SAFETY IS HIS ONLY CONCERN
CFL point man prioritizing concussion mitigation
The Canadian Football League, which centralized the tracking of injuries five years ago, is reporting a significant drop in concussions between 2015 and 2017.
It sounds like progress, but the league’s point person on the file, Kevin McDonald, knows it’s more important to educate than celebrate.
Reported concussions during the regular season totalled 44 in 2014 and 45 in 2015, then dropped to 32 in 2016 and were at 33 last year.
“I’m happy to say our concussion numbers have gone down,” said McDonald, vice-president of football operations and player safety.
“But it could be that more guys just aren’t telling us, which is why we focus on education in training camp. We walk them through a detailed presentation that reminds them of the importance of letting somebody know if you’re not quite feeling yourself, so it can get looked at and properly assessed and go through the steps that ensure a player has the chance to recover properly.”
It’s a contentious issue and the CFL has been both blamed and lauded publicly for its efforts at concussion mitigation.
The CFL was named in a classaction concussion lawsuit, which the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear in March. The league then received a grievance from the CFL Players Association, alleging the CFL and its clubs are failing to protect players from brain injuries.
The CFL was also complimented by the Canadian and American arms of the Concussion Legacy Foundation for eliminating padded practices during the 2018 regular season and for adding a third bye week to increase rest and recovery time for players. Before this season, the league also adopted rules aimed at eliminating spearing and other dangerous tackles and blocks that have led to concussions and other injuries. And, less conspicuously, McDonald has had his role changed.
“Kevin literally has one thing. He’s player safety now,” said CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie.
“I said to Kevin, ‘Look, nothing can be more important to us than player safety and a demonstration of our willingness to invest in paying attention to this entire area, nothing could be more important.’ And we should put somebody on it who has a great relationship with the players and has the trust and respect of the teams.
“Kevin being taken out of the day-to-day football business is probably less comfortable for him. But being challenged to play a vocal role on player safety is nothing less than, I think, what we owe the game itself.”
McDonald said his focus is collaboration with the players association, team personnel and other leagues on safety initiatives.
Part of the CFL effort is the tracking, sharing and analysis of medical data. CFL teams tracked injuries individually until 2013, when they began working with the same sophisticated software. An outside research team is now crunching those historical numbers and looking for trends. That kind of information can inform rule changes.
So, too, are McDonald’s regular conversations with the NFL, NHL and other contact sports.
“All contact sports are looking at a lot of the same issues, concussion being a big one obviously that pro leagues have a responsibility to manage and deal with properly,” said McDonald. “Part of that is working closely with our players association so players are mindful and understanding of the protocols and the need to be better at reporting if they’re not feeling quite themselves. So it’s a pretty collaborative approach that we take.”
McDonald credits the CFLPA with fostering a change of attitude among players toward collision plays such as the blindside block.
“In reality, those are the big collisions that we don’t need to expose players to. Changes like that are going to take some adjustment and our players have been fantastic, as have our coaches working with them to get them up to the new standard.”