Concussion Protocol
February 1, 2018 10:09 AM Subscribe
It’s not a headache. It’s not “getting your bell rung.” You don’t have a bell. It’s a traumatic brain injury. Data artist Josh Begley edited together a 5m30s video of every concussion suffered in an NFL game this year.
More at The Intercept: One young retiree told me that his short-term memory loss is so bad that he struggles to remember how to get home and often loses his train of thought in simple phone conversations, and ends up repeating the same thought multiple times. Other family members told me that CTE made their husbands and sons and brothers into monsters who could not control their anger, rage, and self-destructive behaviors despite of counseling, medication, and a sincere desire to do better.
More at The Intercept: One young retiree told me that his short-term memory loss is so bad that he struggles to remember how to get home and often loses his train of thought in simple phone conversations, and ends up repeating the same thought multiple times. Other family members told me that CTE made their husbands and sons and brothers into monsters who could not control their anger, rage, and self-destructive behaviors despite of counseling, medication, and a sincere desire to do better.
There was a football game on when I went home over Christmas, and I just shuddered every time a player went down. And that's not even thinking about the damage done by the impacts from regular play. Ended up actually leaving the room to do something else.
I never was a big fan, but I just can't watch it at all now, even as background noise.
posted by tavella at 10:20 AM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I never was a big fan, but I just can't watch it at all now, even as background noise.
posted by tavella at 10:20 AM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
It wasn't that long ago that ESPN was running videos like this as entertainment.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:23 AM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:23 AM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
And even the concussion "highlight" film may be underplaying things, because there is new evidence that head trauma that doesn't cause concussions can still lead to CTE.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:25 AM on February 1, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:25 AM on February 1, 2018 [11 favorites]
I don't know much about the game or its associated trappings; what are the blue huts you see around the 4 minute mark? Are they for any injury treatment, or to give a concussed player a private place to recover (and hide the damage from the public)?
posted by dendritejungle at 10:30 AM on February 1, 2018
posted by dendritejungle at 10:30 AM on February 1, 2018
They're used to provide a private space for medical evaluations without taking the player off the field entirely.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:40 AM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:40 AM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
What is it with helmets coming off under impact this year? There's a lot of that in this video, and it really seems like it's been much more common in the '17 season.
posted by hanov3r at 10:43 AM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hanov3r at 10:43 AM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
American Football is not a contact sport. Basketball is a contact sport. Australian Rules football is a contact sport.
The Handegg is a collision sport. And it needs to end.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:49 AM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
The Handegg is a collision sport. And it needs to end.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:49 AM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
The young are always immortal. Until they aren't...
posted by jim in austin at 10:51 AM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 10:51 AM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
I don't know if anyone keeps stats for the NFL on it, but considering the number of players, the number of plays per game and the number of games per season, it hasn't felt like there is more lost helmets than usual.
Anecdotally I think this is because players don't wear properly fitting helmets or don't have the chinstrap properly adjusted. This likely do this for comfort/accessibility reasons. I know for the one year I mediocrely played 8th grade football, I hated the helmet and how much of a pain it was to take on and off.
College football has instituted a rule that says players that loose their helmet must sit out the next play which seems to have made people wear their helmets properly more often.
posted by mmascolino at 11:26 AM on February 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
Anecdotally I think this is because players don't wear properly fitting helmets or don't have the chinstrap properly adjusted. This likely do this for comfort/accessibility reasons. I know for the one year I mediocrely played 8th grade football, I hated the helmet and how much of a pain it was to take on and off.
College football has instituted a rule that says players that loose their helmet must sit out the next play which seems to have made people wear their helmets properly more often.
posted by mmascolino at 11:26 AM on February 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
The young are always immortal. Until they aren't...
I'm not gonna lie. What I loved most about playing hockey as a kid was the speed and violence of it.
What I miss most about youth was the relative invulnerability provided by it.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:31 AM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm not gonna lie. What I loved most about playing hockey as a kid was the speed and violence of it.
What I miss most about youth was the relative invulnerability provided by it.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:31 AM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
I predict that in 25 years all human football players will have been replaced by robots.
Also, I predict that in 26 years all robot football players will be replaced by humans, as per the commands of our new robot overlords.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:06 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Also, I predict that in 26 years all robot football players will be replaced by humans, as per the commands of our new robot overlords.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:06 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
When I was a kid (in the 70s), it was a deeply ingrained belief that concussions were simply not a serious medical issue, regardless of how they were received. "Just a concussion" wasn't even a valid reason to miss school.
posted by lagomorphius at 12:07 PM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 12:07 PM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
If you know about the fencing response, you'll see it several times in the video.
posted by peeedro at 12:17 PM on February 1, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by peeedro at 12:17 PM on February 1, 2018 [16 favorites]
I understand why most of the hits are edited to play backwards in slow motion—to focus on the aftermath that is painful to watch and often gets cut away by the network cameras—but it feels like a disservice not letting the viewer connect the kinds of hits they normally see (and possibly cheer) to the fucked-up imagery of what that aftermath looks like for the players. Seeing Fowler fall down twice while trying to "jog it off" is one of the more powerful scenes of the video, but seeing that same scene played backwards at the beginning is just confusing.
