The National Football League on Monday inched ever closer to admitting that bashing your head in over and over again on the football field is linked to traumatic brain injury or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Despite the growing logic around degenerative brain injury and concussions, the league’s top brass has made sure not to outpace the medical community in connecting the dots contained in the growing research on the subject. On Monday, however, the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety acknowledged there was a link between the football and CTE—a first for a senior league official, ESPN reports.

The admission came during an informal congressional roundtable discussion on concussions in Washington, D.C. hosted by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Here’s more on what transpired (via ESPN):

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety, was asked by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., if the link between football and neurodegenerative diseases like CTE has been established. “The answer to that question is certainly yes,” said Miller. He said he based his assessment on the work of Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neuropathologist who has diagnosed CTE in the brains of 176 people, including those of 90 of 94 former NFL players… “I think the broader point, and the one that your question gets to, is what that necessarily means, and where do we go from here with that information,” Miller said, noting that little is known about the prevalence of the disease or the risk of incurring it.

The NFL settled with thousands of former players in 2013, agreeing to pay more than $765 million to the players suffering from CTE and to their families.

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