The NFL has tried for years to get better media coverage in London. It got all the coverage it could handle on Sunday from one of London’s most prominent publications.
A column from David Walsh of the Sunday Times (owned by the Murdoch empire) targets the NFL’s latest concussion crisis, focusing both on the decision to let Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa return to play two weeks ago and Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s recent “part of what we signed up for” comments.
The gist of the item is that, as in rugby, the players know the risks and welcome them -- and thus they must be protected from themselves. That’s really the next frontier for the NFL when it comes to concussion management. Although some players (not many) will self-report concussion symptoms, most will do whatever they can to stay on the field, or to get back there as soon as possible.
That’s what happened with Tua. He wanted to get back in. So he said he had a back injury. Walsh, like most, doesn’t buy the NFL’s official position.
“At first the team said he had suffered a head injury,” he writes. “After passing him fit to resume, they said it was actually a back injury, and it was this that caused him to temporarily lose his motor function. If you accepted this, you needed to see a doctor, but not the independent neurologist.”
There’s no shame. in Tua’s effort to get back on the field. He want to play. He doesn’t simply accept the risk; he openly defies it.
Ditto for Burrow, who said he has forgotten large chunks of multiple games after suffering head injuries. He’s not tapping out in those situations. The system must be better equipped to do the tapping for him.
The NFL may overreact in the aftermath of the Tua controversy. That’s better than an underreaction. Even if the players sign every possible release and grant every possible dispensation, the game must protect the players from themselves. Beyond any business-related concerns for doing so (including preserving a supply of football players by persuading parents to let their children play the game), it’s simply the right thing to do.
