Elliott loses appeal; won’t play Sunday
Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott’s half-season run from his six-game suspension ended Thursday when a federal appeals court refused to let him play while it considers his appeal.
A bespectacled Elliott in a suit and tie sat directly in front of a three-judge panel in New York that considered a request from the NFL Players Association that he be allowed to play. But the court issued an order in less than an hour disqualifying him from Sunday’s game at Atlanta. It appears he’ll miss the rest of November’s games since the court set a Dec. 1 hearing for oral arguments on the merits of the union’s appeal.
The suspension was ordered in August as discipline after the league investigated allegations he used force against his girlfriend in the summer of 2016. Elliott vehemently denied the allegations as recently as last week, saying he was not an abuser.
A federal appeals court last month tossed out his court challenge in Texas, but the league’s request for a New York court to affirm that it had acted properly led a Manhattan judge to rule last month that Elliott must begin his suspension. After the union appealed, the lower-court decision was temporarily stayed, allowing Elliott to play this past Sunday.
Concussions: A video review of 459 reported concussions suffered during the past two NFL seasons has found far more occurred on passing plays than any other plays.
Yet quarterbacks ranked at the bottom of the list, ahead of only kickers, having suffered 5 percent of those concussions.
Nearly half of the 459 concussions (44 percent) were on passes, while 30 percent were on running plays, 21 percent on punt or kickoff returns, 4 percent on sacks and 1 percent on field-goal attempts.
The side of the helmet was the most common impact location at more than 50 percent, while 41 percent of concussions were experienced by a player tackling an opponent rather than by the player being tackled or by someone who was blocking.
A higher percentage of helmet-to-body blows, 45 percent, caused concussions. Also on the rise were helmet-to-ground impacts at 19 percent. Helmetto-helmet blows actually decreased to 36 percent.
The review was overseen by Dr. Jeff Crandall, chairman of the NFL’s Engineering Committee and director of the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia.
Aaron Hernandez suffered the most severe case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy ever discovered in a person his age, damage that would have significantly affected his decisionmaking, judgment and cognition, researchers at Boston University revealed at a medical conference.
Hernandez, a former New England Patriots tight end, hanged himself with a bedsheet in April in a Massachusetts prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2013.
Briefly: The Patriots claimed tight end Martellus Bennett off waivers a day after he was cut by the Packers for “failing to disclose a physical condition.” ... The Colts cut cornerback Vontae Davis one day after he complained publicly about how the team handled his demotion. ... The Browns waived defensive back Ibraheim Campbell with an injury designation.