BRADY, BREES CAN SET EXAMPLE FOR OTHERS

Admitting they had concussions would show true toughness, writes Sally Jenkins.

Isn’t it fun, this game of hide-and-seek NFL quarterbacks are playing with concussions?

Maybe Tom Brady had one, maybe he didn’t — find his symptoms, win a prize. Drew Brees says he would conceal one from his wife, which conjures an image of him popping in and out of a closet while she looks for him behind the kitchen door.

Excuse the sarcasm; it’s a result of exasperation. If Brady and Brees want to calculate the exchange rate between winning a game and how many neurons must be sacrificed to stay on the field, that’s their choice. The problem is they have signalled to millions of high school and college football players that hiding symptoms is what the great ones do, and that it’s OK not to tell the woman in your life or to tell her to keep quiet about it, even though she may have to wipe food from your chin one day.

NFL players have a difficult calculation to make in weighing the cost versus benefit of reporting a concussion. Factors affecting their willingness to be honest range from letting down teammates, to how receptive their coach is to injury reports, to their own flawed perception of how serious their symptoms are.

Then there are contractual issues. Have a few too many “dings” on your chart and you could feel the headache in your next salary negotiation or be on your way out of the league like Wes Welker.

“The unfortunate part of concussion awareness is that the financial consequences at the NFL level for reporting them have gone through the roof,” says Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation.

But if anyone has leverage in this situation, Brady and Brees do. This is the perfect moment for a new message, a more honest, if complicated, answer from players who are influencers. Honest is what Gisele Bundchen tried to be on CBS This Morning, when she said her husband has played with head injuries and had one just last season.

“I mean, we don’t talk about — he does have concussions,” she said.

The responses she prompted have not been especially informative. The NFL said there are no “records” indicating Brady had any kind of head injury, while his agent Don Yee said Brady was not formally “diagnosed” with one. Brady has been silent. If only someone, a Brady or a Brees, would say: “Yeah, I played through a concussion. It was a poor decision I made because I felt responsible to so many other people whose livelihoods depend on the game’s outcome. I won’t know for years whether it was the wrong decision for my longterm health, but what I do know is that no one at the high school or college level should ever make the decision I made, because protecting against neurological diseases is not about eliminating one big hit, but reducing the number of smaller blows you take over a career.

“That’s why I’ll pull my kids from a game the minute they see stars, and why they won’t be allowed to play tackle football before the age of 14. I advise you to do the same with yours.”

But that was not said. Instead, Brees acknowledged he played with a concussion in 2004 with the Chargers even though, “I knew something was not right.”

Lions receiver Calvin Johnson said he had multiple concussions over his nine-year career even though he never submitted himself to treatment.

“I got a job to do,” he said. “The team needs me.”

Ben Roethlisberger is the rare exception, the player who pulled himself from a game, but even the Steelers quarterback admitted to Sports Illustrated, “I haven’t reported things before, either.”

The subtext? “I’m too important to come off the field.”

It’s a tremendous missed opportunity. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Neurotrauma showed only one in six football concussions is diagnosed, and now we know why. The study surveyed 730 college players and found that for every concussion they reported to their team, they experienced 21 “dings” or symptoms they failed to report.

That’s the NFL ethos, leaching down to players who aren’t being paid, for whom football is a game, not a job. Denial is simply the thing to do.

This is a failure on the part of NFL players. It’s not a form of strength; it’s weakness — and dumbness and egotism — based in a deep-seated fear of someday being replaced on the field.

The NFL as an organization has tried to change the culture of “playing through” concussions. It has hired certified independent neurologists. It has stationed spotters in press boxes. It has increased penalties for vicious headhunting and put limits on practice time and contact drills.

But what does that matter if a player won’t meet the eyes of his own wife?