Concussions: Are players enemies of their own – Part One
Concussions and controversies around them have remained the highlight of the injuries to the National Football League (NFL) players during the last season. They had probably been so in all past seasons, consistently.
A number of players suffered the head injuries during and after the 2011 NFL regular season. Among them, the prominent was of the concussion suffered by Cleveland Browns’ quarterback, Colt McCoy.
McCoy had been inflicted the injury as a result of a helmet-to-helmet hit on him by Pittsburgh Steelers’ linebacker, James Harrison.
Harrison is one of the most daring and rough tacklers. He has single-handedly knocked down as many as three Browns players during past two seasons.
He eventually became the only player to have been handed down a game suspension by the NFL, under its enhanced players’ safety measures.
The office came under the fire for being too lenient over the foul, which was the player’s fifth in two years.
Even more criticism was on the Cleveland Browns for the way they had handled injury of their player. Browns were found responsible for sending back McCoy to resume his game without testing him for concussion on the sidelines.
The NFL and NFL Players Association (NFLPA) initiated a joint inquiry of their faculties and found Browns system failure as the main reason beyond the controversial handling of the head injury of their player.
The team management excused that their medical staff and trainers could not witness the hit on McCoy and realise its impact for being busy in attending to other players on the sidelines.
So it was yet again that the concussion had brought a criticism on the league over handling of the injury.
At the end it resulted in one positive step towards a solution to them that the league office immediately introduced appointment of an athletic trainer at Press Box during each game.
The trainer is mandated to assist teams’ medical staff on the sidelines in monitoring, assessment and treatment of players for concussion.
It was something long in demand and awaited by the league’s players over controversial handling of concussion by their teams and possibility of the players being able to continuing playing in spite of concussions.
Another perspective of the measures was that many players have been disclosed to preferring hiding of their head injuries to keep their chances of playing without disruption well intact.
The likelihood of players being responsible of hiding their head injuries, apparently ignoring their long-term negative outfall, was confirmed by a recent survey by the American newswire, Associated Press (AP).
A number of players were questioned about their being likely to hide their head injuries so that they are not out of the game and the league, and surprising a majority of them hinted at the possibility.
One of them was Maurice Jones-Drew, the Jacksonville Jaguars' running back, who said positively that he will “hide it.”
This is something also endorsed by Cleveland Browns’ wide receiver, Josh Cribbs, who himself had become a victim of head injury.
He said that a majority of the league players who suffer head injuries like to hide it to just continue playing the game of football.
So, does this lead to a conclusion that players are enemies of their own, as the head injury is something so serious, especially in the face of its long-term effects on the mental health of the players, that would go ignoring it at all. Or, there are other
perspective to them?
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