Concussions in the NFL

As I watch the ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown bottom line, I confirmed what I have been conjuring up in my head for the past few weeks.  Let me start by saying, take this blog with a grain of salt, especially if you are one of those modern 'safety first' hypochondriacs that take your kid to the doctor when they sniffle or tell everyone 'I haven't eaten in weeks' or 'I'm still getting over my head cold' (a month later) or you put hand sanitizer on 7 times a day.  Oh what did we do before hand sanitizer!?!?!  Ok, so those people who read this, read with caution or maybe don't read at all.  Anyway, there certainly are a lot of concussions all of a sudden in the NFL.

This leads me to believe that concussions are the new hamstring pulls of the NFL.  Remember a few years back when certain star players played every Sunday, but missed a whole bunch of pre-season and in-season practices because of a 'tight hamstring' or a hamstring pull.  Keep in mind now, that this is one of the most arbitrary injuries in sports.  There is no x-ray, there is no CT scan, there are no symptoms.  A hamstring pull or tightness pretty much comes down to what the player tells the physician.  And when a player limps over to a trainer and says, "I think I pulled my hamstring" well then by golly the trainer responds with "This player (T.O., Chad 'at the time' Johnson) has a pulled hamstring.  Leave them out of practice.

Yes, unfortunately, this is what I am suggesting is happening with concussions.  Its a disease.  One player, and I believe that Clinton Portis would be my guinea pig for this blog, misses a game or two for an arbitrary injury, then all of a sudden I count more than a handful of concussion injuries in the injury report.  This didn't happen years ago.  (Kurt Warner, Clinton Portis, Ben Roethlisberger, Jamal Lewis, Brian Westbrook, DeSean Jackson etc)

Now, I understand and truly believe that there are more precautionary measures being taken for the safety of the players.  Based on the average lifespan of an NFL player (around 58 years I believe), this needs to be done.  However, as in elementary school when 1 kid uses the bathroom pass, all of a sudden 7 more kids need to pee, the bathroom pass is still going around the NFL.  I'm not suggesting that all of these kids don't have to pee, I'm simply suggesting that they could wait until lunch or recess instead of interrupting class.  Translated- In a sport where you are getting speared with helmets and landing head first on the ground, you are going to get your bell rung.  Where before, a player would miss a play or two, shake out the cobwebs, then get back out there and play, today it means 4 days off of practice and sympathy (whether real or fake it doesn't matter) from coaches and the league.  

But then again, if I were Clinton Portis and I was on the Redskins, I would have more than a few 'concussions.'