The fact is there were 240 concussions in the league last season, a bunch of those coming in the second half of the season. Beat-up bodies. Tired legs. Not a lot in the tank to defend against that next big hit.

But let’s face it, Goodell has to wear two hats. In one role he’s “the head of a $9.5 billion business…charged with seeking out growth opportunities for the league. And adding two more regular season games could boost NFL revenue by $500 million per year.”

In his second role, “Goodell has to continue espousing the NFL’s commitment to player safety, especially given the industry-shaking lawsuit beginning to move through the courts.” And to the man’s credit, there has certainly been progress made in player safety of late.

But here’s where the rub comes in—the league can do more.

One thing that has not been made clear is determining “just how many brain injuries there actually are.”

In the case of the Oakland Raiders over the past three seasons, they “reported 32 player concussions, based on data collected by The Concussion Blog.”

On the other hand, the count for the Houston Texas was three.

This wide range in numbers seems to indicate that the Raiders “have been much more proactive about tracking and reporting brain injuries, and sitting players as their injuries are identified.”

So how does everybody get on the same page? “Standardize terminology, standardize injury response”—for starters.

Using different terms for the same injury is not uncommon. As an example, “PBS Frontline notes that a player can be listed as suffering from a generic ‘head’ injury when he’s actually wrestling with a concussion. This colludes the issue and skews the results, weakening the proposition that the league is sincere about player safety.

Another issue the league has to contend with is job security. Players, in many cases, will not reveal symptoms; they’ll play through head trauma.

In the case of 49ers QB Alex Smith, he self-reported a concussion, which led to job-loss. Enter Colin Kaepernick. QB Greg McElroy, on the other hand, “waited days to tell the New York Jets he was experiencing his own symptoms before getting benched.”

How to deal with this? Concussed players should receive protection.

According to Dustin Fink of The Concussion Blog, “If a player gets a concussion, make it a 10-day minimum injury, so [he] will miss at least a week; if a player received his concussion due to an illegal hit … then the offender should be suspended one week.”

Fink also has a suggestion that would add flexibility to teams’ rosters. “The NFL should have a concussion designation for the 53-man roster and impose four extra slots for concussed players that can be placed there and put back on the roster. The minimum stay [could be] two weeks—and any team found ‘gaming’ this rule will forfeit their 1st round draft pick.”

Then there’s the mounting concussions syndrome as the season reaches its end—the result of the current 16 game schedule, plus the playoffs. How do you cut down on the concussion count? Actually, the solution here is simple, but certainly unpopular. Go from a 16 game season to 14 games. More byes, more rest. Time for players to heal. All prudent safety measures.

Cutting back on the number of games is certainly not a proposal that Goodell will ever put on the table. That begs less revenue and, for sure, unhappy fans. However, you could add “another round of playoff games–which carry huge margins for the league.”

Still, it won’t happen, but it’s hard to argue…less games, less injuries.

USA Football, the sport’s national governing body, commissioned the study in February 2012 with Indianapolis-based Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research and Prevention. The independent scientific study, monitors 10 youth football leagues in six states and is believed to be the first of its scope in youth football’s 80-plus year history.

The research documents player health and any sustained injuries during the course of the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Final results are expected in the first quarter of 2014. USA Football anticipates conducting ongoing research in future years to advance youth player safety.

Among the first-year findings, which included more than 60,000 individual athlete exposures (participation in a practice or game) for nearly 2,000 youth football players on more than 100 individual teams:

• More than 90 percent of the 1,913 youth players did not suffer an injury that restricted participation.
• Fewer than 10 percent of players incurred an injury, and of those injuries, 64 percent were minor where athletes returned to play on the same day.
• Contusions were the most common injuries (35 percent), followed by ligament sprains (15 percent).
• Fewer than 4 percent of the youth players sustained a concussion.
• Similar to other levels of football, youth football players were more likely to be injured during games than practices.
• No catastrophic head, neck or heat-related injuries were reported.

