Concussion protocols need to be followed
Hit on Savage shows how useless rules are without enforcement
Still outraged over how Tom Savage’s concussion was handled by the Houston Texans on Sunday? We all should be.
Many critics again are criticizing the NFL’s in- game concussion- diagnosis protocols for being far too lax, even fraudulent.
That’s untrue, actually. An understandably upset Chris Nowinski, cofounder 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 laying 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 suffering a seizure:
“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,” he wrote.
After playing one more series, Savage was reassessed on the sideline and then removed from the game. The message from the Texans is that neither coaches nor medical personnel saw Savage temporarily exhibit those signs on the field, nor saw TV replays. Team doctors are supposed to have such video access on the sideline.
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 s have brought to bear on top leagues and thanks to the bright light he and others have shone on the neurodegenerative brain disease CTE. But the fact is there’s little wrong with the NFL’s in- game concussion protocols that honest, earnest, relentlessly aggressive implementation cannot fix.
Somehow, though, a handful of egregious missed concussion incidents a year occur.
As Postmedia reported in August, the NFL this season has upgraded both its sideline and locker- room in- game concussion protocols to be in line with the leaders in the world of sports.
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 test known as SCAT 5, published in April on recommendations made last October in Berlin at the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport.
Furthermore, for the first time this season, an NFL player exhibiting or describing any of three symptoms during a game — loss of consciousness, confusion or amnesia — is 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 — such as 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 and remove him from play?
Savage is only the latest proof that implementation is the crux of the issue for the NFL.
Last month, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson apparently wasn’t examined after a nasty head shot before returning to play. The NFL is investigating.
If a player can convulse for all the world to see but go back into a game moments later, or do likewise after appearing hurt or in obvious distress after a head hit — as we still see multiple times a season — then what’s the point of the protocol?
Two or three times a year, egregious incidents occur where concussed players 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 no longer can 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 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 will finally stop.