Some NFL players still willing to hide concussions

By HOWARD FENDRICH

AP Pro Foot­ball Writer

Ask Jack­sonville Jaguars run­ning back Mau­rice Jones-Drew whether he would try to play through a con­cus­sion or yank him­self from a game, and he’ll pro­vide a straight­for­ward answer.

“Hide it,” the NFL rush­ing leader said.

“The bot­tom line is: You have to be able to put food on the table. No one’s going to sign or want a guy who can’t stay healthy. I know there will be a day when I’m going to have trou­ble walk­ing. I real­ize that,” Jones-Drew said. “But this is what I signed up for. Injuries are part of the game. If you don’t want to get hit, then you shouldn’t be playing.”

Other play­ers say they would do the same: Hide it.

In a series of inter­views about head injuries with The Asso­ci­ated Press over the last two weeks, 23 of 44 NFL play­ers — slightly more than half — said they would try to con­ceal a pos­si­ble con­cus­sion rather than pull them­selves out of a game. Some acknowl­edged they already have. Play­ers also said they should be bet­ter pro­tected from their own instincts: More than two-thirds of the group the AP talked to wants inde­pen­dent neu­rol­o­gists on side­lines dur­ing games.

The AP spoke to a cross-section of play­ers — at least one from each of the 32 NFL teams — to gauge whether con­cus­sion safety and atti­tudes about head injuries have changed in the past two years of close atten­tion devoted to the issue. The group included 33 starters and 11 reserves; 25 play­ers on offense and 19 on defense; all have played at least three sea­sons in the NFL.

The play­ers tended to indi­cate they are more aware of the pos­si­ble long-term effects of jar­ring hits to their heads than they once were. In a sign of the sort of progress the league wants, five play­ers said that while they would have tried to con­ceal a con­cus­sion dur­ing a game in 2009, now they would seek help.

“You look at some of the cases where you see some of the retired play­ers and the issues that they’re hav­ing now, even with some of the guys who’ve passed and had their brains exam­ined — you see what their brains look like now,” said Wash­ing­ton Red­skins line­backer Lon­don Fletcher, the NFL’s lead­ing tack­ler. “That does play a part in how I think now about it.”

But his team­mate, backup full­back Mike Sell­ers, said he’s hid­den con­cus­sions in the past and would “highly doubt” that any player would will­ingly take him­self out of a game.

“You want to con­tinue to play. You’re a com­peti­tor. You’re not going to tell on your­self. There have been times I’ve been dinged, and they’ve taken my hel­met from me, and … I’d snatch my hel­met back and get back on the field,” Sell­ers said. “A lot of guys wouldn’t say any­thing because a lot of guys wouldn’t think any­thing dur­ing the game, until after­ward, when they have a headache or they can’t remem­ber cer­tain things.”

San Fran­cisco 49ers defen­sive line­man Justin Smith cap­tured a pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment: Play­ers know of the poten­tial prob­lems, yet would risk fur­ther damage.

“It doesn’t take a rocket sci­en­tist to fig­ure out if (you have) a con­cus­sion, you’re prob­a­bly dam­ag­ing your brain a lit­tle bit. Just like if you sprain your wrist a bunch, you’re going to have some wrist prob­lems down the road. Yeah, I’d still play through it. It’s part of it. It’s part of the game,” Smith said. “I think if you’re notice­ably messed up, yeah, they’ll take you out. But if you’ve just got some blurry vision, I’d say that’s the player’s call. And most guys — 99 per­cent of guys in the NFL — are going to play through it.”

Smith said he sus­tained one con­cus­sion in high school (“You don’t know who you are,” is how he described it) and another in col­lege (“Walk­ing around the whole time, but I don’t remem­ber any­thing until six hours later”).

The NFL likes to say that views about con­cus­sions have shifted from sim­ply accept­ing they’re part of the sport to doing what’s pos­si­ble to lessen impacts. Com­mis­sioner Roger Good­ell talks about “chang­ing the cul­ture,” so play­ers don’t try to “walk it off” after tak­ing hits to the head.

Yet the AP’s con­ver­sa­tions with play­ers showed there is room for more adjust­ments, which did not sur­prise Dr. Richard Ellen­bo­gen, co-chairman of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee.

“The cul­ture change takes awhile,” Ellen­bo­gen said in a tele­phone inter­view. “Why would these guys want to go out? They love play­ing the game. They don’t want to leave their team. They want to win. I under­stand all that. And that’s why we have to be on our toes with com­ing up with exams that are hard to beat, so to speak.”

New Orleans Saints offen­sive line­man Zach Strief put it this way: “We all grew up with, ‘Hey, get back in there. You (only) got your bell rung.’ And while it’s chang­ing now, I think it’s going to take time for the mind­set to change.”

A few play­ers said they’d be par­tic­u­larly inclined to hide a con­cus­sion if it hap­pened in a play­off game or the Super Bowl. Some said their deci­sion would depend on the sever­ity of a head injury — but they’d hide it if they could.