Ten youth football leagues of varying size and demographics in Arizona, Indiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia comprise the study’s nationally representative research pool. Individual leagues are undisclosed to preserve the anonymity of the participants.

The Datalys Center places athletic trainers at the leagues’ practice and game fields to manage and document player health. The Datalys Center employs the same intensive methodology to USA Football’s Youth Football Safety Surveillance Study as it does for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Injury Surveillance Program and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) Injury Surveillance and Outcomes Network (NATIONTM).

“We need more studies like this across all of youth sports,” USA Football Medical Director DR. PATRICK KERSEY said. Kersey, a physician for Indianapolis-based St.Vincent Sports Performance, is a member of numerous medical associations, including the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and the American College of Sports Medicine. “Such a commitment to research is how we advance player safety, determine best practices and continue football’s evolution, which has always been part of the game’s legacy. Our hope is that more sports will take similar steps for their young athletes.”

Prior to the development of the HITRight sensor, impact data was gathered after the fact. Now, with HITRight, real time input can be accumulated for use in improving “proper tackling and blocking techniques.”

The HITRight sensor device is attached directly to the inside of the helmet. Whenever the audible alarm goes off, the player knows that “they are not in proper ‘heads up’ form.”

Says Jerome Tomlin, President of Helmet HALO Technologies, “Minimizing the number of concussions and spinal injuries incurred on the youth football field begins with coaching and reinforcement of correct tackling and blocking technique.”

Tomlin emphasizes that the use of the HITRight sensor “can be that personal and continual on-field coach for each player, whether it is running drills, playing a scrimmage or a game.”

This new teaching aid sells for $59.99, and can be purchased this summer at www.eastbay.com.

View this video for a demo of the HITRight sensor –

http://vimeo.com/65757077

On the opening day of the Sports Lawyers Association annual meeting last week, Dr. Kevin E. Crutchfield, the Director of the Comprehensive Sports Concussion Program at LifeBridge Health in Baltimore, MD, proved to be a very insightful panelist during the discussion, raising two interesting issues.

The first centered on the connection between neck injuries and concussions. Crutchfield said that neck injuries frequently go undiagnosed after an athlete has been diagnosed with suffering a concussion to the detriment of the patient. He almost seemed to imply that, invariably, an athlete who suffers a concussion has likely suffered a neck injury. And in some cases, the reverse may apply.

Second, Crutchfield said the athlete he sees the most are the “beatees” from the high school and college football programs, rather than the “beaters.” The elite athletes don’t suffer concussions with the same frequency as those practice players, who fill out the squads.

The session is “aimed at further engaging the scientific community,” according to the league. It will focus specifically on Challenge I, which offers up to a $10 million award for a proposal that would advance the understanding and diagnosis of traumatic brain injury.

Participants will include DR. Kevin Guskiewicz, Chair, Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a member of the NFL Head, Neck & Spine Committee, and Mark A. Phillips, Chief Marketing Officer, GE Healthcare, Healthcare Systems. Interested participants may register by clicking:

http://www.ninesigma.com/ViewEmail.aspx?SendId=0ee36fbb-b55a-4431-8b41-e995cdbb8216

In March, GE and the NFL announced the Head Health Initiative, a four-year, $60 million partnership “to improve the safety of athletes, members of the military and society overall.”

The multi-disciplinary research team awarded this money will be directed by Professor Michael J. Sailor, Ph.D., from the University of California San Diego.

A driving force behind the allocation of these dollars is data collected from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Battlefield casualties have resulted in skull injuries that make up 18 percent of all wounds, “according to the most recent estimate from the Joint Theater Trauma Registry.”

Clark C. Chen, M.D., Ph.D. of UC San Diego School of Medicine, and team member, elaborated on the nature of many head wounds, stating, “A major contributor to the mortality associated with a penetrating brain injury is the elevated risk of intracranial infection.” Chen went on to note “that projectiles drive contaminated foreign materials into neural tissue.”

