Who believes that New NFL concussion guidelines are a play-fake?”
Todd Essig Simu-Nation Dec. 6 2009 New NFL concussion guidelines are a play-fake Fake the handoff, look-off a linebacker, and then fire a perfect spiral (hopefully) while the defense chokes on the big plate of red herrings you dished up. Football is part force, part chess, part con-game. Unfortunately, the business of the game follows the same pattern; protect the game at all costs, even if it cynically puts players’ brains at risk, from the smallest pee-wee who looks about to topple over from the weight of his helmet to concussed Super Bowl quarterbacks. Traumatic brain injury and professional football is impossible to ignore, at least after Wayne Chrebet’s wobbly retirement, the Andre Waters suicide, and the excellent “Game Brain” expose in GQ. And the NFL macho culture of shaking-it-off permeates football at every level. So when new return-to-play guidelines were issued this week your might think, “finally!” The National Football League on Wednesday announced that it would impose it
Is the NFL’s new concussion rule the answer to the overwhelming amount of head injuries that are taking place in the 2009 season? No, but it is a step in the right direction by the league and the NFLPA. But to see this as a solution would only scream ignorance on both the league and the players. Brian WestbrookAPBrian Westbrook is one of a handful of big names to have suffered a head injury this season. Concussions are going to happen in football—at any level. Just as we see them on Friday nights, we will see them on college football Saturdays. And, of course, the amount we see in the NFL is enormous, but that is football at this level. It is fast, it is big and it is as violent as it gets down on those fields on Sunday afternoons. We have seen the new helmets and the flags that are thrown—along with the fines—for helmet-to-helmet contact, but they still continue. And we are now, and only now, seeing this come to the front page of our daily newspapers because of the big names it is aff
