It’s Up to Us Fans to Push the League on Concussions
This morning, I had one of those watershed moments.
Listening to WEEI in Boston this morning on the way to work, former Patriot Linebacker Ted Johnson, and author Christopher Nowinski were in to talk about concussions in sports. The conversation circled around Johnson’s career, the life of some older players and abnormally early onsets of dimentia, what the NFL has (and hasn’t done) regarding concussions, Nowinski’s book Head Games (which sounded very interesting) and last night’s airing of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO, where Ted Johnson (among other players) was interviewed. To learn more about Johnson’s interview, see this report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. For some serious science, see here.
As much as I love the game, I don’t love it enough for people to suffer for the rest of their lives from headaches, depression & early dimentia. The NFL needs to know that fans, as much as we love the game of football, want to make sure it’s as safe and secure for the players who are participating. Nowinski said on the radio that if all consussions were reported all the time, NFL rosters would have to be a lot deeper. Specifically as Jets fans, we also need to make it known to our team that Pellman’s career hasn’t been blameless in this … generally for the league during his tenure as head of the research committee on concussions for 12 years, and specifically in the care of our heroes in Green & White. Just look at Wayne Chrebet’s story if you want to consider how well Pellman was following his sworn Oath to protect his patients … I assume they do take an oath even in Guadalajara.
I haven’t found ways to act on this yet, but I will continue to, if anyone has ideas or knows outlets to get involved in pressuring the NFL in this regard, please let us know.
To learn more about this topic, check out Nowinski’s book, which sounds like an interesting read including case studies, players most likely to be injured and more.
Filed under: Main Page, Opinion
i completely agree that the NFL needs to make some policy changes regarding head injuries.
a good example of a sports league handling head injuries properly is the new MMA league, IFL. one of there fighters suffered a vicious knockout last year, and they gave him a 180 day medical suspension. in the NFL, he would have been forced to play the next week or been subject to ridicule and pressure from coaches and teammates.
Is that Chris Nowinski the former WWE wrestler?
I would consider him a former wrestler rather than an author.
Hey Bent, yes it is. I didn’t know who he was when he mentioned it, as I don’t follow wrestling. Apparently, he wrote the book, based out of his own experience with concussions and the subsequent damage he did by getting back in the ring too early.
i’ve had at least 10 concussions, and i’m the smartest person i know.
the problem with head injuries is that they are often very subjective with regard to severity. sometimes a concussion puts you out for a couple hours, sometimes a couple seconds. it’s hard to put the doctors at fault when most players will be reluctant to acknowledge concussions when there’s mandates that wont let them play after x knockouts…
does anyone else have problems with the comment blocks?? I can’t see the type on the right side after 20 or so words…
Yeah, I get that on IE, but not other browsers.
He is currently still listed as active, but hasn’t wrestled for years although he still works for WWE and sometime appears on the show backstage in a managerial capacity. Last I heard, he was not planning to get back into the ring again, due to the head traumas.
I would say a knockout should be treated as a knockout, it is pretty obvious, players will not be able to hide it.
This is the type of issue that can be exposed by blogs, for the most part the media is in bed with the league on this stuff.
One of the problems is that NFL contracts are not guaranteed so players are reluctant to disclose problems. There should be a clause that would guarantee payments of existing contract if an injury is incurred on the field which prohibits future participation.
Teams should also get a cap waiver for that contract.
In every other sport concussions are taken way more seriously and I believe the non guaranteed contracts are a major cause, both from the team and players perspective.
A friend of mine is a rugby player and they automatically \”ban\” you for a period of time after a concusiion to make sure you recover fully. However, he got a concussion and managed to conceal it by simply grabbing onto the nearest guy to him for the remainder of the game and going with the flow. He said he could see two horizons and they were vertical instead of horizontal.
Another friend was concussed when he fell and hit his head at a basketball game, but he had to drive us home (50 miles). I guess this was not as serious, but he was pretty sick.
I’ve been concussed a couple times in football, but most memorably the evening before Jet-Bills in 2004 or 5, in Buffalo, drinking too much and falling backwards into a table. I do remember testaverde throwing a horrible pick, mawae fumbling a snap, and kelly holcomb playing like peyton manning.