Concussion protocol ignored in playoff games, NFLPA says
HOUSTON Eric Winston is a very large human. He’s listed at 6-foot7 and more than 300 pounds, and when he’s wearing a suit and tie, as he was this week at a press conference for the NFL Players Association, of which he is president, the poor clothes look like they’re straining to hold it together.
Winston is not barrel-chested, he’s hood-of-a-sedan-chested.
All of which is to say Winston, the Bengals tackle, is a pretty good vessel for an ultimatum. And so he was this week, vowing that teams — and players — must do a better job of adhering to concussion protocols instituted in previous seasons.
While NFL commissioner Roger Goodell skated through his media session Wednesday without once having to address the concussion issue, the NFLPA was more than ready a day later to make it a major part of their annual session with the media.
Coming off a playoff season in which there were at least two instances of players — Miami’s Matt Moore and Kansas City’s Chris Conley — who were blasted in the helmet and sat out just one play before returning, Winston said it’s clear the concussion protocols are not always being followed.
The rules allow independent spotters to pull players out of a game for a sideline test, or send the player to the locker-room for further evaluation, at any time, regardless of what coaches or the players might say.
But with the instances involving Moore and Conley, both of which happened during plays on the ball and couldn’t have been missed, the players returned to the field faster than it would even have been possible to run a sideline check. The implication is clear: in a high-stakes playoff game, corners are cut. Winston says that won’t do. “Listen, the medical professionals are there for a reason,” he said to a group of reporters. “We set up a protocol in which unaffiliated people are in the booth, they’re down on the field, they’re down everywhere, to see this. And if they see something, they need to take him out of the game. If that warrants him being taken out of the game, if that warrants a locker-room evaluation, then that needs to happen. If that involves protecting the player from himself, then that’s OK.”
Winston said he has no doubt there has been “a massive culture change” in locker-rooms since he came into the league more than a decade ago, but more change needs to happen.
“It’s easy to (pull out a player) in the first quarter, it’s easy to do it in the second quarter, but now you’re driving down to score possibly before halftime and all of a sudden the guy gets nailed, and he’s back in,” Winston says. “What you want to see is, it doesn’t matter what the score of the game is, it doesn’t matter when it is, what game it is, it has to be adhered to, all of the time, 100 per cent, and we’ve got a long way to go.”
Mark Herzlich, the New York Giants linebacker and a member of the NFLPA executive committee, said he wants to see serious fines levied for teams that don’t adhere to the concussion protocol, as was the case with the Dolphins and Moore, who had blood in his mouth when he returned.
“That’s something that can’t happen,” Herzlich said. “When the TV announcers are saying, ‘Oh, what a hit,’ and they are wondering how the guy is back in there, it’s obvious something is wrong.”
Winston noted that giving a doctor full control of the situation is critical, since the players might not realize they are concussed.
“Sometimes you don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes, your mind is telling you you’re fine.”
DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFLPA, said there were more than 4,900 reportable injuries last season among the 1,800 or so men who played in the league. He said he will continue to push the league’s wealthy owners to invest more in research into new technology and equipment that could help curb concussion rates.
FREENEY HATES TO WAIT
Dwight Freeney, who won a Super Bowl 11 years ago with Indianapolis and is now back with Atlanta, did not hold back on his thoughts about the extra week in between the conference championships and the title game.
“I think the process honestly sucks, because you’re waiting two weeks,” the defensive end said. “It’s not like a bye week where you get to take your mind off of football for just a second, do whatever you want to do. No, it’s like you’re focusing on the game for two weeks straight. You just can’t wait until it gets here, partially just so you can stop talking about it and just do it.”
Just one more sleep, Dwight. One more sleep.