newjerseynewsroom.com

BY JEREMY SCHILLING

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

If you Google the word “concussion” you get 22.8 million hits.

Watch one video on YouTube of the effect concussions can have on someone’s life and it stops you in your tracks cold.

A random search for videos of the effects of concussions on someone brought me to where an elite high school or college soccer player, named Chelsea, has already had six concussions, most likely related to headers and other contact from game action. As the video shows the effects for her have been long-lasting and wide-ranging, and go from having problems in the classroom to not being able to attend parties due to sensitivity to light and sound.

So you’d think that images of people severely affected by these injuries would change the way those under the brightest lights think about concussions, right?

Not so.

An Associated Press study interviewed 44 National Football League players about how they would handle a new concussion and if the NFL’s new procedures to help better diagnose and manage concussions has changed the way they think of the injury.

The headline is not good: 23 of the 44 said they would conceal a concussion from doctors and stay in the game.

And to make matters worse, it doesn’t look like the practice is changing anytime soon, either.

New Orleans Saints offensive lineman Zach Strief said to the AP: "We all grew up with, 'Hey, get back in there. You (only) got your bell rung.' And while it's changing now, I think it's going to take time for the mind-set to change."

That’s unacceptable. I know some of these guys are concerned about how they will be perceived in the locker room, that they won’t be viewed as “tough guys” or that they won’t “take one for the team,” but health SHOULD be their paramount concern.

If everyone says that family is their number one priority, shouldn’t they try to get a concussion diagnosed at the earliest possible moment, so they can be put on the right course of medical action to get them back to 100 percent as soon as possible?

Most medical specialists agree that the earlier a concussion is correctly diagnosed, the better chance there is of a positive outcome, even though there are, of course, no guarantees.

I know another point of view is that some players fear that if they miss numerous weeks due to concussions, teams will not be as interested in them as free agents, and thus they will not make as much money compared to a player who hid an injury.

To me that’s b.s.

With the NFL’s new heightened awareness for concussions and the measures they’ve taken to correctly report and address them, more NFL players SHOULD have concussions on their resumes. And that, as a result, should level out the pool of players teams are looking at in free agency, minimizing the effect of the concussions on the players’ bottom lines.

Furthermore, the NFL is the United States’ most popular sport by a long shot. Don’t parents want to see the players that America’s kids watch every Sunday do the right thing and be proper role models?

If these players want to live better lives, and our youth want to be better football players by knowing the dangers of concussions earlier on, the men of the National Football League need to do the right thing and report any head injury right after it happens.

Because as Chelsea’s story and so many others unfortunately show, concussions can have a devastating and permanent impact on someone’s life, and all of us need to do a better job of addressing them now.

Jeremy Schilling can be followed on Twitter at @JSchil.