times, so my guy’s pretty close. I don’t really have the high impact like some of the guards, the linebackers and the running backs. My guy’s pretty close and I wear the helmet that gives in the front, so that’s the only kind of lick I’m really taking.”

And to that, left guard Quinton Spain said: “I just play football. Whatever happens happens, that’s my mindset. I’ve played football since I was young and I feel like I’m straight.”

Here are more answers to that question, with one strong theme – “This is what we signed up for” – but a wide range of thoughts:

Daquan Jones: “It definitely makes you think. When you think of the consequences of playing this game and the reality of it, you hit your head every day on the offensive line and defensive line. So it definitely sucks to hear about that and see some players retire early. One of my good buddies, John Urschel, just did. I understand why he did it, he’s a math genius and he wants to protect his investment, that’s his brain. But for me, this is what I do, this is what I know. I play football. It is what it is and I’m already into it, so I’m going to play it out.”

Dennis Kelly: “The problem is you can’t find out if you have CTE until you’re dead. At least right now. We don’t know all the actual symptoms, at least I don’t know, and it’s a different time from when all those players were playing. Different techniques, different safety protocols, there’s just a lot of research that needs to be done for everything. How to diagnose this, how to treat it, how to handle it, how to prevent it. And someone told me that we’re just looking at football players right now, but what’s the numbers of hockey players or baseball players or even normal society? If someone slips and falls on ice and gets a concussion, is that going to give them CTE? Right now it’s very scary because we’re only hearing all the really, really negative things. I haven’t heard enough where I’m like, ‘This is absolutely going to happen, you’re absolutely going to get this and die super young.’ What was it, (Frank Gifford), he lived a long and normal life. Why some people are reacting to CTE differently, or are there other issues and CTE is just a part of it?”

Jimmy Staten: “I’m too far along now, I’ve been playing since middle school. Whether I have it or not, why quit now? You know? No reason to. My lady keeps trying to make me watch the ‘Concussion’ movie and I tell her, ‘You know, whether I have it or not, I don’t feel the need to watch the movie. I don’t need to put any extra stress on myself.’”

Ben Jones: “I love this game and I know what I’m getting into. And those studies were guys that played 20 years ago, 30 years ago now. I think our technology, the helmets and the research we’ve put into it now is a lot better than what they had. And I’m all for playing football and I know how to protect yourself. … I didn’t watch ‘Concussion.’ Nobody in my family really watched it. They understand what I’m doing and it’s my job. And I have family members working in timber mills, and I think that’s just as dangerous as what I’m doing.”

Tre McBride: “I definitely am not ignoring the date and information coming out about CTE, I would never be so naïve that I’d ignore it. But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think about it unless somebody says something about it. I just play ball, that’s what I do. And unless I have a really big concussion – knock on wood, I haven’t had a big head injury yet so I’m not as scared and worried – then I’m still just playing ball.”

D’Joun Smith: “At the end of the day we’re all humans. We do this to provide for our families, so I’m pretty sure none of us want to be prunes when we go home to our kids, after our career is done. You know, you’re not able to move and not able to function and do all the things you want to do with your kids because you’re dealing with issues with the brain or issues with the body. But knowing the information out there, we understand the risk. We understand, ‘Well, we need to be better tacklers.’ We understand the things we need to do to make sure we don’t be like that.”        

Jace Amaro: “I don’t think it’s ever diverted me from wanting to play the game. CTE can really occur in everybody, from car accidents to just people who are living regular lives. It not necessarily just football. I know a lot of the studies have to do with football, but that’s the point, there are only studies on football. No one took the common person’s brain, the 9 to 5 guy working every day, and examined their head. So I think it’s an ongoing deal, it’s going to take a long time to find out the true reason behind CTE. But obviously getting hit every single play is definitely not helping. But I don’t think it will ever make me say, ‘I don’t want to play anymore.’ If you’ve got an opportunity to play (in the NFL), you’re going to play. It’s hard to say you don’t want to play anymore just because of a gamble. Everything’s a gamble in life.”

Jack Conklin: “Long-term health, I guess it’s a little sketchy. But the way the helmets are progressing, I think the biggest thing from this is it’s forcing these helmet companies to actually have to make better helmets. But at least we wear helmets. We have a sport called boxing where the point is to knock somebody unconscious. I mean, it happens occasionally in football but rarely does someone actually get knocked unconscious. It’s nothing like a boxing match. And I think we all know what we’re getting into. The game started with people not even wearing helmets. It’s progressing and helmets will get better and people won’t take as many hits that are the CTE hits. But I think we all know what we’re getting into, I think even if they told us this before we got to the NFL, we’d still do it.”

