Safety: it’s not just a guy in the defensive secondary
Recent medical summit focused on keeping players healthy
ORLANDO, Fla. — The NFL has implemented new rules, banned another type of tackle and introduced equipment aimed toward improving player safety.
Keeping players healthy has been a priority for a league that had so many star players suffer significant injuries in 2023. Aaron Rodgers, Joe Burrow, Kirk Cousins and Justin Herbert — four franchise quarterbacks — combined to miss 36 games. They were just a handful of the high-profile players to finish the season on injured reserve, though overall, NFL players missed a combined total of 700 fewer games in 2023 than in 2022.
Figuring out the best ways to help players stay on the field is a collaborative effort for the league and its teams, so the NFL last month held a combined medical summit believed to be the first of its kind in any sport.
While owners, general managers and coaches gathered for the league’s annual spring meeting at a resort 18 miles away, more than 400 athletic trainers, equipment managers, strength and conditioning coaches, nutrition experts and sports science directors came together to learn from each other and from the league’s research partners.
“It’s not just team doctors or athletic trainers, all these different disciplines really see themselves as part of our health and safety effort,” Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told the AP. “Clubs see themselves very holistically and nowadays, as coaches start to plan practice schedules and start to plan training camp, they really engage these different disciplines and they do it through the lens of what might be driving injury.
“Obviously, coaches want to get their teams ready to play, but they also want to make sure they’re as healthy as possible. And so that’s really where we’re looking at these interventions. How can we collectively, whether it’s through our medical care or equipment or nutrition or strength and conditioning efforts, what do we do collectively that increases player availability and reliability?”
Injury prevention was a major focus of the four-day summit that featured members of the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society, the Professional Football Equipment Managers Society, the Professional Football Performance Coaches Association and the Professional Football Registered Dietitian Society.
EAGLES: Philadelphia agreed to terms with wide receiver DeVonta Smith on a three-year contract extension through the 2028 season on Monday.
The move included the Eagles picking up the fifth-year option on Smith’s 2025 season.
Smith has 240 receptions for 3,178 yards and 19 touchdowns in three seasons with the Eagles. Smith was the 2020 Heisman Trophy winner who helped Alabama win two national championships in his four seasons with the Crimson Tide.
He’ll get a reported $75M contract extension that includes $51M guaranteed with his new deal. His best season came in 2022 when he helped lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl with 95 catches and 1,196 yards.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid said Monday that wide receiver Rashee Rice, who is facing charges that include aggravated assault as a result of a sports car crash in Texas, would participate in the team’s voluntary offseason program beginning this week.
Dallas police allege that Rice, the Chiefs’ top wide receiver last season, and a friend, Theodore Knox, were driving at high speed in the far left lane of a freeway when they lost control. The Lamborghini that Rice has admitted to driving hit the center median, causing a chain reaction that involved six vehicles and resulted in injures to multiple people.
Rice turned himself in last Thursday after police issued warrants for one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious bodily injury and six counts of collision involving injury. He was released on bond.
Rice is being represented by Texas state Sen. Royce West, who said in an emailed statement the wide receiver “acknowledges his actions and feels deeply for those injured as a result of this accident,” and that he would continue to cooperate with police.
TEXANS: C.J. Stroud was still asleep in Los Angeles when the news broke that the Houston Texans were trading for star receiver Stefon Diggs.
When the quarterback picked up his phone and saw several messages from friends asking how he was feeling, he thought they were just checking up on him.
He was still half asleep when he responded to about five such texts with some version of: ‘I’m good fam, how are you?’”
A few minutes later he got up, brushed his teeth, washed his face and checked social media.
“Then I seen the news … and I’m like: ‘oh shoot, that’s what they’re talking about,’” Stroud said with a laugh Monday.