Sports Illustrated Columnist: ‘Vick’s Latest Helmet Blow Raises Questions About Concussion Policy’

Will Carroll, @injuryexpert on Twitter, writes the “Fantasy Football Expert” column for the Sports Illustrated website. His new one, as he puts it, wonders whether the National Football League’s concussion policy is failing. See http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/will_carroll/10/17/michael-vick-concussion2/index.html.

To review the latest installment of the Michael Vick traumatic brain injury saga, he returned to play yesterday just a few plays after taking a blow to the head that obviously left him groggy. (My post earlier today wrongly said Vick sat out a single play; I am correcting that.)

“If the players on the field and the announcer in the stands all thought that Vick had symptoms of a concussion,” Carrol writes dryly, “it has to make one wonder what the medical staff saw that took it the other way. Perhaps it was dirt in Vick’s eyes, but it’s more likely that they were just blowing smoke in ours.”

I care very little whether the NFL’s concussion policy is working. But the national concussion policy, based on the NFL’s model and representations? That’s another matter. If the league’s titular policy committee chairs, Drs. Richard Ellenbogen and Hunt Batjer, don’t speak up about the Vick follies, they’re not only over their heads — they’re out of the game.

Irv Muchnick