AL HAMNIK: An issue the NFL must blitz nonstop

Jared Tomich played football at Lake Central, the University of Nebraska and then six full seasons in the NFL. He estimates his total number of concussions to be in "double digits."

He's not afraid, but should he be?

In light of Dave Duerson's shocking suicide and having donated his brain to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, you would think NFL players past and present are agonizing over these issues of mental health.

There have been cases of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy -- CTE -- in the brain tissue of former football players who committed suicide. It is believed Duerson was beginning to experience the "punch drunk" symptoms when he took his life last week at age 50.

Tomich and wife Michaline have a 7-month-old son, Jackson, and if he wants to play when he's much older, his parents won't prohibit it.

"The NFL has been giving us information for probably the past two or three years," Tomich said. "They're trying to figure out what the correlation between not just the really heavy stuff like dementia, which they say (head trauma) contributes to, but they're also saying it contributes to depression in players.

"And when Troy Aikman makes a comment on the air that if he had a 10-year-old boy, he wouldn't allow him to play football because of concussions, that's a big deal. And now you have the thing with Duerson."

CTE is a relatively new term among players. Determining its presence can only be confirmed on a deceased brain.

"I'd be up for (donating mine). Why not? If it gives a little bit of insight and changes something for somebody in the future so it doesn't happen to them, then great," Tomich said.

Pushing 37, the former defensive lineman says there are no side effects physically or mentally from his playing days.

Tomich was well aware of the risk factor as a player and gets upset when he hears others who act as though this is a news bulletin.

"It's risk versus reward and they know that," he said.

Playing on special teams is like skipping through a mine field and that's where most, if not all, Tomich's concussions occurred.

"You run downfield like a nut. You're running 100 miles an hour and then you run into somebody," Tomich said. "From what I can remember, most of my concussions were on special teams. Ha, from what I can remember."

He had to chuckle, hearing what he had just said.

The fact Duerson, a former safety, took his own life with a bullet to the heart, shocked Tomich and left him shaken to the brink of disbelief.

"He was a man. He played his position like people want to play that position. He was a tough, hard-nosed guy," Tomich said.

CTE is like a live bomb buried on the battlefield. It can go off at any moment.

And until there are answers given, we can only brace for the next explosion.

This column solely represents the writer's opinion. Reach him at al.hamnik@nwi.com.