Delanie Walker: “I don’t think about it. I play the game at a high speed and if you’re thinking about it you’re not playing at a high speed. The league is doing the best they can. At the end of the day, if they studied anyone’s brain, they’d probably have CTE if they played any type of sport.”

Daren Bates: “I try to use my shoulder more now, try to be more conscious of not using my head. That’s kind what I was always taught when I was little, ‘Use your head, use your face.’ But now I routinely got myself using my shoulders more.”

Kevin Byard: “I think I’d be risking something no matter what I’m doing. I love the profession I’m in. I don’t look at it like it’s life or death right now, I don’t want to look at it like that. It’s my job, it’s what I do for a living. And whatever I can do to take care of my family, I’m going to do that. If I have to run into a wall, I’ll do it.”

Eric Decker: “It’s obviously made me open my eyes up to the issue and the research that has been going on. For me, football has been a platform for me to do what I love and open up as far as having a foundation, making an impact. It’s really, sports in general, has shown me all the tools and characteristics that have made me successful. Not only as an athlete but as a father, as a man, all those things. So it’s something that I keep an eye on but it doesn’t make me stray away from football.”

Josh Carraway: “You’ve just got to be smart about it. I feel like the way they’re changing the game, they’re making it safer. Wear a mouthpiece, take a couple fish oils each day and I think you’ll be good. Back at TCU they had us taking fish oils and Omega 3s, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Jurrell Casey: “Everyone knows what comes with this game. I love the game of football, I love the violence of it, so I really don’t have any negativity about it. At the end of the day, if you get a concussion you get a concussion. You know what you signed up for when you signed up on the dotted line.”

Kalan Reed: “I haven’t really paid attention to it. But I feel like the technology is getting better, there’s a new helmet going around, it seems like they’re much more aware with the rules they’ve changed. But I haven’t thought too much into it.”

Corey Levin: “It’s kind of like if you smoke cigarettes you could get cancer. Now apparently if you eat too much red meat you could get cancer. So there’s a chance it could happen. But I like my odds and I like potentially getting paid what NFL football players get paid, for it just to be a chance, it’s not certain. I like my odds.”

Logan Ryan: “I think as more information comes out, I’m definitely trying to learn more about it. More is coming out and I’ll look at it. I always was taught and try to play the game the right way, hitting with my shoulder and not leading with my head first. Just try to play as fundamentally sound as possible. But it’s the game of football, there’s going to be collisions.”

Karl Klug: “You can’t really think about that too much, to be honest with you. I try to stay away from it as much as I can, I guess. I’m not really sure, I’m kind of conflicted on that. I know a kid from Iowa that passed away because of CTE, which is a sad deal. And I talked to his mom a little bit about it. So I definitely feel for situations like that. So that’s where I’m torn at, I don’t know, it’s a tough issue. I’ve had concussions. Problems? I don’t know. To me, if someone was given more of a direct answer as far as CTE goes, players would be able to respond more about that. But we don’t have a direct answer.”

Phillip Supernaw: “You take a risk every time you step out of the house. I mean, you can step wrong on a curb and break an ankle. You can get in a car accident every time you leave your house. There’s risk with everything, so you can’t really think about that type of thing. Our careers are pretty short-lived anyway. I kind of look at it like you’ve got the rest of your life to recover. I think your brain is a muscle like anything else. You can exercise it if you start feeling slow, you can do crossword puzzles, Sodoku, things like that. Yeah, you think about it with your family, but you can’t be scared of it.”

Justin Staples: “I don’t really think the information we’re getting has personally changed my opinion too much about playing the game. I think unfortunately, dudes from previous generations not being as well-equipped for the impact of the game, for the long term and what it does to your body down the line, unfortunately for them but fortunately for us, I think we’ve learned from their mistakes. We’re in that generation where we grew up playing head’s up football. That real head to head, impaling type of contact has been pretty much omitted from the game in the course of my life. And then you look at all the developments they’re putting into helmets and things like that. It’s not affecting me much, but the information is important to us.”