Clearly, there is a stigma asso­ci­ated with leav­ing the field, no mat­ter the rea­son. Indeed, one player who said he’d exit a game if he thought he might have a con­cus­sion didn’t want to be quoted on the subject.

Other find­ings from the interviews:

—Asked whether the NFL should have inde­pen­dent neu­rol­o­gists at games to exam­ine play­ers and deter­mine if they should be held out because of con­cus­sions, 31 play­ers said “yes,” and 10 said “no.” Three didn’t answer.

“They’ve got guys look­ing at your uni­form to make sure you’re wear­ing the right kind of socks,” St. Louis Rams safety Quintin Mikell said. “Why not have some­body there to pro­tect your head? I think we def­i­nitely should have that.”

He said he’s tried to clear his head and stay on the field “many times.”

“I’ll prob­a­bly pay for it later in my life,” Mikell said, “but at the same time, I’ll prob­a­bly pay for the alco­hol that I drank or dri­ving fast cars. It’s one of those things that it just comes with the territory.”

—Specif­i­cally regard­ing con­cus­sions, 28 of the 44 play­ers think play­ing in the NFL is safer now than in 2009, while 13 think it’s the same, and two think it’s more dan­ger­ous. One wasn’t sure. Those who think safety has improved gave credit to the rise in aware­ness; more fines for ille­gal hits; this season’s changes to kick­off rules that have cut down on the num­ber of returns; and the new labor contract’s reduc­tion in the amount of con­tact allowed in practice.

“When I first came into the league, it was like, ‘What­ever goes.’ It was more of that old-school, just ‘beat-him-up’ foot­ball. Not want­ing to hurt any­body, but show how tough you were. Back in the day, it was like if you come out (of a game) with (a) slight con­cus­sion, then you weren’t giv­ing it all for your team,” Buf­falo Bills line­backer Andra Davis said. “But now, they’re tak­ing that option away from you.”

Davis, a 10th-year vet­eran who turned 33 on Fri­day and said he’s had a cou­ple of con­cus­sions, is one of those whose view on seek­ing help for such injuries has changed.

“The younger me would def­i­nitely hide it,” Davis said. “But the older me now — with wife and kids and look­ing more at life after foot­ball — I would say some­thing about it.”

—Asked whether more can be done to pro­tect play­ers from head injuries, 18 play­ers said “yes,” and 24 said “no.” Two did not respond.

Not sur­pris­ingly, there were divi­sions accord­ing to posi­tion, and play­ers on oppo­site sides of the ball gen­er­ally drifted toward oppos­ing views: Those on offense seemed more likely than those on defense to say more can — and should — be done to improve safety. Line­men, mean­while, often com­plained that there is no way to improve their plight, with the helmet-to-helmet bang­ing that takes place at the snap on play after play. One player described those col­li­sions as “micro-episodes that build up over time.”

Nearly three-quarters of the play­ers who told the AP they think safety can improve — 13 of 18 — sug­gested equip­ment can be improved, too. Hel­met tech­nol­ogy, mouth guards and chin straps all were mentioned.

Two play­ers sug­gested more edu­ca­tion about con­cus­sions is needed.

Dr. Robert Cantu, a senior adviser to Ellenbogen’s NFL com­mit­tee who said he is con­sulted reg­u­larly by the league, insisted that while there has been progress, there is still work to be done.

“Has there been a cul­ture change over­all? I think the answer is, unques­tion­ably, ‘yes.’ Could there be more done? Yes. Do all the play­ers get it? No. Do they want to get it? No,” said Cantu, a clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­ro­surgery and co-director of the Cen­ter for the Study of Trau­matic Encephalopa­thy at Boston Uni­ver­sity School of Medicine.

CTE is a degen­er­a­tive dis­ease increas­ingly found in foot­ball play­ers and other ath­letes who have absorbed repeated blows to the head. It has been linked to mem­ory loss, dis­ori­en­ta­tion, poor decision-making, and depres­sion that can lead to drug use and, as in the case of for­mer Chicago Bears defen­sive back Dave Duer­son, even suicide.

The league dis­trib­uted infor­ma­tional posters in 2010 to warn about the dan­gers of head injuries, but Cantu said: “Just because the posters are in every locker room, it’s not manda­tory read­ing. Or peo­ple can say they read it but not really have read it.”

“More stress needs to be placed — and I believe this is the play­ers association’s respon­si­bil­ity as much as it is the NFL’s — on the dan­gers of play­ing symp­to­matic with a con­cus­sion and more knowl­edge needs to be imparted on chronic trau­matic encephalopa­thy, which obvi­ously does exist in the NFL. … All of those sub-concussive blows count, and you need to min­i­mize the amount of brain trauma that you take,” Cantu said.

Union spokesman George Atal­lah declined a request for com­ment about concussions.

Little-discussed until report­ing by The New York Times led to an Octo­ber 2009 con­gres­sional hear­ing on con­cus­sions in the NFL, head injuries are now part of the daily con­ver­sa­tion about pro­fes­sional foot­ball. On Sat­ur­day alone, two start­ing quar­ter­backs, Cleveland’s Colt McCoy and Arizona’s Kevin Kolb, sat out because of head injuries, while a third, Minnesota’s Chris­t­ian Pon­der, left his team’s game with what his coach called “con­cus­sion­like symptoms.”

