NFL making concussion reduction a priority
The NFL wants all 50 states and the District of Columbia to pass legislation that could help cut down on concussions suffered by young football players.
The legislation the league favours is modeled on Washington state's "Zackery Lystedt Law," named for a middle school football player who suffered brain damage in 2006 after he had a concussion and returned to the game.
That law requires coaches to remove any player who shows signs of a concussion, and bars the player from competing again until cleared by a licenced health care professional trained in concussion evaluation and management. So far, nine states including Washington have passed such laws, according to the NFL.
About 135,000 children between the ages of 5 and 18 are treated in emergency rooms each year for sports- or recreation-related concussions and other head injuries.
The NFL has recently made concussions a priority. This season, it started slapping players with five-figure fines for illegal hits in an attempt to cut down on serious head injuries. Goodell says he has committed "substantial resources" to getting the youth concussion laws passed across the country, although the league said it didn't have an estimate on what the effort will cost.
The suicide of a former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson last week highlighted the urgency of this issue.
Head check
The NFL says it will use a new sideline test to determine concussions next season.
The league says in a release Wednesday that more details of the evaluation will be announced on Friday in Indianapolis, where the annual scouting combine is being held this week.
But the NFL says the new sideline test will include a checklist of symptoms, a limited neurologic evaluation and a balance assessment. It will employ many components of the evaluation process developed during a Concussion in Sport meeting at Zurich in 2008.
The test was developed by the NFL's Head, Neck, and Spine Committee, with input from the NFL team physicians and athletic trainers and their professional associations.