Marshall Newhouse spent 10 seasons in the NFL and took the kind of pounding that comes with life in the trenches. From high school to college to the pros, through practices, scrimmages, preseason and postseason games, contact was part of the job every time the ball was snapped.
Now 37 and retired since 2020, the former TCU standout says he’s not living in fear of CTE, even though he knows exactly what it is.
“I don’t fear it. I’ve just gotten to the place of being ready to adjust if it becomes an issue,” the former TCU, Packer, Bengal, Giant, Panther, Patriot, Raider and Titan said in a recent interview.
“We all go through atrophy as human bodies. (CTE) is a different form of atrophy.
This is undefined. It may not (affect him).
Why would I give that oxygen? I’m aware of it.
I had concussions while I was playing, and I was self-advocating to let my brain heal.
“It doesn’t do me any good to dwell. I understand what I went through. I understand what I put myself through of my own volition.”
This week, Mass General Brigham added fresh numbers to the conversation when it published a study in The BMJ examining deceased former NFL players who had played at least one NFL game and died between 2016 and 2021. Researchers studied 338 donated brains.
The only definitive way to diagnose CTE is through the study of a deceased brain.
“At minimum, nearly a quarter of all former NFL players who died during 2016-21 had CTE neuropathology at death,” the report said. “Among NFL player brain donors, dementia diagnosed based on records before death was common and associated with stage IV CTE.”
The findings fit into a grim list of former players whose careers ended with serious consequences, including the late Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, Marion Barber III, and many others.
Football’s shift in public awareness really took hold on Christmas Day, 2015, when the Will Smith movie “Concussion” hit theaters. The film told the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu and his work connecting repeated head trauma to CTE, which would do “irreparable damage” to the NFL, NCAA and football.
The movie earned decent reviews and made some money, but it didn’t change the sport. What it did do was force players, parents and fans to accept a blunt reality: football can be hazardous to your health.
Since then, CTE has become part of the football conversation far beyond medical journals, lawyers’ offices and retired players’ circles. It sits alongside first downs, touchdowns and contract holdouts in the sport’s public vocabulary.
Newhouse said players understand the risk now, and he bristled at the idea that anyone would pretend otherwise.
“Guys are going to make the choice,” Newhouse said. “Who are you to then to insult our intelligence to say that we don’t understand what we would be stepping into, and then to hide it? That’s what the NFL was accused of so long, were (hiding) the actual risks.”
Even with that awareness, football has continued to get more protective over the last decade or so. Rules aimed at reducing dangerous hits now shape the game at every level.
A hit on a quarterback brings an immediate glance toward the referee. Big collisions that once drew cheers can now draw penalties or ejections.
Concussion protocols remove players from games. The “Oklahoma Drill” is gone.
Still, football remains football. Contact comes on every play, and the sport still prizes the old-school toughness that treats “tapping out” as weakness.
Newhouse, who had a strong career at TCU before playing in the NFL from 2011 to 2020, said the game has been a major part of his life since he was 4 years old. He earned good money and spent a decade in the league.
“Football is such an incredible sport; it’s been a big part of my life since I was 4 years old,” he said. “I hope it continues to be a big part of my life. I am excited to see the (young players) grow the game, and change the game, and hopefully make it safer, and practical, in all of those ways.”
The dangers are better understood now than they were in past generations, and the sport’s popularity has hardly slowed. What remains unknown is whether the efforts to make football safer will actually work, and that answer won’t come for another 15 to 20 years.
In Other News...
TCU Fans Turned This Trip Into Something Bigger Than A Game
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The trip also carried a familiar football edge, because plenty of those same fans were eager to see what the new quarterback and offensive coordinator could do in the opener. Between the travel, the setting and the chance to size up a new-look offense, the game felt like a season launch and a school-wide excursion rolled into one, and the mood around the buildup suggested the Frogs had already won something before kickoff. [Read more 🡒]
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The questions around him are straightforward enough: how smoothly does he make that jump, and can the offensive line give him enough protection while the scheme settles in? Those football concerns have been joined by a separate distraction around the program after Jacob Fields was dismissed, then a local media controversy followed the universitys handling of coverage, adding another layer of tension to a stretch already marked by change and scrutiny. [Read more 🡒]
TCU Has One Real Week 0 Fear Despite Favored Status
TCU goes into its Week 0 trip to Dublin with plenty of reasons to feel good about where it stands, especially after keeping so much of last years roster intact and building around a defense that should be sturdy against the run. The Horned Frogs also enter with a new offensive look that could help them control the matchup against North Carolina, giving this opener the feel of a game where TCU has more paths to looking the part of a favorite than most neutral-site season openers do.
Still, there is enough uncertainty to keep this from feeling like a clean romp on paper. North Carolina has a proven play-caller in Bobby Petrino to lean on, and TCU is also asking a new quarterback to step into the first start of his Frogs career in a game with plenty of attention around it. Add in an injury situation on the TCU side that is not yet fully settled, and the upset case becomes less about the Tar Heels needing everything to go right and more about whether the Frogs can answer a few early questions before the pressure builds. [Read more 🡒]