Dec 26, 2015 5 min read

If you go to see the movie “Concussion,” chances are pretty good that your opinion about football will change forever.

Especially NFL football.

Will Smith should be nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the former Allegheny County pathologist, who, after his experience with the case of former Steeler Mike Webster, began a study on the long-term brain damage done to professional football players.

Webster is seen at the end of his life, living in his car and addicted to several drugs. Omalu, whose mentor is longtime Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht, played by Albert Brooks, decides to take on the NFL and prove that playing professional football is a bad idea.

Of course, he finds resistance right in the forensics lab from a guy wearing a Steelers shirt under his white doctor’s frock. He tells Omalu that Webster was a great man and the Steelers are the heart of the city.

He even gives a little speech about how the Steelers boosted the morale of the entire region when the steel mills were closing.

Omalu fights on and publishes a paper on CTE -Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – a disease that he finds in the brains of Webster, and former Steelers Terry Long and Justin Strzelczyk, both of whom committed suicide.

The film shows NFL doctors trying to shut him up.

Dave Duerson, a former player who works in the NFL corporate office, calls him a quack.

Dr. Joseph Maroon, one of the most renowned concussion experts in the world and a guy who’s been associated with the Steelers for decades, dismisses Omalu’s theories and, even though he only gets a minute or two of screen time, come across as one of the major villains in the story.

You’ll see lots of familiar NFL Films footage of the 1970s Steelers and some great shots of the city, which always looks good in movies.

I go to a lot of movies but this one was especially interesting to me because I knew – or at least had met – many of the main characters.

I knew Wesbster about as well as a media schlub can know a Steelers star. He and I did some work together for the Spina Bifida Association. And everybody who covered those Steelers teams knew that Webster was one of the smartest, most insightful and interesting guys to interview.

Strzelczyk was also popular with the media because he was accessible, friendly and a little whacky.

Back in 2007, I was hosting a show on 93.7 The Zone, when I saw a story in one of the local papers about a doctor in Pittsburgh who was raising issues about the dangers of football based on his work on the Mike Webster case.

So, I had Omalu on my show.

His accent made him hard to understand, but his story was fascinating. I didn’t think I’d be sitting in a movie theatre eight years later watching Smith capturing that accent beautifully.

My favorite movies are the ones based on true stories, and I’m often disappointed and annoyed by Hollywood’s inability to leave well enough alone. Great stories are almost always embellished just enough to make the audience and critics question their credibility.

Because of that, I have made a habit of waiting until after I’ve seen the movie before researching its authenticity. It allows me to enjoy a lot more movies.

I came out of the theatre on Christmas Day fired up to write a column about the evil of the NFL and the dangers of football.

Then I did some research.

Some key story lines were made up.

I won’t spoil the movie for you with specifics and I wouldn’t want too discourage you from going to see it. In fact, I highly recommend it, but, based on my research into the true story, the NFL has good reason to call foul.

Once again, the truth and nothing but the truth would have made “Concussion” a great movie, and it would have had the same effect that the made up version is bound to have – huge questions being raised about the danger and the long term effects of playing football at a high level for a long time.

But, because of the film makers’ abuse of dramatic license, the NFL has been given a license to dismiss the story as Hollywood hype.

Here’s the NFL’s problem: 99.9% of the people who see “Concussion” will walk out of the theatre thinking that the NFL is an evil corporation made up of owners who did their best to destroy a doctor who was trying to save the lives of the men who had made them billionaires.

They won’t take the time to sort out the truth from the exaggeration or the fantasy.

And it’s hard to imagine any mother coming out of “Concussion” wanting her young son to have anything to do with football.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter