YardBarker- The NFL on Friday released a statement indicating a “thorough review” is underway examining whether concussion protocol was followed by Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks during Thursday night’s game.
“A thorough review is underway,” the NFL statement read, via Pro Football Talk. “According to the policy jointed developed by the NFL and NFLPA, if the Concussion Protocol is not properly followed the club is subject to discipline.” As noted in an ESPN report, NFL concussion protocol dictates “that a player believed to have concussion symptoms cannot return to ‘practice or play’ unless a team physician and an independent neurological consultant clear him.” Wilson promptly returned to the field and participated in two more plays before the Seahawks were forced to punt. Wilson was then examined more thoroughly in the medical tent and returned to the field on the next Seahawks possession, indicating he was cleared on the second visit. --------- Well, that was fucking stupid. And no, by "that" I don't even mean Russell Wilson arguing his way back onto the field after undergoing a complete mental evaluation that was somehow less thorough than that of Larry David's... Granted, it's also fairly dumb to put your brain at immediate risk after having it absord a helmet-to-helmet blow from a muscle-bound human missile. It's just not as dumb as thinking you can grab the attention of a league that came out on the ass end of CTE-related litigation that's expected to cost them a billion dollars by hopping under a bright blue tent for three and a half seconds. Professional athletes are - more often than not - going to play through injuries that could very well take years off their lifespan in the long run, but would it have killed Russell Wilson (well actually, it might) to have been just a little more discrete in making a complete mockery of the concussion protocol? He honestly would have looked less suspicious if he dropped to all 4's and started barking like a dog than he did willingly submitting himself to what I'm assuming was nothing more than a trainer using the back of his hand to take Russell Wilson's temperature like a brain gets substantially hotter when it's broken. I'm assuming they didn't ask him if he could look at his radioactive ooze-colored jersey without getting a mind-numbing headache, so the best excuse I've got for a scene that was shorter than subliminal marketing is that the only concussion water on hand was off-brand and Russell Wilson didn't want to enrage his sponsors. If not, then he might as well have held up a sign that said "my mind is fucked, but it's a one score game". I haven't spoken to Roger Goodell, but I'd imagine that he'd tell the Seattle Seahawks to just...be better. You want to kill your quarterback by his 50th birthday than fine by him, but don't murder the integrity of the NFL's concussion protocol during the handful of times in which any team has made even a passing attempt at administering it.
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