Curing the NFL’s biggest headaches
Of all the rotten-news headaches the NFL has endured this season – from the anthem protests, to sliding TV ratings, to another drawnout investigation and suspension of a star player based on shaky evidence — two have throbbed at the temples of league leaders, and outraged fans, for years.
Namely, the “survive the ground” element of the catch rule, and how potentially, even clearly concussed players can still be sent right back into a game, in spite of the adoption of cutting-edge, in-game protocols meant to wipe out such oversights once and for all.
Herewith, a suggested fix for each continuing dilemma.
IN-GAME CONCUSSION PROTOCOL MANAGEMENT
In two disturbing cases, it hasn’t mattered that the NFL this season upgraded both its sideline and locker-room in-game concussion-diagnosis protocols to be in line with the world’s newest and best practices in these areas (SCAT 5, or fifth incarnation of the Sideline Concussion Assessment Tool).
If these, or any, well-intentioned protocols aren’t being properly followed, you get what has happened: two more egregious cases this NFL season of seemingly concussed players allowed right back in to continue playing.
It happened in November with Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson, and two Sundays ago with Houston passer Tom Savage. The league is still investigating both cases.
From a PR standpoint alone, such continuing outrages destroy all the good the NFL is trying to do on this front. Hundreds of concussed players this season might well have been properly diagnosed and carefully tended to, in part thanks to the improved protocols, but until the league eliminates the egregious, unforgettable oversights still occurring every season, then its many critics can, and will, continue to howl. They’ll keep concluding the league’s sincerity in concussion care is a gross sham.
The best way for the league to prove its sincerity would be to introduce a centralized concussion-clearance control centre. Call it the 5C. It would operate along the lines of the centralized replay operation, whereat a qualified, unaffiliated neurotrauma professional (UNP) with extensive experience, and approved by both the league and players union, would be assigned to closely watch each game, via real-time, fibre-optic TV video feed, at a one-room operation in New York City. All such UNPs would, in turn, be overseen on each game day by the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills.
Much like chief replay officials in New York can communicate directly with the referee on the field, so Sills and each game-appointed UNP would communicate with (a) the team doctor overseeing treatment of the potentially concussed player, as well as (b) the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant (UNC) assigned to that sideline.
Crucially, the UNP would ensure the team doctor and sideline consultant are made aware of any concerning on-field incident or behaviour the player might have shown on TV, such as when a FOX camera closeup showed Savage seemingly convulsing two Sundays ago, with stiff, raised arms after the back of his head smashed on the ground following a blistering hit. Apparently, no one on the Houston sideline — medical personnel, coaches or players — was made aware of Savage’s ghastly symptom when doctors quickly cleared him to return to play.
In this suggested new protocol, the UNP in New York would converse with both the team doctor and sideline head-trauma consultant before a player is cleared, either after a sideline symptoms check or full locker-room assessment. And only he or she in New York — with CMO Sills’ knowledge and approval — would provide final clearance for the player to return to play.
The “eye in the sky” athletic trainers’ function at each game would be limited to observing what happens on the field from above, and stopping play as necessary, as before; New York would now handle TV video observation.
That said, New York could only overrule a team doctor and deny a player’s return based on the visual presence of a probable primary concussion symptom, such as the three currently on the mandatory remove-from-game list: Loss of consciousness, confusion or amnesia. Perhaps that list should be expanded to include at least one other: seizure or convulsion-type symptoms.
This system would ensure that in-game concussion-diagnosis protocols are followed to a T, should eliminate any tempting corner-rounding a team’s medical staff might feel pressured into employing in a big game to get a key player prematurely or improperly back onto the field, and in so doing would remove the appearance of medical conflict of interest from the shoulders of team-employed doctors, who, as it is now, solely determine whether a player may or may not return to a game, with only input from the unempowered sideline neurotrauma consultant.
THE CATCH RULE
How about this simple fix? Eliminate entirely the “complete the catch to the ground” element, which so confuses and infuriates everybody.
Defenders of that element’s inclusion, especially competition-committee members going back decades, would counter that eliminating this element would only lead to a lot of incompletions becoming caught-passes-turned-fumbles, which would lead to too many cheap fumble-return touchdowns.
I’m skeptical, even though the competition committee apparently has studies showing that such fumbles and easy scores would instantly becoming epidemic.
“(Former Dallas Cowboys president/GM) Tex Schramm many years ago said the philosophy we ought to follow is we do not want cheap fumbles,” Hall of Fame GM, former long-time competition committee chairman and ESPN commentator Bill Polian told me in a 2015 interview. “Because cheap fumbles do two things.
“No. 1, they turn the ball over, which is not a good thing from an offensive standpoint, and the committee’s charge was always to bend toward offence — to give the benefit of the doubt to the offence.
“Secondly, and most importantly, fumbles in general lead to melees, and melees have the potential for injury.”
On the other hand, doesn’t it seem as though most controversial “complete the catch to the ground” plays come either out of bounds or, as in Sunday night’s Pittsburgh-New England game, after a touchdown was called on the field, and thus the play was blown dead? In both such cases, cheap returns aren’t even possible.
Polian was resolute in defence of pass catchers “surviving the ground” when they go down while attempting to catch a pass.
“We don’t want cheap fumbles. That’s the whole point,” Polian said. “That’s what everybody misses. If you eliminated that, if you say the guy has two feet on the ground, and now is contacted and the ball comes out, what do we have? In every instance, now, we have an incomplete pass … It’s a frequent occurrence. By the competition committee’s philosophy, that’s an incomplete pass — not a fumble.”
Regardless, I say for one season the NFL should experiment with a catch rule where the only two requisites are (a) to secure possession of the football and ( b) to get either two feet or any non-hands body part down in bounds. Period.