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Daily Madden: No Easy Fixes To NFL's Concussion Problem

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - The NFL concussion dilemma will be highlighted again this week with the release of "League of Denial: The NFL Concussion Crisis."

The book is critical of the way the NFL has handled the issue over the years.

"The history isn't a beautiful thing," John Madden told the KCBS Radio morning crew. "I don't think anyone's proud of it, whether it's the players who played or the coaches who coached them or the medical people who took care of them... We have to keep working at it, and discovering new things and new equipment and making new rules."

Madden said there is no easy fix.

"There are so many ways that these things happen... You assume it's all helmet to helmet. There's a lot of (that is) it knee to helmet. There's a lot of it when a guy just leads with his head on a thigh and gets a concussion. A lot of it, it's his own guy. You know they call it pursuit and gang tackle, and that second and third guy in kind of dive bombs, and they'll helmet to helmet their own guy. So it's not as simple as saying if we remove helmet to helmet contact then we're going to get rid of concussions. It's not that easy."

The Cleveland Browns are favored in Thursday night's game against the Buffalo Bills.

"They've done a good job," Madden said. "I think that probably as they were developing and no one was paying attention to them, they got a pretty good defense." (7:10)

Daily Madden

Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 on KCBS All News 740 AM/106.9 FM. And catch John's extra report at 9:15 am Mondays and Fridays on KCBS during the NFL season.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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