Paul Domowitch: NFL needs a better brain trust

Not so long ago, the NFL refused to even acknowledge concussions.

"I remember one year, [then NFL commissioner] Paul Tagliabue said concussions were a function of pack journalism," said agent Leigh Steinberg.

The league acknowledges concussions now. It just doesn't always see them. Two weeks ago, you didn't need to be a doctor or even play one on TV to know that Browns quarterback Colt McCoy had suffered a concussion after taking a vicious, nationally televised hit from Steelers linebacker James Harrison.

Yet, two plays after McCoy was knocked unconscious, he was permitted to return to the game. Wasn't even given a concussion test on the sideline because the team's medical and training staffs never saw the hit and thought he had injured his hand, not his head.

Browns president Mike Holmgren acknowledged a few days later that the team's doctors and trainers were working on other players when McCoy got cold-cocked and never realized the severity of the hit or the nature of the injury until after the game.

Last year, the same thing happened in an Eagles game when linebacker Stewart Bradley suffered a concussion after hitting his head on a teammate's knee. Millions of viewers at home watched him get up, stagger like a drunken sailor and fall down again. But the Eagles' doctors and trainers didn't.

"I have to tell you, it's hard to imagine him coming back in this game in light of what we just saw," Fox analyst Troy Aikman, the victim of more concussions than he cares to remember during his Hall of Fame career, told viewers. "With all the attention being given to head injuries, it's hard to image he'll be put back in."

But four plays later, he was. While the Eagles claimed they gave Bradley a concussion test before letting him go back in, trainer Rick Burkholder tested him again a little later and realized Bradley had concussion symptoms.

After the embarrassing incident with Bradley, the NFL and the players union both said steps were being taken to see that something like that didn't happen again.

"The fact that they didn't know or have a description of what happened probably needs to be looked at more carefully," Thom Mayer, a medical adviser for the NFLPA said. "We need to make sure the people treating the player have a clear description of what happened when they're evaluating the player."

Yet, a year later, the same thing happened to McCoy. You saw it and I saw it, but the Browns doctors and trainer didn't see it. And nobody else on the team's sideline who saw the hit apparently had enough sense to give the doctors and trainers a heads-up.

This week, the NFL, reacting to the massive criticism it has received for the Browns' mishandling of McCoy's concussion, announced that it will put independent certified trainers in the press box at every game to monitor for head injuries.

Steinberg, who once represented the majority of the league's quarterbacks, including Aikman and fellow Hall of Famer Steve Young, has spent the better part of the last 20 years trying to get the NFL to take the issue of concussions seriously. Since the early '90s, he has been lobbying the league to put a neurologist on every NFL sideline. Since the early '90s, it has ignored him.

"The NFL is, by 2-to-1, the most popular sport in the country," Steinberg said. "There was a week recently where five of the top 10 shows were nighttime football games. NFL football symbolically sets the trend for college and high school football and also sets the trend for other collision sports.

"The NFL should be leaders in this. It's a question of priorities. If concussion consciousness and danger really are in the forefront of the minds of medical staffs and training staffs, then there never would be a time where something like this [the McCoy and Bradley incidents] could fall through the cracks.

"A neurologist could monitor hits. We're talking about a business where billions of dollars are being made and paid. This concept of an additional cost [to put neurologists on the sidelines] is minimal. You've got new TV contracts that are going to blow the roof off already sky-high revenue. In the vernacular, that's chump change for a team."

Because he represented so many of the league's most prominent stars, Steinberg was able to help force the NFL to finally face the concussion issue. He issued a white paper in the '90s recommending neurologists on the sidelines and the abolishment of blocking and tackling with the head or neck and mandatory missed games for players diagnosed with concussions and a grading system for concussions.

"The [changes in] blocking and tackling was the only part that was adapted," he said.

Since Roger Goodell replaced Tagliabue as commissioner in '06, the NFL has taken concussions much more seriously. They have implemented return-to-play guidelines that prevent players from playing again until they've passed testing and been cleared by an independent neurologist.

But there still remain holes in the process for initially diagnosing concussions. Eagles offensive lineman King Dunlap suffered a concussion during a mid-November game against Arizona. He played the entire game with the concussion, and no one on the team's medical or training staffs noticed anything wrong with him until he mentioned after the game that he wasn't feeling well. He ended up missing three games before he was able to pass his concussion testing and get cleared to play again.

"It's an extraordinarily dangerous risk to put someone who's had a concussion back out on the playing field," Steinberg said. "Reflexes become slower. If it takes a strong force to cause the first one, the brain is already set up for the second one. Two in proximity are the perfect neurological storm.

"I'm encouraged by a lot of this because I used to think the only way there would be movement on this issue was the death of a player on the field. You can't count on the player to give you honest answers. The player wants to play under any and all circumstances. Asking him [how he feels] is akin to asking a drunk driver if he's drunk. He doesn't know."

Another week, another 3-4 defense

Two weeks ago, the Eagles' offensive line turned in one of its poorest performances of the season against the Dolphins. The Eagles managed to win the game, 26-10, but Michael Vick was sacked four times, LeSean McCoy was held to 38 yards on 27 carries and the Eagles managed just five first downs and 57 yards in total offense in the second half.