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YES, I SAID IT FIRST.
SHARE BLAME FOR INJURY
By Patrick Morand, Senior Editor, “YES, I SAID IT FIRST”
The hit du jour for October 2010 was the one in which Atlanta’s Dunta Robinson made helmet to helmet contact with Philadelphia’s Desean Jackson and both players’ sustained concussions. Of course Robinson was blamed for the hit, his team was penalized yards on the play and a fine was levied against him. This started the talk all week about reminding players of the rules, and the league sent out videos to all the teams to refresh players on what an illegal hit is and to warn of consequences. Consequences that were felt in the pocket books of players like Brandon Meriweather of New England and defensive standout James Harrison of Pittsburgh who was named “the meanest player” by some media for his hard helmet contact with Cleveland players Joshua Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi. Throughout the NFL, players on offense and defense both cringed at the fines and threats of suspension because they know that the way the game is now played makes those types of collisions very hard to avoid. In taking the temperature of players’ thoughts most opined that while the fines are not supported they do know that their employer is finally interested in their well being. Harrison told ESPN this week that he did not like getting the $75,000 fine when he was just doing his job the way he was taught, coached, and drafted by an NFL team to do it. “I don’t want to see anyone injured, but I’m not opposed to hurting anyone...I try to hurt people” said Harrison. Harrison did not intend that concussions and injuries are okay, because players like Harrison are on a path to finish their own careers with serious injuries of their own from being involved in many small and large collisions, even if they were fortunate to walk away from each one. This week rather than debate whether a receiver was not prepared for one of these hits, or if a particular player is overtly careless I sought to understand why the game needed to address concussion and head related injuries, and then what systematically is being done to address it every day beyond when Harrison, Robinson or others are on the field. What I found is that the pro players are the least afflicted by head trauma injury in the sport. It might be because they are the best players, and they know how to tackle correctly and avoid personal injury. So the fact that some still get put in the spot of Jackson – more common lately - is an issue with the NFL game. However, whether fines and suspension are the way to make the issue go away is debatable. Most concussions in society are caused in motor vehicle accidents. Motor vehicle accident injuries are the victims own fault for not wearing a seatbelt, dangerous driving, driving while impaired by alcohol or a drug. Once in a while the severity of a vehicle accident injury is the fault of someone involved that was not injured themselves and their recklessness. Sports injury, especially football, hockey and boxing, accounts for the second largest group of concussion statistics. Football sees most of its concussion injuries occur at the high school level of play. It has been noted that one in five high school football players suffer a concussion or some other (minor) sort of brain trauma from playing the sport. 1.2 million Kids play high school football, so that is a staggering figure. In college football that statistic of incidence of injury to the head improves to one in twenty players. It could be that the better all around players actually graduate to play college ball, and one would figure that in pro ball where a player is fully developed that statistic gets even better. Perhaps those players are more aware of their position and surrounding on the field of play. However, that number records only injuries we know as concussions. A player is also at risk to head trauma that occurs in a cumulative pattern throughout a career and several small hits can also equal a major problem. Head injuries became an area of concern prior to players’ equipment improvements in the 1990s. Many players have retired early from pro football because of ill effects that are determined to be the effect of receiving multiple blows to the head, even if they were deemed mild at the time. Repeated small concussions, the type that Harrison and others do not blatantly commit (that we notice) look the same on a brain scan at the end of a football career as a boxer’s major head/brain trauma looks after repeated knocks to the head. There is minor difference. These types of repeated small injuries we know can lead to degenerative conditions and even diseases like Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s, and general dementia. Yes, it is serious, but we are not even aware of the most of it. Most of this is not tracked and caught on camera. What happens in a concussion is the brain which is suspended inside a person’s head is forced with impact to crash against the skull. As it hits the bone it can cause bruising and swelling to brain tissue in severe cases. The nervous system is often affected by these hits as the brain is the coordinator of the central nervous system. So imagine many small hits over time to the head and the effect can be as demonizing as one large impact. When a player has a noticed concussion on the field of play we now know to monitor the player and not allow him to become exposed to further injury until he is deemed completely healed. Doctors even suggest that in the most serious cases the players should not even watch TV because the mental tax on a recovering brain can cause damage. So consider this in light of small concussions or hits that cause little effects week after week and year to year. Especially with no rest in between because they had no idea they received serious brain injury from repeated activity. The fact is that concussions in sports are more prevalent and more common when sports produce collisions, even accidental in their design of play. So to avoid concussions and make the sport safer what can we do? Is fine