San Francisco 49ers linebacker Tavares Gooden hadn't heard the news about Junior Seau when he got to the locker room Thursday. He said when he puts on his helmet each day, he doesn't think about potential long-term effects from hits to the head.
He does think about it in the offseason, though, and he does something about it.
"We can all learn something from Junior," Gooden told USA TODAY Sports. "I've been getting CT scans to make sure things are right in my brain. Every year I get a checkup. ... I try to stay on top of things."
He banishes such thoughts during the season.
"You can only live for right now," he says. "That's all you can do, because we all know what we signed up for. I signed up for this game when I was 10 years old, and I knew the consequences of it. Nobody thinks about the bad side. You only think about the good side. You leave the rest to God, and you pray and hope that nothing happens to you."
The news that Seau suffered from degenerative brain disease when he killed himself in May resonated in locker rooms where eight teams remain in the NFL playoffs.
"It's scary," Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowl center Max Unger said. "Football will always be a sport with pretty severe consequences, at least at the professional level. We're talking about 10-, 11-, 12-year careers. Everybody knows the risks involved.
"It's a trade-off, though. You make a pretty big salary in a relatively short period of time. The trade-off is you get beat up a little bit. I think the (get-back-in-the-game) culture is changing a little bit. But it's scary. That's the reality we live in."
Gooden says he has had three or four concussions. "I had one in college at the University of Miami, and I think I had three or two in Baltimore (with the Ravens)."
Is he doing OK?
"I am as of today," Gooden says. "There are some things that go on where I can't look into the light as well as I want to. I have light sensitivity, and sometimes I get migraine headaches due to the concussions."
Russell Lonser, chair of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's Department of Neurological Surgery, oversaw the National Institutes of Health study that found Seau showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
"There's still a lot to learn about CTE," Lonser said. "We don't have a basic understanding of the incidents and prevalence."
Lonser says long-term studies are needed, though they won't offer much solace to current and former players.
"I understand it won't be for those individuals," says Lonser, who is head of the NFL's research subcommittee and a member of the NFL's head, neck and spine medical committee. "But (long-term research) is critical to our understanding it. I think it goes back to many disorders that occur: The first step is a better understanding."
Contributing: David Leon Moore
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