Only a few years ago, the NFL appeared to be facing many existential crises. According to new research, playing football puts people at a high risk of serious degenerative brain damage. People wondered if football’s days as America’s pastime were numbered. The league’s troubles haven’t gone away in the last decade. In fact, they appeared to coalesce from all angles during the last year.
Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins got his second concussion in four days in September. It was bad enough to evoke a fencing reaction, shocking the primetime audience with the image of his body locked up and his fingers strangely flexed. Bills safety Damar Hamlin also had to be resuscitated on the field after having a heart attack.
In response to concerns about brain trauma, the league implemented a process that kept concussed players out of the game until they had fully recovered, as well as new regulations that penalized or eliminated some of the game’s most brutal collisions.
Following Tagovailoa’s concussions in September 2022, the league extended the list of symptoms that would prevent a player from returning and established a “spotter” at each game to identify players who should be evaluated for a head injury.
Prior to the weekend’s Super Bowl in Arizona, the National Football League gave a stadium tour of its health and safety protocols. Allen Sills, NFL’s Chief Medical Officer, gave the tour inside State Farm Stadium and showcased the league’s state-of-the-art concussion detention rules, which allow medical personnel to remove players from games if they suffer a head injury. There will also be a pop-up tent for examining the player instantly on the field.
Over the last decade, more former players have begun to speak out regarding cognitive deficits such as heightened aggression, depression, memory loss, and dementia. In 2012, about 4,500 former players launched a class-action lawsuit against the NFL for long-term brain injury. It is good to see that the NFL is finally getting at it and prioritizing the health concerns of the player while they take part in this aggressive game.
