'I'm the Wife of a Former NFL Player. Football Destroyed His Mind'

You can get a concussion in a lot of sports, but obviously football has a higher incident rate than most. But what bothers me the most about football is how common it is to see a player who has clearly suffered a concussion get trotted back out onto the field.

In my last job, I wrote marketing copy for a children's hospital, especially for their sports medicine program. I spoke with a lot of doctors about concussions as they become the hot topic at that time. Pretty much all of them said the biggest danger isn't in the initial concussion. It is in the second concussion that occurs before the first one has had time to heal, and sometimes that is much longer than the "one-week protocol" we so often see. That is where you start seeing the real, long-term effects that cripple seemingly healthy men in their 40s.

Learning more about concussions has really changed how I watch the game. When seeing a guy on my team go down with a shot to the head, I've gone from "Oh man, I hope he can get back in the game" to "Oh man, they better not put him back in the game." I think the NFL and college football only pay lip service to paying close attention to treating concussions properly, and the players are paying the price for it.

But I'm as much a hypocrite as anyone saying they care about concussions. Saturdays and Sundays are reserved for one thing and one thing only in my household, and it isn't reading medical journals.

 

Aside from the immoral and disgusting actions in the attempt to bury the research regarding concussions, the NFL also fails to properly address the full problem. The league is only willing to punish players who endanger the health of other players, but not the teams. It took years to get the current concussion protocols and the rules are toothless. Teams can violate the rule at least twice before there is any real penalty. I believe it has to be at least a third offense before there can be any significant consequence, such as a lost draft pick.

Even then, the penalty isn't mandatory. Teams are going to keep breaking the rule until the league proves it is willing to take serious action when the concussion protocols are violated.