WASHINGTON, D.C. -- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made opening remarks at a medical conference Tuesday, seeking further research and developments to combat brain injuries.
The forum, Traumatic Brain Injury in Professional Football, was presented by Johns Hopkins Medicine and attended by NFL team surgeons, NFL Players Association representatives and leading brain experts. It also featured military doctors who are looking for more information to prevent and treat conditions that occur while serving the country.
"This conference is one element on a bigger picture -- player health and safety and our influence as leaders that people are watching very closely," Goodell said in his remarks to the conference.
Dr. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, co-chairs of the NFL's Medical Committee on Head, Neck and Spine, also attended and said that conferences like this are critical to gather more information in their quest to make the game as safe as possible from the youth level on up to the NFL.
"They will schedule their meetings and timelines and decide when information is ready to be made public," Goodell said of the co-chairs. "We are supporting them and giving them full independence and transparency to do their work. And they would not have it any other way."
The conference is taking place at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington and is being attended by roughly 300 people.