and suspend the answer? These guys are at the top of their profession and they know how to play, but the game is faster than at the inexperienced ranks so the trauma of a bad hit can only be worse at their speed. This is where the NFL is now. The league’s solution is to address the concussion concerns on a number of fronts, but this week in particular it is focussing on changing the regulatory controls. Helmet to helmet hits have always been taboo, and like all unnecessary aggression is already prohibited in the game. Only now they say the players need to read up on these rules because they will be enforcing them more now, and disciplining after the fact. Part in parcel the fines and the suspensions are the ways and means of the NFL to educate players better. Players should already know this if they are taught right in the first place, but along the road as the game changes I believe they get put in new positions and need to make decisions fast. Like Harrison his instinct to hurt was learned, but I am still not sure every player that gets in a vulnerable position and receives a hit is trained in how to avoid it. The league and sports equipment manufacturers, buoyed by the statistics out of high school ball are working feverishly to make equipment better. Recently research has shown that hits to the side of the head are actually worse than a direct front on hit, and helmets are being modified to protect for that. The league only finds this type of stuff out after the fact as players retire and injuries caused by the game they loved and played show their ugly side effects. Which makes me go back to the education question? If these are the best survivors from junior levels of play and they are the best at avoiding injury and they have been the most privy to new medical technology and are most fit to play the game then why does it seem we are seeing worse injuries than ever before? There is education, and then there is specific teaching and the design of game plans. As the game gets faster and teams recruit faster athletes to play in the NFL it also requires defensive coordinators and offensive coordinators to be adept at better game plans. Players need to know what will happen in the open field and what to expect out there and how fast. I doubt the coaches of players like Harrison will tell him to play softer – if anything he needs to move faster so whatever hit he makes, legal or illegal, it will hurt more. There may be a case to be made in the early season that players are still not limber enough after training camp and it puts them in a spot to be injured. There seems to be more injuries early this year than in other years. The playing surfaces are faster now than ten or twenty years ago. Most teams have removed real sod and gone with artificial grass so that games all seem to be played on a faster track. That speed could hurt in the event of a collision but they used to say the real turf when inconsistent caused more leg and ankle related injuries. However, whatever happened to players looking out for their teammates, and coaches for that matter not insisting on players forcing plays that put their teammates at risk? This might be the real issue. This might be why Robinson and Jackson collided so fast. They call it a “hit to a defenceless player” but maybe the game plan that the coaches designed forced him to be defenceless. The style of play that teams have moved to is probably what is changing the nature of the game and further exposing players (especially receivers) to crushing impact hits. Chad Henne is the quarterback of the Miami Dolphins and he thinks that it is really tough with the league’s current rules for the defending guys to do their jobs the way they used to even five years ago. The game has opened up and players get flagged all the time for late hits after quick developing plays. They can’t pressure the quarterback with as much aggression as in the past. New rules like the “Brady rule” makes it necessary for pass rush defenders to brake in their tracks to prevent forward motion in case they illegally fall into the QBs legs. Consider how these rules have changed football. The quarterback can already move out of the pocket. He is a moving target. When he gets hit there is a chance that as he moves away from a tackle the guy trying to tackle him will end up at his legs. Since the QB might have another second he can hold up his pass to the final moment just before defenders converge on his receiver – sometimes putting the receiver at risk. The offense has so many ways that it can draw penalties and they have more time and space to make a play. If that receiver is going to catch the ball the only way the defender can stop it is with a hit hard enough to make him bobble the ball. These are all elements to expose the receiver to more danger. It also means the defender must be more deliberate in what he does. Back in the pocket as the pass rusher swipes at the ball to try and make the QB drop it he might miss the ball as the QB moves and end up hitting the guys helmet with his hand – that is a flagrant foul. There are so many reasons the game is speeding up because of rules already made in the interest of protecting the quarterback. Most of the hits being singled out now, other than QBs being hit late and having their heads hit the turf have been the defenceless receivers across the middle of the field in no man’s land. They have to tuck their head down in order to hang on to the ball while bracing for the sure hit that is coming to knock it loose – a guy who has been warming up at full speed to converge for a few seconds as the play develops. Bang! His head is accidentally in line with the defender. Penalty, concussion, fine or suspension and really whose fault is that? Henne thinks that “half the time they are not meaning to create a head on head hit, but sometimes you have got to look on the offensive side of the ball whether the quarterbacks are leading (the receiver) into coverage”. This is exactly what I see on the field in every game now. Guys get hit badly even if not to the head I marvel at how they hang on to the ball. My theory is that with