That is the only thing that is easy about this conversation.

Anybody with a handful of working brain cells knows that football can not only cause concussions, but also multiple lesser bruises and damage to the brain.

Those same folks also have to know that multiple concussions and/or trauma to the brain must create a significant risk for long range and possibly even permanent damage.

Football is bad for the brain and the higher level of competition an individual achieves, the greater risk he is at.

However, because of the relatively short time by medical science standards the medical community has become aware of this cause and effect and the near total lack of any research on preventive measures, there are no treatments or cures for the condition.

The biggest issue as it relates to CTE is it can only be confirmed by studying slices of the brain after a patient is deceased.

Some of the most advanced research has been done by Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neuropathologist who has diagnosed CTE in the brains of 176 people, including those of 90 of 94 former NFL players.

While that is enough to guarantee no one in my family will ever play the game again and it is a stunningly high rate of disease, there is still no “proof” football was the cause and CTE is the effect and it is a stunningly small sample size for what normally passes for medical research.

This conversation has blown up in the last 24 to 36 hours because for the first time, a representative of the National Football League, Senior Vice President of Player Health & Safety, Jeff Miller stated at a roundtable discussion on concussions convened by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce that a link between football and neurodegenerative diseases like CTE has been established.

On Tuesday, the league office issued a statement confirming that Miller’s comments do represent its current position.

The news there is that the NFL is finally acknowledging what most of us have known for a while.

What it means, though, is once again very complicated.

Many have jumped to the conclusion that Miller’s comments could have some impact on a class action lawsuit filed against the league by more than 4,500 retired players against the league for failure to warn the players about the risks of concussions and hiding that information, and the settlement of over $1 billion the two sides reached last year.

I beg to differ.

Neither Miller nor the league has said anything vaguely resembling “Yes, we knew and we hid the information.”

He simply said they now acknowledge what all of us have come to learn in recent years, after the careers of the great majority of the plaintiffs had ended.

More than that, while I feel horrible for any player who may be dealing with CTE or other forms of dementia today, I have always been bothered by the “Team owners and league should have known but of course we didn’t mentality.”

Has anyone who ever played tackle football not understood it’s a potentially dangerous game?

The fact is, this sudden revelation by the league may or may not have an impact on a judge or a jury, and there’s no way to predict how that’s going to go.

Now, the much more interesting and far-reaching concern is finding out at what rate NFL players contract CTE by playing the game, If it’s incredibly high, why would anyone ever play the game again, and why would the team owners continue to accept the potential liability from sponsoring it?

The real questions are, what can the NFL do to survive going forward or should the next office pool be predicting the date of its funeral?

• Pro Football Weekly editor Hub Arkush can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.