• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, March 30, 2016

In a rather unusual turn of events last week, the NFL ran prominent ads on The New York Times Web site in order to rebut the newspaper’s reporting on the league’s allegedly flawed research regarding concussions.

The placements included banner and right rail ads inviting readers to click to visit pages presenting more detailed arguments against the NYT’s findings.

The original NYT story, “N.F.L.’s Flawed Concussion Research and Ties to Tobacco Industry,” scrutinized the league’s supposedly compromised approach to investigating the connection between concussions sustained by players on the field, which have recently been tired to long-term brain injuries.

The NYT article contended that the NFL systematically undercounted player concussions, leaving out more than 100 documented cases over the study period spanning 1996-2001 — more than 10% of the total study set.

In 2013, the NFL settled a lawsuit by players accusing league officials of covering up the connection with brain injuries for $765 million; the league admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

The story went on to document an alleged connection between the NFL and the tobacco industry, noting that “records show a long relationship between two businesses with little in common beyond the health risks associated with their products.”

The unusual links included employing many of the same lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who apparently shared advice on defending against health claims using questionable science.

The NFL fired back with ads presenting the full findings of its research, inviting readers to read them without the NYT’s journalistic filter. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Wall Street Journal: “We wanted readers to have all the information about all the work that we’ve done to improve the safety of the game. We were concerned that our message was being mishandled by the Times.”

In a nod to the role that social media plays in disseminating news and opinion, the NFL also took out ads promoting its rebuttal on Facebook and Twitter.