the faster game with rules that favour the quarterback and offense because people want to see scoring plays made that these plays are all dangerous. However, I also recognize that it is not the elite quarterbacks leading their players into harm’s way, but it is many of the newer unestablished quarterbacks who are not as accurate that get their guys almost killed. If it sounds a bit like high school it is. The reason for the higher levels of injuries at the junior level is the unfamiliarity with the game and players trying things that they should not be trying. This is also happening in the NFL because the style of play has graduated to what we do not fully respect. There are lots of mediocre passers and if they are going to play up the middle they are going to make mistakes. That is where the game is played now, they used to never throw there, but it is a copy cat league and those plays sometimes work for big gains especially on third down. So the NFL has let that style of play develop and in doing so has further made it harder to be a defender now even more by promising hefty fines and suspensions for severe head hits. I am not sure most of us who do not play football really understand how quick these dangerous hits happen, and how much the defender is also at risk because of the last second thing. Now the hits of recent weeks in the 2010 season really are a part of that progression to dangle players out there and cross fingers they do not get significant injury. The game is already a fast game, and the guys are all stronger, but some of these homicidal plays are very unavoidable outside of telling guys to not try. The league and its officials are left in the unenviable position of trying to determine with each hit who was involved, when they were involved and how they were involved. Does anybody really think that Robinson wanted to lean in with his head on the Jackson hit? That was as much a dangerous hit for Robinson but I guess he had a choice and Jackson didn’t. It was a dangerous situation created by a quarterback who has not even started ten games yet in the NFL so how can the league fairly mitigate all that? Was he even on time and on target with the ball? The education and the warnings need to go beyond just a video and a rule book. Because in the real world on the real football field players are getting hurt and they are the players that suffice to say survived getting hurt in high school or college where the odds were they would be more likely to sustain such an injury. The onus needs to also be on offensive coordinators and quarterbacks that design plays and execute them on the field, and on referees and league rule makers that overreact creating excessive penalties for things like incidental conduct when players are avoiding tackles. The game keeps changing and the rules have emphasised that. Recently the advantage has been of the offensive side of the ball. They will never get called for dirty hits because they never have to stop someone. Yet they are in full control of where the ball goes on the field and into what war zones their players go. The culture of football has hardly changed. Tough players who stand in there and take abuse, and go into dangerous routes and take abuse need to be prepared for some harder than normal knocks. Certainly the league is not going to endorse worse quarterback decisions by handing out extra yards for trying dangerous plays. Football is a dangerous sport. You can guarantee that players will lose balance and hit the turf with their heads, and that players will accidentally bump heads at high speeds. They can teach tackling and lower hitting, but players will be guaranteed to take their lumps. Football will have a higher percentage of accidents than motor vehicles, but the danger has always been understood by mothers not wanting their sons to play football, or drive cars until they are 21. We can legislate and cripple the game with do’s and don’ts but the real change in attitudes and respect toward players needs to start where the danger is the highest at younger ages. Coaches need to accept some of the blame for head injuries in the NFL, and the league will need to tread carefully to help make sense of a game where hurting people is good strategy but keeping them safe from danger is a good strategy too. Let’s not let one or two hits all be blamed on a couple of defensive players that we single out as bad guys. Address the game and the reasons for certain dangerous plays developing and we may be able to enjoy this fast competitive game, and not dampen the desire to play hard on both sides of the ball. I still don’t think these defenders want to hurt anyone, and they try to stop the play where they have to. The risk is high in this profession and we can tell because most people do not make it to the NFL because they are not skilled enough or they were risk averse for obvious reasons. We actually do like the hitting and pounding in the trenches – that is what the game is about: strength against strength. I fear for the day where the only stars in the game are skinny little receivers and pretty boy passers that have halos around them wherever they are on the field, but the nature of the injuries may force the game to go that way. When no kids are allowed to play, or the safety issues of 1 in 5 high school players sustaining concussions do not improve that is where the game will be going. Until that improves the game will struggle to reconcile safety with fairness without dramatic changes in the way things are played. YES, I SAID IT FIRST is a weekly Internet article from the Media Division of OJC-Inc.
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Yes something does have to be done about head injuries in pro sports, especially football, but nickel and diming defensive players after questionable high impact hits is probably not constructive enough. If anything it points all the blame at players who were taught to play the way they play. And it only seems to point at them when a high profile collision or on field concussion is sustained in a high profile game. 
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