NFL's Ben Roethlisberger and Others Should Be Asking Why?

Dr. Johnny Benjamin, director of Medical Specialty Procedures Surgery Center, Vero Beach, has worked with light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver and many other boxers: "If you look at Peyton Manning's helmet, it comes down lower than jaw line. Part of the problem is taking a punch to chin. As we've seen with boxers, a guy who takes a punch to the chin goes down. It's the same with a football player. A key brain stem lives behind the jaw, and controls many functions of the body. So helmets should protect below the chin."

But a helmet can't, because chin-strap anchoring systems channel forces to the skull base, via the mandible.

Patriots team dentist Gerald Maher said NFL research showed that 70 percent of concussions are the result of blows to the jaw. But he said not a single jaw expert was invited to the conference.

Maher has been in contact with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and had been asked to submit his research to a group out of Ottawa, Canada called Biokinetics. Still, he feels his efforts have been stymied.

"They are working on dummies, and I am 100 percent opposed to working on dummies with this device," he said. "You need to individualize this, and you can't do that with a dummy. I think working with them will be a waste of time."

Maher has been outfitting Patriots players with his mouth guards since the early 1980s and said that 40 current members of the team wear them. Johnson wore one and has stated he has no neurofibulary tangles, known precursors to Parkinson and dementia, this could be a marker crucial to soldiers in Iraq subject to the same type of chin strap forces on the jaw.

Depression, suicide, and concussion rates in soldiers have been the highest in the history of warfare, due to the tactic of the unexpected IED blast.

"To not have a TMJ [temporomandibular joint] expert on the panel is extremely shortsighted," said Maher. "I don't understand why they don't. It's one of the pieces that we should be looking at. We should be looking at prevention."

Omitting this widely accepted theory in their rhetoric, which is supported by a documented history of use within the NFL, is extremely dangerous to the general public.

Part of the NFL's concussion crackdown, which includes neurological baseline testing for all players, will be to enforce the use of chin straps. Maher said that's more likely to hurt than help, as it locks the jaw in a position where the end of the jawbone can strike the temporal lobe of the brain.

"That's the worst possible physiological position they can put it in," said Maher.

The exact place where Roethlisberger broke his jaw could determine how long healing takes, said Dr. Gerald J. Maher, dentist for the New England Patriots. Jones said Roethlisberger broke his upper and lower jaw.

Maher, who also has worked with injured boxers, said broken jaws can take three to six weeks to heal. However, compromised cartilage structures within the temporal mandibular will never repair themselves.

Only a corrective procedure, developed to align and correct these structures, will help reduce the odds of reoccurring injury. The President of the NHL dental association, along with many other NHL, NFL, NBA and major college dentists have signed on to this accredited certification program, it's a step in the right direction.

A poster presentation, prepared by an NIH consultant was recently accepted by UPMC concussion conference officials. It outlines in detail, this very procedure, yet Roethlisberger has not been fitted with the retainer like mouth guard used by the NE Patriots for over two decades.

Big Ben should be asking why not?

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