The challenge confronting the medical profession in the case of treating projectile-related TBIs deals with the brain’s natural defense mechanism against infection, the physiological system known as the blood-brain barrier. When an infection takes hold, the blood-brain barrier makes it difficult to get antibiotics past it to treat the infection.

To learn more about treating TBI with this new technology, go to – http://bit.ly/14aNNcv

A majority of states have either already passed, or are in the process of introducing, legislation targeted at reducing youth sports concussions. Now, at the federal level, a bill sponsored by Congressman Tom Udall (D-N.M.) is making its way to the U.S. senate. The bill’s mandate seeks to empower “both the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to take stronger actions in guaranteeing equipment safety standards and claims by sporting goods manufacturers.”

Scheduled for public release by January 2014 is a National Academies report on sports-related concussions that, among its other findings, includes “product safety standards that equipment manufacturers will need to consider for voluntary adoption.” This new legislation is intended to extend the impact of the report’s findings.

A major concern of many sports organizations has been the accuracy of statements made by sporting goods manufacturers. Does the manufacturer accurately represent “the protective benefits and limitations of equipment to mitigate injury and risk” as stated in its marketing materials, advertising campaigns, and other disclaimers?

Said Ann Carpenetti at US Lacrosse, “We have invested extensively in the area of injury research and prevention in the sport of lacrosse, and having sport specific equipment that performs to meet a protective standard is critically important to ensure player safety on the field.”

The passage of this bill will allow “the Federal Trade Commission to take stronger action against manufacturers who make false and deceptive product safety claims.”

To learn more about US Lacrosse, go to – http://www.uslacrosse.org/Home.aspx

“These denials and active refutation on the part of NFL agents, constituted fraud (unintentional or intentional) and concealment of information directly related to the Plaintiffs’ causes of action,” according to the complaint.

Representing Peterson in the May 10 filing was Massachusetts lawyer Anthony Tarricone of Kreindler & Kreindler and Philadelphia attorney Sol Weiss of Anapol Schwartz. Their client is seeking monetary damages in excess of $75,000, lost wages, punitive damages pursuant to state law, interest and other court relief.

Peterson alleged that he suffers from symptoms associated with multiple traumatic brain injury and CTE, including lesions on his brain, which have adversely impacted his memory.

His rationale for waiting to file was allegedly tied to the recent onset of symptoms.

“Because of the continuing tort of concealment and fraud carried out by the Defendant, and his ongoing difficulties with his memory, it was not until recently, that the Plaintiff had the ability or any reason to consider that repeated head impacts suffered during his career were the cause of his present symptoms and that his symptoms were caused by conduct, misconduct and omissions of the Defendant,” according to the complaint.

Through HeadFirst, the urgent care provider will offer pre- and post-injury cognitive baseline testing, as well as followup care, “to help students and their families, and other adults, navigate the road to recovery and make a safe return to play, school or work after sustaining a concussion.”

HeadFirst, which has partnerships with recreational leagues, athletic trainers, coaches, parents, physicians and specialists, already administers the ImPACT baseline test free of charge to thousands of youth athletes. Its mission is “to assist youth-athletes in obtaining appropriate care and make a safe return to play.”

Righttime Medical Care Centers operates nine immediate medical care facilities in Anne Arundel, Howard and Montgomery counties.

The pilot program as proposed by Brownsville Democratic Rep. Eddie Lucio III focuses on “supplemental concussion insurance for boys who play football and girls who play soccer.”

Texas school districts currently offer insurance to students participating in sports. However, Lucio’s proposal “gives parents the option of buying extra insurance for ‘around $5.’” And would guard against “concussion-related symptoms (that) sometimes don’t appear until after students graduate and lose their district insurance.”

The house version of this bill passed on May 7th.

If approved by the Senate, the University Interscholastic League and the Texas Education Agency would administer the policies which would be underwritten by private companies. Both the UIL and the TEA would also select the districts to benefit from this pilot, which Lucio hopes is “a cross-section from around the state.”