Tim Lelito: “I’ll still play the game. How I play the game is different. I use my hands more now, try to keep my head out of it, try to be smart on blocking. I’ve done a lot of research and I know they say the big hits that everyone sees, wide receivers and safeties and skill positions, the big hits are kind of better that way because when you see guys get knocked out it’s almost like a computer re-starting itself. We get the sub hits, we touch people every single play, we’re constantly hitting. So if we have 80 plays in a game we have 80 hits, 80 contact points. So for me, I’ve got to be smart when I’m blocking someone or when I’m pulling.”

Taylor Lewan: “It’s part of the gig. You know what you sign up for. All of us play football and any lives that have been affected by it, obviously my heart goes out to their families. You never want to see anything turn out harmful to anybody like that. For me personally, this is one of those things where I know what I’m getting myself into. I know the possibilities of what could happen. But at the same time, I can’t let those kinds of things dictate my life. I have to be able to go and go 100 percent, and I can’t let the possibility of brain damage slow me down. And if it does happen and I’m one of those individuals that suffers from it, then that’s kind of what I’m here for and you kind of know that. I can’t slow down or stop playing football a certain way because there’s a possibility of something happening. That’s not how I’m wired as a person. I hope things get figured out and we can play this game and hopefully reduce that risk. But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve got to play football. And I’ve got to play it as fast as I can, as hard as I can, as physical as I can.”

Titans hope more information is available to help decisions on kids playing football

Finally, here are more responses on the question of kids playing football:

Marcus Mariota: “If my son wants to play, I mean, I learned so much off the field through football. The life lessons you learn playing sports in general, I think are so valuable. So if he wants to play, I’d love for him to do it.”

Eric Decker: “When my kid gets older, I want to know more research and if it’s going to be a long-term issue. That’s something I’ll think about at that point. We’ll have more information I think, as far as what it is that causes CTE. Is it just the constant hitting? Is it the big ones? Positionally as a receiver you don’t have the constant head to head or the collisions like you would inside, but you have the bigger ones at times.”

Jurrell Casey: “Oh, definitely I would hesitate on my kid playing the sport, just on the aspect of injuries period in football. You’re dealing with injuries no matter what. So I will be hesitant, but if he wants to play I’m open for it. But it’s definitely not something I’ll be pushing on my child.”

Jack Conklin: “If he wants to play football, he can play football. I mean, it’s America’s sport. You could get hit by a car, get hurt at a construction site. There’s a million ways you can get hurt. Choose what you love to do and do it.”

Derrick Henry: “I don’t think you should sway a child from what they want to be.”

Manny Abad: “I wouldn’t have a problem but I wouldn’t start him off in pee wee, that’s even more dangerous. The coaches aren’t that good so they put them in predicaments and a bad spot. I’d hold him off until middle school.”

Adoree’ Jackson: “I don’t want my kids to play the sports I played anyway. I want them to do something else. That doesn’t have anything to do with anything, I just want them to go do something else. If they want to play sports, I don’t care, but I don’t want them to be like, ‘I want to be like my dad’ or feel they have to live in my shoes. I’d rather them be an artist or a musician, something of that nature.”

Ben Jones: “I think by that time the technology will be great, and that’s what’s great about our industry right now, everything’s more publicized and the health benefits are getting better and better. So if my son wants to play, I’d be happy with it.”

Khalfani Muhammad: “I’m going to have him try other sports first. Football will be the last resort. But if he decides he wants to go out and have fun and bang heads, I’m going to let him do that.  But not too young, I’ll start him off a little later in life.”

Rishard Matthews: “They’re having these little kids run around and, you can teach a little kid how to tackle but when the moment comes they’re just putting their head down and trying to make a tackle. My son ain’t playing until eighth or ninth grade.”

Derrick Morgan: “I haven’t really made that decision yet but I’d probably wait until he’s a little bit older to put him in high contact. Probably until he’s at least middle school, early high school to play, until his brain’s developed a little bit more. Until we know more. We really don’t know a lot about it yet. It’s a new disease still being studied, so I think in the coming years we’ll learn more about what it is, so you can accurately assess the risk of it. Because you see some of these guys. Like (Dick) LeBeau, he played 14 years, he played DB, but everybody’s not affected the same way.”

Tajae Sharpe: “Man, if I have a son he’s not playing football at all. Unless he really wants to, but I’m putting a basketball in his hand and I’m putting a baseball in his hand first. That just comes from the way they get paid. They’re on a whole other level right now and for my son I’d want something better than me. But if he wants to play football, that’s his choice and I’d be behind him 100 percent.”

Steven Moore: “I’ll let him play. Unless more crazy stuff comes out later. But right now, yeah.”

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.