NFL says concussions increased slightly in 2019

NEW YORK – The NFL released data Thursday afternoon that showed reported concussions in 2019 increased slightly from the previous season. League executives, however, expressed optimism about what they called “a new bench mark” in concussion frequency, based on an overall trend of reductions from the 2017 season.

There were 224 reported concussions in both the preseason and regular season in 2019, up 4.7 % from 214 in 2018. The figure from this season, though, was still 20.3% lower than the number of reported concussions (281) from the 2017 season.

NFL teams showed a reduction of reported concussions from practices in both the preseason and regular season from 53 in 2018 to 39.

The data was released as part of a small media briefing held inside the league’s offices in midtown Manhattan.

“In validating last year’s drop in concussions, the NFL is setting a new bench mark,” Jeff Miller, executive vice president of health and safety for the NFL, said Thursday in a small news conference.

“From here on, we are going to be driving our concussion reduction efforts against that bench mark. Last year’s number was a substantial drop. This year’s number was statically similar to it. We feel that we have found a new place from which we need to continue to push down using our injury-reduction plan, but also looking for new opportunities, whether that be in equipment, in rules, in practice in the space. But we look at this year as a validation of last year.”

After the 2017 season, the NFL instituted a series of rules changes, including placing an emphasis on enforcement of penalties on helmet-to-helmet blows and alterations to the kickoff. Additionally,

the league altered the onside kickoff for the 2019 season in an attempt to reduce violent collisions.

Despite the cautious optimism, however, there was an increase of 24 reported concussions from both preseason and regular season games in 2019 from the year’s previous total, marking a 14.9% rise.

“On the other hand, you can see preseason game concussions went up,” said Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer. “We have spent some time diving into that and what that meant and why that went up. I think one thing we did learn is that players who did not make the roster and participated in preseason games were three times as likely to have a concussion as those who did make the roster, so obviously we have some more work to do there.”

According to Sills, the NFL recorded an all-time high of 19 medical timeouts through the league’s medical spotter program in which an official in a booth can stop play so that a player who might have sustained an injury can be evaluated. Of those 19 evaluations, two were diagnosed with concussions during the game. The previous high was last season, when 16 medical timeouts were taken.

Sills also added that there were 485 total concussion evaluations in 2019.

Tears of the anterior cruciate ligament decreased from 57 to 47 in 2019 over the previous year, a reduction of 15.5%, while tears of the medial collateral ligament also declined to 109 from 132, a 17.4% drop from 2018.

The NFL also will continue to jointly test helmets with the NFL Players Association in laboratory settings and will mandate that players can only wear the group of helmets that perform in the first two tiers of testing.

According to Miller, 99% of players wore helmets in the top-performing grouping, with the other 1% wearing helmets that performed in the second tier.