HOUSTON — The NFL’s concussion protocol will continue to be a major focus for the league and its players moving forward, and the leaders of the NFL Players Association made it clear Thursday they would continue to do what they could to hold teams’ feet to the fire on the matter of how concussions are handled on game day.
“We will never be satisfied with where the league is on concussions,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said shortly after the union’s annual Super Bowl news conference. “Our job is to do whatever we can to make sure the employer is maintaining a workplace that’s as safe as possible.”
Concussion protocol was one of several issues Smith and members of the union’s executive council address in their hour-long news conference. They offered their thoughts on the owners’ desire to extend the current collective bargaining agreement, which runs through 2020. They discussed their ongoing research into marijuana and its pain-relief benefits and whether they might someday seek a therapeutic-use exemption for it in the drug policy. NFLPA president Eric Winston answered a question about President Donald Trump’s travel ban and its potential impact on Muslim players. And the union awarded its prestigious “Byron ‘Whizzer’ White” award to Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins for his off-field contributions in the community.
But concussions were the first and most prevalent order of union business on this day. In light of the recent finding by the league and union that the Miami Dolphins didn’t properly follow the in-game concussion protocol before putting quarterback Matt Moore back into a playoff game against the Steelers last month, the NFLPA members made it clear they would continue to work to make sure the protocol was refined and followed.
“I think for the most part it’s been working well,” Giants linebacker and union executive council member Mark Herzlich said. “But Matt Moore, that’s something that can’t happen, where the announcers and millions of people watching knew he should be taken back to the locker room [for evaluation], and he wasn’t. When stuff like that happens, it really debases the whole concussion protocol and makes people question whether it’s working. But for the most part, it is working. We just have to keep making sure everybody’s doing their jobs.”
The Dolphins were not disciplined beyond a strongly worded letter, in part because it was found that Moore did not suffer a concussion. But given the severity of the hit that knocked him out of the game and the symptoms evident on the TV broadcast, the league and union found that the team should have expanded the evaluation beyond the initial series of sideline tests.
Still, the union is pleased that this is a topic of discussion and that players are in better position to address it.
“The culture has definitely changed,” Winston said. “The way young players coming into the league now view concussions is totally different from what it was like when I broke in. But it’s one of those things that’s never finished. We’ll never be done with the concussion protocol. There are always going to be ways to make it better.
Other highlights from the NFLPA news conference:
— A day after commissioner Roger Goodell said owners were eager to negotiation an extension to the current CBA, Smith said the players were not.
“There won’t be an extension of this collective bargaining agreement,” Smith said. “I don’t get a vote, but at this point I could not recommend to our players that they simply rubber-stamp a CBA extension for a few more years. What it could be is a renegotiation, but there’s not going to be an addendum.”
The owners have attempted to engage the players in extension talks several times over the past year, and the union believes the main motivation is stadium credits — money the teams can take off the top, prior to the revenue split with the players — to use for new stadium construction and stadium renovation. The owners have used the maximum number of stadium credits allowed under the current CBA and are looking for money to help address stadium situations in Los Angeles, Oakland and Las Vegas, to name a few.
Smith said players would be happy to “continue to invest in stadiums” but would want to “take harder looks” at locations and costs. In other words, he’s saying that in exchange for more stadium credits, the players might want a greater stake and say in the stadiums themselves. He also said the issue of the commissioner’s control over the discipline policy could come up, “but I don’t think anybody here or in our organization is looking at giving back money in exchange for changes on commissioner discipline.”
— Smith said the union was engaging in research on marijuana as a potential solution for pain relief in a profession in which he routinely describes the injury rate as “100 percent.” At this time, the union does not have a marijuana proposal to take to the league, but Smith said the union would base any such future proposal — which could include a request for a therapeutic-use exemption — on the findings of its medical researchers. Specifically, they want to know whether it has a practical application that could improve the players’ quality of life.
“We are looking at it as an issue of pain,” Smith said.
— On the topic of the Trump travel ban — a question Goodell answered Wednesday by saying he believed the Super Bowl was important to a lot of people and that they were there to focus on this week’s game — Winston offered the following strong comments:
“Our Muslim brothers that are in this league, we have their backs. That’s it. I’ll go and stand with them if people want to harass their families and whatever. Our brothers in this league, their families are our families.”
— Smith also denounced as “intellectually, philosophically and morally offensive” the support by Chicago Bears ownership of a bill in the Illinois state legislature that would strip professional athletes of the right to file workers’ compensation claims. Smith recalled a 2014 instance in which New Orleans Saints players openly fought against a bill in Louisiana that they believed would reduce their injury benefits, and he said, “I’m confident the Bears and the leaders of the Bears’ team will step up to this fight.”
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