Mentioned earlier, it's not only these brain-busting highlight reel hits that cause CTE and other mental problems. They're just the obvious ones the NFL has to respond to. But almost every single play of every single game starts with 300lb. men crashing into each other as a mere backdrop for the "real action" most people focus on.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 12:35 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Mentioned earlier, it's not only these brain-busting highlight reel hits that cause CTE and other mental problems. They're just the obvious ones the NFL has to respond to. But almost every single play of every single game starts with 300lb. men crashing into each other as a mere backdrop for the "real action" most people focus on.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 12:35 PM on February 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I disagree about playing things backwards. I've watched enough football to know what a hit looks like and I like the logic that playing them forward would look like a highlight reel. It forced me to really pay attention and reconstruct the hit - if anything, I would have included a few more seconds in the reverse playback just to see the bodies coming together. The one or two times that is in the video, I completely winced seeing it all play out.
posted by kokaku at 12:54 PM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by kokaku at 12:54 PM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
My dad broke his small-town high school football coach's heart because my farfar wouldn't let him play. Supposedly farfar had been injured (not a brain injury) while playing football when he was attending a military academy in the mid-1930s and it scuttled whatever military career he could have had ahead of him.
(Farfar was an incredible carpenter and would have been wasted in the military, or maybe would have died in WWII, given his age, so I think he lucked out, but that's just me. Also my non-football playing dad ended up doing two tours in the army during Vietnam and coming home with a hell of a case of PTSD, so...)
posted by elsietheeel at 12:55 PM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
(Farfar was an incredible carpenter and would have been wasted in the military, or maybe would have died in WWII, given his age, so I think he lucked out, but that's just me. Also my non-football playing dad ended up doing two tours in the army during Vietnam and coming home with a hell of a case of PTSD, so...)
posted by elsietheeel at 12:55 PM on February 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
If anyone else felt like they had a concussion reading the above comment, "farfar" is a Norwegian word for "paternal grandfather". Cool! I never heard that one before.
And good on your farfar for that, especially in the 30s, when people were regularly shot by guns and told to "walk it off"
posted by Automocar at 2:03 PM on February 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
And good on your farfar for that, especially in the 30s, when people were regularly shot by guns and told to "walk it off"
posted by Automocar at 2:03 PM on February 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
The young are always immortal. Until they aren't...
This is true for many things, but unfortunately it isn't even true for football. Some sizable percentage of high school players exhibit the kind of altered mental status that can be associated with sub-concussive impacts and CTE. The most unlucky will develop symptoms even before they enter college leagues. This sport simply isn't defensible any more, and I can't watch it.
I am grateful that I took steps in my youth to reduce my exposure to damages endemic to my particular extracurricular activity, amplified music. The number of folks my age (late 30s) with chronic tinnitus is pretty high among my music friends. I only have the mildest of cases.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:34 PM on February 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
This is true for many things, but unfortunately it isn't even true for football. Some sizable percentage of high school players exhibit the kind of altered mental status that can be associated with sub-concussive impacts and CTE. The most unlucky will develop symptoms even before they enter college leagues. This sport simply isn't defensible any more, and I can't watch it.
I am grateful that I took steps in my youth to reduce my exposure to damages endemic to my particular extracurricular activity, amplified music. The number of folks my age (late 30s) with chronic tinnitus is pretty high among my music friends. I only have the mildest of cases.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:34 PM on February 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
If you know about the fencing response, you'll see it several times in the video.
I didn't, now I do, and: Christ.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:12 PM on February 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
I didn't, now I do, and: Christ.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:12 PM on February 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
I used to love watching football. My dad and I bonded over it. But over the years I woke up to the violence of it and also the fact that mostly brown bodies (70%) were slowly killing themselves for mass entertainment and so I can’t watch anymore. I still love throwing a football and flag football etc. but have stayed away from the Super Bowl for years. A family member is the sports medicine person for a big team and said to never let anyone you know enroll their kids in contact football.
posted by anya32 at 6:26 PM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by anya32 at 6:26 PM on February 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
I only have the mildest of cases.
I don't know if mine is not that bad, or if I'm just used to it.
posted by thelonius at 6:30 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't know if mine is not that bad, or if I'm just used to it.
posted by thelonius at 6:30 PM on February 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sorry about that?
