"Paper Head," they would call him, mostly because athletes so love to bust on each other over any perceived idiosyncrasy, but Irv Cross' nickname came just as assuredly from the everyday ignorance of things not yet understood.
A couple of things happened this week to illuminate a kind of cultural then-and-now of NFL concussions, with Cross, the late Pro Bowl defensive back and groundbreaking broadcaster getting remembered mostly as one of the game's great gentlemen.
But his brain took such a pounding during nine seasons with the pre-Super Bowl era Eagles and Rams that a postmortem analysis released Tuesday by researchers at Boston University indicated Stage 4 CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), the most debilitating form of dysfunction related to repeated blows to the head.