Accord­ing to data from STATS LLC, from 2000-09, an aver­age of 3.1 NFL play­ers — and never more than nine in an entire sea­son — went on injured reserve because of a con­cus­sion or head injury. That num­ber rose to 18 last sea­son, and stood at 17 through Week 15 this season.

Sim­i­larly, STATS LLC said, over that same 10-year span at the start of the cen­tury, an aver­age of 26 NFL play­ers each sea­son were listed on the weekly injury report and missed games because of a con­cus­sion or head injury. That num­ber rose to 89 in 2010, and stood at 75 this sea­son through games Saturday.

At least eight law­suits have been filed against the NFL in recent months — includ­ing three within the last week — by dozens of for­mer play­ers who say they have med­ical prob­lems related to brain injuries from their time in pro­fes­sional foot­ball. The NFL’s stance, in part, is that play­ers knew there were risks of injury, and there was no mis­con­duct or lia­bil­ity on the league’s part.

“It’s a phys­i­cal sport. Guys are going to get hit in the head. When we’re young, when we start play­ing this sport, we know what we’re get­ting into,” Philadel­phia Eagles tight end Brent Celek said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m going to play this because my head’s going to be fine when I’m done play­ing.’ It’s a risk you take play­ing this game, but I think the league is doing every­thing in their power to make it as safe as possible.”

The NFL cer­tainly has found itself adjust­ing on the fly.

One exam­ple: After San Diego Charg­ers offen­sive line­man Kris Diel­man got a con­cus­sion but stayed in the lineup in Octo­ber, then had a seizure on a team flight, the NFL said it would give game offi­cials “con­cus­sion aware­ness train­ing” so they could keep an eye out for players.

A few play­ers inter­viewed by the AP men­tioned the recent case of Cleveland’s McCoy, who has missed two con­sec­u­tive games after a shot to the hel­met from Pitts­burgh Steel­ers line­backer James Har­ri­son. McCoy was not checked for a con­cus­sion dur­ing the game against Pitts­burgh and went back in; Har­ri­son was sus­pended for a game; start­ing with this week’s games, the league put cer­ti­fied ath­letic train­ers in booths above the field to watch for injuries. The train­ers aren’t there to diag­nose or pre­scribe treat­ment, the NFL said, but are sup­posed to call down to team med­ical staffs to alert them there could be a problem.

Some think the league could go further.

“I don’t think it’s suf­fi­cient. I think it’s a great first step,” BU’s Cantu said, men­tion­ing a study that showed con­cus­sions were noticed more in junior hockey when there was an observer at the rink.

While Cantu, like play­ers inter­viewed by the AP, is in favor of hav­ing inde­pen­dent neu­ro­sur­geons at games rather than only team-employed doc­tors — some­thing raised as a pos­si­bil­ity in 2009 but never done — NFL com­mit­tee co-chairman Ellen­bo­gen said the more press­ing issue was “the abil­ity to see all the play­ers on the field.”

“Team doc­tors are pretty con­cerned about con­cus­sions, and I don’t think they’re peo­ple that are going to be bought and sold. … If the real prob­lem is the doc­tors are being influ­enced by the coaches, then we’ve got to fix that,” said Ellen­bo­gen, chair­man of the depart­ment of neu­ro­log­i­cal surgery at the Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton School of Med­i­cine. “If the (play­ers’ union) says, ‘We want inde­pen­dent neu­rol­o­gists,’ we’ll dis­cuss that. … To be hon­est with you, we ain’t done. When our com­mit­tee meets with the team physi­cians after the Super Bowl, everything’s on the table. You think this is the last ren­di­tion of what we do? Heck, no. We’re not done.”

As it is, while the play­ers the AP spoke to tend to feel bet­ter about the way con­cus­sions are han­dled now than in 2009, they won’t deny that dan­gers lurk.

“You’re never going to be totally safe from con­cus­sions in this game,” Oak­land Raiders cor­ner­back Stan­ford Routt said. “This is the only place where you can actu­ally legally assault people.”

————

AP Sports Writ­ers Bob Baum, Tim Booth, Tom Cana­van, Chris Dun­can, Josh Dubow, R.B. Fall­strom, Dave Gins­burg, Fred Goodall, Pat Gra­ham, Will Graves, Stephen Hawkins, George Henry, Chris Jenk­ins, Joe Kay, Jon Kraw­czyn­ski, Larry Lage, Mark Long, Rob Maaddi, Michael Marot, Brett Mar­tel, Janie McCauley, Steve Reed, Andrew Selig­man, Dave Skretta, Howard Ulman, Teresa M. Walker, Den­nis Waszak Jr., John Wawrow, Bernie Wil­son, Steven Wine, and Tom With­ers con­tributed to this report.

Posted by AP News on Dec 28 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.