(Also farmor is paternal grandmother, mormor is maternal grandmother, and morfar is maternal grandfather. But only my farfar was Norwegian.)
posted by elsietheeel at 8:20 PM on February 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
(Also farmor is paternal grandmother, mormor is maternal grandmother, and morfar is maternal grandfather. But only my farfar was Norwegian.)
posted by elsietheeel at 8:20 PM on February 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
Death of NFL inevitable as middle class abandons the game
John Kass, columnist for The Chicago Tribune, September 5 2017
Kass isn't Royko but nobody is; Kass has been writing a column for the Trib since 1983, got to be doing a few things right. I read this column right after it hit the street and I think (and I sure do hope) that he's got it right, that football will die as people stop their sons from playing it, and as people refuse to watch/support it as a result of the TBIs destroying young mens lives.
Troy Aikman in a real important playoff game, got hit *real* hard but stayed in the game and played, a few hours after the game he's with this doc and asking the doc "Did we win?" His first years in Dallas were unreal, he had no line, he got hammered time and time again, got up and back to playing. An outstanding athlete. Remarkable discipline. I wonder what his brain looks like about now.
I've looked but cannot find a compilation of pro hockey players with the fencing response, saw it a few years ago, my first knowledge of it; I wish I could find it, it was really professionally done, with commentary explaining what you were seeing. This compilation video of fencing response is chilling (the stupid music track is probably even more chilling, loud, intrusive, annoying) -- it's not just NFL football, it's any contact sport. Though I suspect hockey, football, and boxing would be the worst choices over a career.
The reason I'd hoped to find that hockey video on fencing response is that hockey players are on flippin' ice skates for chrisake, they've got to be going thirty miles an hour, some of them anyways, and since all these huge, insane, blazing fast Russians started showing up in the NHL 15 years ago the pucker factor has got to have increased ten-fold when stepping out onto the ice.
I lived in Houston during the years that Warren Moon played there in the NFL. Moon's game was a passing game, and on the field every play were a lot of receivers, and all of them flyweights. They'd be up in the air, completely exposed, and then crushed by these massive linebackers -- it was something else. I did not then and do not know now how those guys did it, play after play, season after season.
I've never known any professional athletes, I have spoken with one guy who was in football from his childhood and all the way through college, and a good college team, not some slacker team from No-wheres-ville. This guy is huge -- 6'8" tall, 260 pounds. He is one of the gentlest people I've known, but he said that totally changed on the field. He told me that every player has broken fingers and thumbs and toes and real injuries of every description but you just play through it, said that it hurts especially on the first practice after a game but really every practice, but when you went out of the dressing room and ran out onto a field with 60,000 people cheering you feel no pain. At all. None.
I remember reading a Royko column a million years ago, Royko describing being at a party on a Saturday, and Dick Butkus -- the most terrifying defender to ever play in the NFL -- Butkus was at the party, and his wife had to take his hand and help him to the couch or whatever, that he was basically a cripple. But the next day, Sunday, game day, on the field Butkus was a complete and total animal. If you want to see any more video of people exhibiting the fencing response, simply look up any video about Butkus, watch how he played, how he got into peoples head just by playing how he played, look what he did to people -- a terrifying force on the field.
I've had more than my share of concussions -- construction accidents, car wrecks, bicycle wrecks, etc and etc. But it's nothing like ppl who are deeply into contact sports, and have been in them from childhood on. I feel for them; once the glory days are behind them, and there's no more highs from stepping onto the field, now they're faced with the rest of their life, and hoping to be one of the lucky ones not as badly affected as most seem to be.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:16 AM on February 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
John Kass, columnist for The Chicago Tribune, September 5 2017
Kass isn't Royko but nobody is; Kass has been writing a column for the Trib since 1983, got to be doing a few things right. I read this column right after it hit the street and I think (and I sure do hope) that he's got it right, that football will die as people stop their sons from playing it, and as people refuse to watch/support it as a result of the TBIs destroying young mens lives.
Troy Aikman in a real important playoff game, got hit *real* hard but stayed in the game and played, a few hours after the game he's with this doc and asking the doc "Did we win?" His first years in Dallas were unreal, he had no line, he got hammered time and time again, got up and back to playing. An outstanding athlete. Remarkable discipline. I wonder what his brain looks like about now.
I've looked but cannot find a compilation of pro hockey players with the fencing response, saw it a few years ago, my first knowledge of it; I wish I could find it, it was really professionally done, with commentary explaining what you were seeing. This compilation video of fencing response is chilling (the stupid music track is probably even more chilling, loud, intrusive, annoying) -- it's not just NFL football, it's any contact sport. Though I suspect hockey, football, and boxing would be the worst choices over a career.
