pellman is not a neurosurgeon, he's not a neuro-anything.eumatologist. >> putting a rheumatologist in the head of a committee that arguably was going to have more influence over brain research than any particular institution in the country at the time was, i think a lot of people felt, surprising. >> narrator: most of pellman's committee was made up of nfl loyalists. nearly half the members were team doctors. >> if you're going to put together a blue ribbon committee to study brain trauma, it should have as its chair somebody who has that as a background: either a neurologist, neurosurgeon, neuropathologist, preferably a clinician. >> narrator: for years, pellman's committee would insist they were studying the problem, that the danger from concussions was overblown. >> the way the nfl handled this was for 15 years to do research that looks awfully like it was designed to say that the league was okay in doing what it was doing, which wasn't much, to protect players from the dangers of concussions. >> narrator: pellman's committee began writin