Note to the NFL: Stop Letting People Get Hit in the Head
Concussion is a dirty word in the National Football League. Player safety is great, concussion protocol is not. Bonus timeouts for injured players are awesome but having to sub out your best dude is most definitely not. In recent years all manner of controversies have occurred around the way that the NFL deals with possible brain injuries in its sport and whaddaya know but the 2016 season has started with another.
Cam Newton, reigning MVP and genuine superstar, led the Carolina Panthers against the Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos in a rematch of the big show that ended last season and, mate, he was friggin' massacred. Over and over again. The Broncos clearly targeted him physically and after one particular hit late on in the final drive Newton was lucky to play on at all. But he did, not missing a snap as the Panthers went down 21-20 with Graham Gano slashing a last ditch field goal wide from 50 yards.
The story since then has been partly about Trevor Siemian’s impressive debut start for the Broncos, partly about two quality teams picking up where they left off last time around, partly about the dawn of a new season of games and mostly about the way Newton’s head knocks were dealt with.
Cam Newton: “It’s not my job to question the officials. I really like that officiating crew, so I know it wasn’t something they did intentionally, but it isn’t fun getting hit in the head.”
It was utter madness. Like, a quarterback that plays like Newton does – always willing to run and be physical – is going to put themselves in the line of fire when it comes to a few extra hits here and there. But head to head contact is a foul, that’s very clearly written into the rules and Newton copped four of them in this game for a single flag. And even then it wasn’t exactly punished (hold that thought, I’ll come back to it).
First of all, the obligatory statement of the obvious: Concussions are bad and we don’t wanna see them in any sport. They affect lives well beyond the playing careers of athletes and we’re only just beginning to realise how serious this issue is. Right, that’s out of the way.
Now it’s all well and good for the NFL to say that they want to work to help limit concussions in their sport. Limiting it is all you can do, by the way. It’s a brutal sport that, like boxing or MMA, is always going to have an element of injury to it. What the legal pursuits of the families of the likes of Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, Ray Easterling and literally thousands of others are trying to establish is not that players are getting concussed during games but that the NFL’s lack of resolution about that fact was putting concussed players in unnecessary danger of degenerative brain injuries. Getting concussed on a play and getting straight back up and running head first at a defensive line of 120kg men is not the ideal recovery. One concussion is bad but usually its effects are temporary. Multiple concussions though, that’s when things get truly scary.
Making immense quantities of money off of endangered athletes is what the NFL do, however once the bad press rolls in, suddenly the profits are inhibited and something has to be done. So they got acting.
In 2010 the rules were changed to stop players from leaving their feet to hit defenceless dudes with their helmet. It doesn’t sound like something that needs specific outlawing, but in the NFL this happens all the time. Stupid idiot gridiron act #1: charging at a person head-first. Simply wearing a helmet does not make you invincible and that tackling technique is probably why rugby union appears to have a lower concussion rate than gridiron (although finding proper research that directly compares the two proved elusive, so please don’t be dumb and miss the point of the article because of semantics - concussions are still a major issue in rugby as well).
Also on the NFL’s list of changes over the last five years are stricter fines for players that make contact with a player’s head, changes to allowable formations on special teams and also moving the kick-off forward to induce more touchbacks (and fewer hectic, chaotic kick returns). The NFL also now employs independent medics who themselves have the power to stop the game by calling a medical timeout should they deem that a player needs imminent treatment. I’ll put it this way: they’re trying.
As to whether they’re trying hard enough is another thing, because hits like this do not make for easy viewing.
That Brandon Marshall one was filthy, he launched himself off his feet to hit him in the helmet and not a flag was forthcoming. Newton kept at the refs about the hits but was constantly ignored. The first three times he got hit there was nothing called. Then, with the game on the line and the Panthers trying to drive far enough to get into winning field goal range, came the fourth.
The drive had stuttered along against a great defence and needed a couple cheeky flags to keep it alive but with 42 seconds left and still in their own half, Newton dropped back under big pressure and had to really gun it to avoid the pass rush. He couldn’t. Darian Stewart came flying in and Newton hurriedly threw the ball away to avoid the sack. The hit came high and Newton was down for a good couple of minutes. Two flags were thrown, one for a personal foul on the QB and one for intentional grounding as Newton’s pass hadn’t gotten to the line of scrimmage. The fouls offset and the down was replayed… after Newton had gotten treatment.
The criticism flying in now is that Newton should have been taken out of the game. His coach should have benched him for health reasons or the medical staff should have removed him themselves. That’s always a touchy subject because there’s a double standard there. If some rookie defensive end had gotten the same injury, no doubt they’d have been taken out of the game. But Newton is a star. Taking him out of the game would have massively damaged their chances of winning the game from there – the Panthers would have felt like they were being punished for looking after their own players.
Some things are more important than the game, but if Newton is up and jumping around saying ‘don’t you dare take me out’ then how many coaches would be willing to overrule them? Hence it’s such a difficult balance.
But if you want to understand why this debate persists, just look at the double flags on the Stewart hit. Newton threw the ball away because of the pressure he was under. That pressure then thumped him in the skull. A 5 yard penalty and a loss of down offsetting a 15 yard penalty and a very sore quarterback. In effect, nothing happened. You’d have thought the more severe penalty would carry over the difference but no, that’s not how it works.
Add that to the three helmet hits that were unpunished altogether and you can ignore the medics who maybe didn’t do their job properly when Newton was hurt. And you can ignore the coaches who didn’t take him out of the contest, possibly exposing him to more damage. And you can ignore the player being competitive and desperately trying to win. You can potentially even ignore the defenders who constantly went after him with rough tackle after rough tackle, although it really isn’t all that far removed from what got Sean Payton suspended for a whole year in the Bounty Scandal.
All of those actions are at least tied into the game situation. Take out the game situation and the sport isn’t a sport any longer so clearly there’s always going to be an degree of danger. To some extent, that stuff is gonna be reluctantly accepted. What isn’t excusable is ignoring the line that’s been set in the sand, a line that’s there to protect players like Cam Newton. Put simply, if some bugger drives his helmet into another person’s head… throw a yellow flag at the sunnovabitch. It’s not that bloody difficult.
Steve Mariucci (NFL Player Safety Advisory Panel): "The hit that was helmet-to-helmet, the offsetting penalties, that one is what we're going to discuss next week with this panel because it seems to me a helmet-to-helmet should override any other penalty. Because that's what we're trying to eliminate from our game."
Oh, okay. There you go then. Investigations, panels and reviews - that’s bound to solve everything. Or… what about just enforcing the rules that are already in place and treating it as a serious foul when somebody attacks someone’s head? Seems like pretty solid logic to me.