The NFL continues to shoot themselves in the foot with unnecessary mistakes. This one is a doozy though, even by NFL standards. According to an Outside the Lines ESPN report, the NFL offered a $16 Million donation to a government run National Institute of Health (NIH) brain study, which they then took back after they decided they did not like the person chosen to head the study.
The absurdity of this is pretty clear, they wanted the good press of the donation but only if they had somebody they trusted doing the research. When the NIH announced that Neurodegenerative disease specialist Robert Stern was the person in charge of the study, the NFL decided that the NIH could not use their money for the research because of a perceived bias against them.