After the thrilling finish to Super Bowl XLIX last night, viewers were left with an unsettling thought: Did we just watch Julian Edelman play through a concussion? With about eleven minutes left, Edelman, a wide receiver for the New England Patriots, ran one of his perilous routes across the middle of the field. He hauled in a pass from Tom Brady and then was crushed by what appeared to be an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit from the Seattle Seahawks’ Kam Chancellor. (No penalty was called.) After the hit, Edelman popped back up and ran forward for another ten or so yards, before stumbling over his own feet and falling down. He stayed on one knee for a few seconds, and appeared dazed when he stood up. It was the kind of incident that often sends medical personnel onto the field, but in this case Edelman rejoined the huddle. Four plays later, he caught another pass, close to the goal line, and again remained down his knees for a few seconds. On the next play, Edelman hit his head on the turf after trying to make a catch and lay on his back for a moment. In between, Edelman was running and cutting with his usual sharpness, but the scenes of him on the ground were troubling, and that he was still in the game seemed strange to many viewers. (Earlier, after a similarly grim hit, the Seahawks’ defensive lineman Cliff Avril was diagnosed with a concussion, and did not return.)
Quickly identifying a concussion is important in part because a concussed brain is much more susceptible to repeat concussions. (That’s why players who are diagnosed with concussions must be cleared as symptom-free before they can resume football activities.) According to the protocol developed by the N.F.L. Head, Neck and Spine Committee, “If a player exhibits or reports signs or symptoms of concussion on the field … he must be removed and evaluated by the Club medical team.” Edelman seemed to be demonstrating some of the observable signs listed by the protocol, which include:
Yet Edelman didn’t come out of the game until after the Patriots scored on that drive, and he returned for subsequent offensive possessions, eventually scoring a touchdown to give his team the lead. He ended up playing in seventy-two of the team’s seventy-four offensive snaps.
Why didn’t anyone with the power to intervene force Edelman to the sidelines? In addition to each team’s own medical personnel, the N.F.L. assigns an independent physician to each team to monitor head injuries, and there is another independent “spotter” who watches players on both teams from a booth above the field and can radio to the sidelines if there is evidence of an on-field concussion. After the game, when he was asked about the hit, Edelman said, “We’re not allowed to talk about injuries.” The fact that Edelman was speaking with reporters suggested that he had not been diagnosed with a concussion—league rules forbid concussed players from talking to the media after the game. On Monday, the Associated Press, citing an anonymous source, reported that Edelman had passed a concussion exam that was administered on the sidelines. (The normal baseline test takes between six and eight minutes.)
At his annual press conference before the Super Bowl, the N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell noted that concussions were down by twenty-five per cent and helmet-to-helmet hits were down by twenty-eight per cent. This was cited as evidence that football was getting safer. But what about the concussions that no one managed to diagnose?
Earlier this season, the Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles admitted that, despite experiencing one of the observable symptoms of a concussion, he had avoided a concussion exam because, he said, he felt fine and wanted to stay on the field. How many players make that silent decision each game? The concussion protocol may even have the indirect, and perhaps unresolvable, effect of perversely incentivizing the kinds of plays that cause concussions. Helmet-to-helmet hits draw penalties and fines, but those might be offset by forcing an opponent’s top player to be removed from the game for an exam, whether he is actually concussed or not. That’s what Jamaal Charles was talking about when he said he didn’t want to be tested—he and his team might not have liked the results.
Edelman, meanwhile, should have been removed immediately after he was slow to get up and showed signs of being dazed. The scenes available on TV were also available to key medical decision-makers at the game. Instead, he played on, catching another ball for a key first down. Perhaps what looked like concussion symptoms were the normal results of football’s brutality, but every second that he remained in the game not only reflected badly on football on its biggest night of the year but also put Edelman in danger. The biggest challenge for the concussion protocol is that it relies on the coöperation of people who are motivated by more than just player safety. The Patriots needed Edelman to move the ball. Edelman wanted to continue playing. Sometimes, someone has to yell, “Damn it, guys, it’s only a game!” Even at the Super Bowl.
“You run a route across the middle against this defense, you do so at your own risk,” the announcer Cris Collinsworth said after Edelman suffered his brutal hit. Collinsworth probably didn’t mean the risk of brain damage, but that’s implicit in his statement, and in the game itself. The players know this, but they also know how many people are watching, how much money or fame the next great catch may bring, and how hard they’ve worked to get there. Edelman played one of the games of his life on the sport’s biggest stage. He had a hundred and nine receiving yards and caught the game-winning touchdown. Commentators are praising his toughness and bravery. He’s going to Disneyland. Whether he was concussed or not, he decided that he wasn’t coming out in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. The point is that players like Edelman shouldn’t have to, or even be allowed to, make that choice.
