[stupac2]

Except that the lifetime risk of ALS is 1 in 350 for men, so you would not expect any cases on a football team, and certainly not more than one.  Three sporadic cases in a cohort of 50 or so would be a vanishingly unlikely event.

Eh, it's 0.04% to see 3 or more out of 50 with odds 1/350, which is hardly vanishingly unlikely. There have been something like 1400 team-seasons played in the post-merger era, so seeing that once is close to expected. I suppose if you factor in that current players haven't been playing long enough to see it then it's somewhat less likely, but that's firmly in the area where it could still be a coincidence. (And that's not counting the fact that 50 is almost certainly the wrong number to use, there were probably more than 100 players cycling on and off the team, and assuming none of them got ALS because you would've heard about it, the odds of seeing 3 are more than 0.3%, which is hardly something that's shockingly unlikely.)

[stupac2]

Except that the lifetime risk of ALS is 1 in 350 for men, so you would not expect any cases on a football team, and certainly not more than one.  Three sporadic cases in a cohort of 50 or so would be a vanishingly unlikely event.

Eh, it's 0.04% to see 3 or more out of 50 with odds 1/350, which is hardly vanishingly unlikely. There have been something like 1400 team-seasons played in the post-merger era, so seeing that once is close to expected. I suppose if you factor in that current players haven't been playing long enough to see it then it's somewhat less likely, but that's firmly in the area where it could still be a coincidence. (And that's not counting the fact that 50 is almost certainly the wrong number to use, there were probably more than 100 players cycling on and off the team, and assuming none of them got ALS because you would've heard about it, the odds of seeing 3 are more than 0.3%, which is hardly something that's shockingly unlikely.)