The St. Louis Rams have all but completed their collapse after a promising start to the 2015 season with yesterday’s 13-16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
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After the hit, Keenum’s hands immediately went toward his head. As the officials sorted out the penalty, Rams head athletic trainer Reggie Scott came on the field to talk to Keenum while backup quarterback Nick Foles warmed up on the sideline.
“We definitely want to take them out of play and keep an eye on them so they don’t go back in before it’s too soon”, Dr. Douglas Smith, who runs the Center for Brain Injury and fix at the University of Pennsylvania, said of players with concussions.
For all of the NFL’s insistence that it takes head injuries seriously, and for all of the new measures meant to ensure that players who might have a concussion will be pulled from games and checked thoroughly, there are still moments that show just how inconsistent any such policing can be.
In addition to the injury spotter, there is an independent – or “unaffiliated” – neuro-trauma consultant on the sideline at all NFL games working with team physicians as part of the league’s concussion policy.
“This is his decision”, Fisher said.
“When he doesn’t swing the right way for whatever reason – you’d have to ask him what happens”, Harbaugh said.
“I don’t see how they make that call at that point in the game like that”.
No matter what the coaches might tell us, the next six games are going to be tough to watch without Flacco. Driving down the field to potentially win the game with a little more than a minute left, Keenum had his head slammed to the turf by defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan.
Ok, but what about everyone else on the field, including referees and Rams head coach Jeff Fisher?
“There have been quarterbacks who have ACLs and there’s been position players who have ACLs and they come back fine”, Harbaugh said. “The shots you’ve seen of him struggling to get up, I didn’t see that”. There is at least hope for Ravens fans, but they will have to wait for next season, as Flacco, Perriman and Forsett’s returns could make this team a formidable opponent in the AFC North.
Neither the Rams nor the NFL Players Union responded to a request for comment. I know Julio Jones is slightly higher in a few of the numbers than Hopkins, but Jones has had a steady quarterback all season while Hopkins has caught passes from three different guys.
Justin Tucker kicked a 47-yard field goal as time expired to end a mistake-filled game in which the Ravens rallied from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter. If he can’t play, James Hurst will get the start….LG Kelechi Osemele (knee) missed Sunday’s game against the Rams, ending a streak of 20 consecutive starts. This should amplify league-wide underreporting concerns, and more broadly, it ties into football’s real concern: the thousands of “sub-concussive” hits players absorb each year, hits that still contribute to the degenerative brain disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), that’s been linked to playing football.
“He’s looked good in practice”, Harbaugh said.
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For the record, what we witnessed in Sunday’s St. Louis-Baltimore game wasn’t a trailer for the movie but just another example that the NFL’s concussion policy is flawed. “Somebody saw it. I’m going to assume (the spotter) saw it. Our trainer went out to the field, but nobody called down to the official”.
