Against the Jets in Week 14, Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud officially suffered a concussion. The prior week against the Broncos, Stroud officially did not.
Unofficially, he might have.
Look at this video. After a big hit midway through the fourth quarter, Stroud seems to be unconscious or close to it. His teammates pull him up. He displays signs of ataxia, the new buzz word for wobbly, loopy, and/or stumbling. When told to exit the field for a concussion evaluation, Stroud points to his midsection.
It doesn’t work. He’s sent off for an evaluation. He turns to argue, unsteady through the exchange.
And then he was cleared to return to the game. After missing only two plays.
Watch the video again. Ataxia or no ataxia? And here’s the key. If a player shows ataxia, he’s supposed to be shut down for the rest of the game and placed into the protocol.
Stroud was nevertheless cleared to return. It makes no sense.
On one hand, the NFL talks a good game when it comes to protecting players from concussions — and from themselves, when they want to keep playing after possibly suffering a concussion. On the other hand, the process of getting the player off the field continues to be deeply flawed.
It seems that the league would rather risk having a player with a concussion suffer a second one than risk having a bunch of non-concussed players held out of game action until they receive a clean bill of health. That attitude is eventually going to get a player seriously injured.
And that, of course, is when the league will act surprised and overreact, at least for a little while.
Boasting about how the league protects players against head trauma isn’t nearly not good enough. The video makes it clear to anyone with common sense. Stroud had ataxia. He should have been removed from the game.
