Concussion protocols require due diligence
Hit on Texans quarterback latest incident where rules weren’t followed properly
Still outraged over how Tom Savage’s concussion was handled by the Houston Texans on Sunday? We all should be.
If you haven’t seen video of the incident, go look it up on the web or social media, searching “savage” and “seizure.”
Many critics again are savaging the NFL’s in-game concussion-diagnosis protocols for being far too lax, even fraudulent. Untrue. An understandably upset Chris Nowinski, co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and probably the NFL’s most strident critic regarding its concussion policies and care of the concussed, tweeted the following on Sunday, shortly after TV showed Savage lying on his back in the end zone after getting driven into the turf in Houston, with stiff arms raised and his hands quivering as though in mid-seizure of some kind.
“Disgusted that the Houston Texans allowed Tom Savage to return to the game, two plays after showing these horrific concussion signs (is that a seizure?) after a head impact.
“I would not let my worst enemy go through the 2017 NFL sideline concussion protocol.”
After playing one more series, Savage was reassessed on the sideline and, this time, removed from the game. The message from the Texans is that neither coaches nor medical personnel saw Savage temporarily exhibit such horrific signs on the field, nor saw TV replays. Team doctors are supposed to have such video access on the sideline.
Look, we all have every justification to be disgusted by that turn of events, not just Nowinski.
Every level of sport in North America is safer because of Nowinski, thanks to the persistent pressure he and other critics have brought to bear on top leagues and thanks to the necessary, bright light he and others have shone on the neurodegenerative brain disease CTE.
But there’s little wrong with the NFL’s in-game concussion protocols that honest, earnest, relentlessly aggressive implementation cannot fix.
As Postmedia News was first to report in August, the NFL this season upgraded both its sideline and locker-room in-game concussion protocols to be in line with the world of sport’s newest and best practices in these areas.
Under the direction of first-year chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL this season incorporated lock, stock and barrel the concussion-diagnosis tests included in the fifth and newest version of the international Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT 5), published in April on recommendations made in October 2016 in Berlin at the fifth international consensus conference on concussion in sport.
Furthermore, for the first time this season, an NFL player exhibiting or describing any of the following three symptoms during a game — loss of consciousness, confusion or amnesia — is now immediately deemed to be concussed. In such cases, no sideline assessment is given, the player is to be taken directly to the locker room and his day is done.
Even if a fourth symptom — the presence of seizure-like debilitations such as Savage’s — were added, what would it matter if medical personnel aren’t made aware of such symptoms, and don’t immediately take away that player’s helmet on the spot and remove him from play for the day?
Savage is only the latest, disgusting proof that implementation is the crux of the issue here for the NFL.
Last month, Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson apparently wasn’t even examined after a nasty head shot before returning to play. The NFL is investigating.
If a player can be practically knocked out, or convulse for all the world to see, but then go back into a game moments later, or do likewise after appearing hurt or in obvious distress after head hits — as we still see multiple times a season — then what’s the point of having any protocols at all?
Two or three times a year, egregious incidents occur where concussed players just don’t get spotted right away and they go back into the game. People flip out, protocols get tweaked, then it happens again.
The answer can no longer just be, “It is our obligation to look at where the protocol might not have been followed and just as importantly to see where the protocol can be improved,” as NFL chief spokesman Joe Lockhart said on a conference call with reporters on Monday.
League officials should not only be concerned, but unflinchingly outraged by the Savage incident.
Upgraded protocols mean nothing unless earnestly, wholly and properly implemented. Punish the hell out of the transgressors and these incidents, finally, will stop.