The reason I'd hoped to find that hockey video on fencing response is that hockey players are on flippin' ice skates for chrisake, they've got to be going thirty miles an hour, some of them anyways, and since all these huge, insane, blazing fast Russians started showing up in the NHL 15 years ago the pucker factor has got to have increased ten-fold when stepping out onto the ice.
I lived in Houston during the years that Warren Moon played there in the NFL. Moon's game was a passing game, and on the field every play were a lot of receivers, and all of them flyweights. They'd be up in the air, completely exposed, and then crushed by these massive linebackers -- it was something else. I did not then and do not know now how those guys did it, play after play, season after season.
I've never known any professional athletes, I have spoken with one guy who was in football from his childhood and all the way through college, and a good college team, not some slacker team from No-wheres-ville. This guy is huge -- 6'8" tall, 260 pounds. He is one of the gentlest people I've known, but he said that totally changed on the field. He told me that every player has broken fingers and thumbs and toes and real injuries of every description but you just play through it, said that it hurts especially on the first practice after a game but really every practice, but when you went out of the dressing room and ran out onto a field with 60,000 people cheering you feel no pain. At all. None.
I remember reading a Royko column a million years ago, Royko describing being at a party on a Saturday, and Dick Butkus -- the most terrifying defender to ever play in the NFL -- Butkus was at the party, and his wife had to take his hand and help him to the couch or whatever, that he was basically a cripple. But the next day, Sunday, game day, on the field Butkus was a complete and total animal. If you want to see any more video of people exhibiting the fencing response, simply look up any video about Butkus, watch how he played, how he got into peoples head just by playing how he played, look what he did to people -- a terrifying force on the field.
I've had more than my share of concussions -- construction accidents, car wrecks, bicycle wrecks, etc and etc. But it's nothing like ppl who are deeply into contact sports, and have been in them from childhood on. I feel for them; once the glory days are behind them, and there's no more highs from stepping onto the field, now they're faced with the rest of their life, and hoping to be one of the lucky ones not as badly affected as most seem to be.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:16 AM on February 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
If you haven't read Nate Jackson's book "Slow Getting Up," and if you have a strong stomach, I encourage you to do so.
Jackson describes the arc of a journeyman's career through college football and the NFL. Sections of the book are marked out with his medical report, which grows longer and more horrifying every time it appears. He describes the constant use of painkillers and tape to keep broken bodies on the field.
On the other hand, he also describes a fierce joy in the game that gets sapped by pain.
It's a good book, but a tough read.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:14 AM on February 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
Jackson describes the arc of a journeyman's career through college football and the NFL. Sections of the book are marked out with his medical report, which grows longer and more horrifying every time it appears. He describes the constant use of painkillers and tape to keep broken bodies on the field.
On the other hand, he also describes a fierce joy in the game that gets sapped by pain.
It's a good book, but a tough read.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:14 AM on February 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
A recent article in Brain explores the association of mild subconcussive head impacts with tau protein buildup and onset of CTE in both high-school athletes and mouse models.
Concussion, microvascular injury, and early tauopathy in young athletes after impact head injury and an impact concussion mouse model
It appears to be open access at this time. This is a long, highly detailed article for which I'm not an expert, but it describes a mechanism by which brain injury can occur for contact sport head injuries that don't rise to the level of concussion. Onset of CTE pathology was detected in at least one high school athlete. (CW, suicide)
Frankly, the more research is done, the less defensible American football becomes.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:43 AM on February 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Concussion, microvascular injury, and early tauopathy in young athletes after impact head injury and an impact concussion mouse model
It appears to be open access at this time. This is a long, highly detailed article for which I'm not an expert, but it describes a mechanism by which brain injury can occur for contact sport head injuries that don't rise to the level of concussion. Onset of CTE pathology was detected in at least one high school athlete. (CW, suicide)
Frankly, the more research is done, the less defensible American football becomes.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:43 AM on February 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Thank you, wenestvedt, I am on track to finish that book up today! I don't even like football or know anything about it but it's fascinating.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:12 AM on February 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:12 AM on February 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
fiercecupcake, Jackson appears from time to time on the sports podcast "Hang Up and Listen." He got to be friends with co-host Stefan Fatsis when Fatsis wrote a book called "A Few Seconds of Panic" about trying to make it on an NFL team. (That audiobook is really good, too!)
The podcast hosts actually discussed the book with Jackson back in 2013 on this eipsode, but he has been on the podcast a bunch of times.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on February 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
The podcast hosts actually discussed the book with Jackson back in 2013 on this eipsode, but he has been on the podcast a bunch of times.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on February 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by A Terrible Llama at 10:11 AM on February 1, 2018