Countdown to Super Bowl XLVI: NFL will use ad to promote safety - Ingles

To the usual lineup of beer and car commercials on Super Bowl Sunday, add this: one about player safety.

For the first time, the N.F.L., currently the target of more than a dozen lawsuits accusing it of deliberately concealing information about the effects on players of repeated hits to the head, will use one minute of its own commercial time during its signature event to address player safety, its most critical and sobering problem.

“It is your biggest stage, you’ve got a massive audience, a massive casual audience, and this topic is probably one of most important topics for casual fans, particularly mothers,” Mark Waller, the N.F.L.’s chief marketing officer, said about the decision to inject a serious subject into the league’s over-the-top party. “And so the possibility that we could actually address the issue in a constructive, engaging way with that audience makes it definitely worth the challenge. It’s a risk, without a doubt.”

The N.F.L. spent several million dollars on the commercial and the creation of an accompanying Web site — nfl.com/evolution — that will go online Sunday and give detailed information about the history of the game and various rules changes. By using 60 of the 150 seconds of advertising time it is allotted during NBC’s telecast of the Super Bowl, the N.F.L. is taking away time it could use to promote other aspects of its business, including more traditional subjects like the NFL Network. (The average cost for 30 seconds of ad time during the Super Bowl is $3.5 million.)

The decision was initially met with skepticism and concern by some league executives. Among those who supported the idea, according to Waller, were two owners of the teams that will play Sunday, John Mara of the Giants and Robert K. Kraft of the Patriots.

Michael Hausfeld, a Washington-based lawyer who is representing some former players involved in concussion-related lawsuits against the N.F.L., said he had not seen the commercial. But when told about its message, he said an attempt to artfully portray the N.F.L. as having been concerned about player safety for decades, and doing all it can now to protect players, was “obscuring the reality.”

“I’m troubled by it to the extent that it seeks to portray a position of concern when they really had none,” Hausfeld said in a telephone interview. “They shouldn’t be focused on placing ads. They should be focused on talking to those players who have suffered the concussions and the consequences. And saying, ‘What is it we can do?’

“To a lot of people, the ad will resonate that they’re trying. On the other hand, there’s a little bit too much protesting. You’re trying to put yourself in too good of a light. Why? You’re trying to deflect your exposure.”

The commercial, directed by Peter Berg — who created the TV program “Friday Night Lights” — will be shown during the final commercial break of the third quarter. It uses one long kick return as a way to take viewers through the evolution of the game’s rules and equipment, from the sport’s beginnings on a muddy field in Canton, Ohio, when players wore no helmets or pads, to the present in a brightly lighted Soldier Field.

At one point, a leather helmet peels back to reveal a more modern one made of plastic. Later, a player grabs an opponent’s face mask, a violation of current rules.

Only the most devoted fan would recognize all the references. The flying wedge, a blocking technique that is believed to have made its debut in 1892 but was banned soon after, is shown briefly in the opening seconds. Near the end, a horse-collar tackle, only recently forbidden, is featured.

But nobody, particularly the casual fan at whom the commercial is primarily aimed, will miss its closing message, delivered by Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis: “Here’s to making the next century safer and more exciting. Forever forward. Forever football.”

The message will stand in contrast to most of the commercials seen during the game.

“If you look at what generally works in the Super Bowl, it tends to be animals, and kicking in the crotch does well,” Waller said.

The N.F.L. is known for sensitivity about its public image. A year ago, it demanded that Toyota change a commercial highlighting the car maker’s decision to share crash research with scientists studying football concussions because the ad included footage of a helmet-to-helmet collision and a reference to a mother worried about her child’s playing football.

But as the N.F.L. has taken steps to improve safety, not all of them have been embraced by coaches and players. Last year the league cracked down on hits to the head and neck area, threatening suspensions for repeated violators. The new collective bargaining agreement includes provisions that significantly limit the number of full-contact practices and off-season workouts.

During the regular season, after the Cleveland Browns’ medical staff missed a hit to quarterback Colt McCoy’s head and allowed him to return to a game — he was later told he had a concussion — the league put independent observers at each game to help detect questionable hits.

During the playoffs this season, the N.F.L. installed video replay systems behind each bench so medical staffs could evaluate hits they might have missed. Those systems will probably become standard by the start of next season, the league said.

According to figures compiled by team medical staffs to track injuries, the number of concussions in preseason and regular-season games dropped 12.5 percent from 2010 to 2011, from 218 concussions reported in 321 games last season to 190 concussions in 320 games this season. (By comparison, 141 concussions were reported in the 2006 season.)

At the same time, there has been a sharp jump in the number of days of practice and games missed. In 2006, the league said, the median was an average of half a day missed with a concussion. In 2009, the average was three days. This season, it was six days.

“One year is just that, it’s one year; we’re not declaring victory over concussions,” said Jeff Pash, the N.F.L.’s executive vice president and general counsel. “We still need to make sure that we don’t have underreporting. There are some players who I suspect are reluctant to report — we’ve seen statements to that effect. We want to encourage players and medical staffs to be alert to the issue. Over all, if the data continues this way, it will suggest that changes in rules enforcement have been constructive and helpful.”

The N.F.L. and the players union are considering a plan to allocate a large portion of the $100 million committed to medical research in the collective bargaining agreement to the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health, to finance research into issues like concussions and orthopedics, Pash said.

“It’s a series of steps,” Pash said. “There’s no magic bullet. There’s no Harry Potter waving of the wand that eliminates injuries. The goal every day is to try to come up with ways to make the game safer.”

That, of course, is the message the commercial is trying to deliver. On the N.F.L.’s biggest day, the league is taking a big chance about how the message will be received.

“The one kind of black eye the N.F.L. has is probably the health of its players, and this is a great opportunity to target soccer moms who let their kids play,” said Brad Adgate, the senior vice president of research for Horizon Media. “The object of the Super Bowl ad is not only to be entertaining, it’s also to sell a product. This is a subject the N.F.L. has been very touchy about.

“Finally, they have adjusted that this is a serious issue. Maybe it’s best they adjust it on their terms rather than somebody else doing it for them.”

This article was written by Judy Battista and appeared in the New York Times.