Professional football player Aaron Hernandez played for the New England Patriots from 2010 until 2012 when he was infamously convicted for the murder of Odin Lloyd.
Hernandez was drafted in the fourth round at pick 113 in the 2010 NFL draft due to concern about his off-field behavior. The new FX show, “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez”, depicts his upbringing and life leading up to the murder of Odin Lloyd, including his behavioral issues in high school and at the University of Florida.
While the show is fictional and solely for entertainment purposes, it provides an accurate portrayal of Hernandez’s younger years and what prompted his criminal path. This new side of Hernandez’s story is different from the image depicted to viewers of the 2020 Netflix special, “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez”.
The Netflix documentary hones in on the details of the crime and events leading up to Hernandez’s self-inflicted death. Contrarily, the FX show focuses on the periods of Hernandez’s life from middle school and beyond. FX provides a new perspective for viewers by walking them through a more personal perspective of who Aaron was and everything he went through in life.
FX’s view of Hernandez’s story is shown through the way they demonstrate his violence and anger. All of Hernandez’s outbursts come from correlation with head collisions, a detail not necessarily discussed in the Netflix special.
Towards the end of “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez”, the show briefly touches on Hernandez’s brain scans that were conducted after his death. The scans display severe head trauma and lack of development, specifically in the frontal lobe.
CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) is a disease common in football players that is developed from suffering numerous concussions or head traumas. Hernandez very clearly had a severe case of CTE that is believed to have started developing as early as eighth grade.
While CTE is still relatively new and currently under extensive research, it is certainly a possibility the presence of CTE could have been a factor impacting Hernandez’s judgment. “I believe that it is a possibility that the more concussions you have the greater risk you are at to having an altered mental state. Which could lead to uncontrolled anger, violence and abuse,” athletic trainer Jason Viel explained.
Hernandez’s severe CTE may have led to his ultimate lashing out that cost the life of Odin Lloyd. “I don’t think that just the concussions and CTE would have single handedly caused Aaron Hernandez to kill someone but after watching some of the show he seems pretty normal so it doesn’t make sense to me that he’d just kill someone,” senior Addi Ohda said.
Regardless of if Hernandez’s CTE caused his criminal downfall or not, the situation emphasizes the importance of concussion prevention and protocol. “Reporting when you or someone you know isn’t feeling right after a hit to their head or a whiplash type event so that they can be properly treated is vitally important. Receiving the proper care post concussion is another key factor and making sure that those athletes do not return to play while still recovering from a concussion,” Viel expressed.
While there is no excuse for murder, Aaron Hernandez’s case emphasized the importance of concussion prevention, recognition and protocol. To learn more about Aaron Hernandez’s story, tune into FX on Tuesday nights to catch new episodes of “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez”.
