What happened in a congressional committee on Monday has been called a “stunning admission”; a “watershed moment”; and a “milestone.”

The moment between Jeff Miller, the National Football League senior vice president for health and safety, and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce will be parsed and dissected and walked back and gamed forward. It’s going to be exhausting to watch.

But at the end of the day, it was an important moment.

Never before has an NFL official acknowledged a direct link between football-related head trauma and a degenerative disease — chronic traumatic encephalopathy — that can only be diagnosed after death. The disease is associated with symptoms like depression, memory loss and dementia, and has been found in the brains of several high profile former NFL athletes like Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, both of whom committed suicide.

Even if people had dared to hope the NFL would at acknowledge the issue of brain injury, as a spokesman did in 2009 in comments to the New York Times, never in their wildest dreams did they think it would evolve into this. Miller isn’t a team doctor or some random league spokesman. He’s the NFL’s top health and safety executive, and he didn’t parse his words.

But if you’re inclined to believe, or worry, that this moment spells trouble — or even the beginning of the end — for the NFL, then think again. Far from dooming the NFL, Miller’s statements may ultimately end up saving it.

The NFL is a multi-billion-dollar business for a reason: it’s insanely popular, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.

Indeed, in 2015 football remained America’s fastest-growing sport for young players, according to a survey of 30,000 children and teenagers led by Sports Marketing Surveys USA.

Last year, according to the survey, the number of participants in flag and tackle football grew by an average, combined 11.8 percent across all age groups. The only other sport, out of 102 included in the survey, where participation grew was baseball, which posted an average 2.2 percent increase.

That’s obviously great news for football, but buried in that data is a surprising nuance: the engine driving football’s growth in 2015 wasn’t tackle football, but flag football. Among children ages 6 to 14, participation growth in flag football — 8.7 percent— wildly outpaced that of tackle football — 1.9 percent. The same is true of the 15 to 18 age group: flag football participation grew 10.5 percent, while tackle grew 2.5 percent.

The short-term trend is clear: parents and kids love football. But in the conflagration of health concerns swirling around the sport they’re pursuing an alternative, less violent form in increasing numbers.

Truth be told, those young players — from so-called midget teams through high school and college leagues — should have been the focus of this conversation from the beginning.

NFL players are adults protected by a union. They are educated on brain injury and get paid often exorbitant sums of money to do a dangerous job. The same cannot be said of the children and student athletes who take the field each week in imitation of their idols.

As Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, said Monday after she got Miller to acknowledge the link: “What the American public need now is honesty about the health risks and clearly more research.”

Yes, please; and step on it.