NFL and NFLPA agree to monitor injuries from Press Box – NFL News
The National Football League (NFL) office has decided to monitor players’ injuries from the press box office.
The decision has been taken following an agreement between the NFL, the American football's premier league and NFL Players Association (NFLPA), the representative body of the American professional football players.
Both organizations have agreed to monitor the injuries to players during each game during the regular NFL season. Under the agreement priority will be given to concussion being considered to be of serious nature injuries.
The agreement was reported last week. However, apparently differences have emerged between the two bodies about the timeline for implementation of the monitoring programme.
NFLPA had claimed that NFL office has agreed to place an observer at its headquarters in New York to watch each game at wide screens in the office and monitor the injuries. The Association had claimed that an observer was to be
installed from the past Sunday to start with the programme.
However, NFL office while admitted to have reach an agreement on monitoring of injuries, particularly concussion, said there was no agreement on the timeline.
The NFL office has now sent a memo to all 32 football franchise clubs that to be effective from this Thursday a league observer will be present at the press box during each game to monitor injuries.
The person will be responsible for communicating with sidelines from both teams and alert them immediately in case of an injury. The memo had not mentioned concussion to be the specific injury but both offices have admitted that
concussion injuries will have priority.
"A direct ring-down phone line must be in place from the NFL Observer position in the press box to both the home and visiting bench areas," the memo reads. "This line should be clearly marked on the NFL Observer's phone. The purpose
of the additional phone lines is to allow the NFL Observer to alert the Athletic Training staff to a possible injury that may have been missed at field-level."
Furthermore, the NFL observer at press box can be given recommendations from the NFL command centre in the headquarters if they see an injury or any related situation on their screens.
The memo, signed by the NFLPA medical director Dr Thom Mayer, has also been sent to doctors of all the 32 teams.
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