More on Kris Dielman, ‘Independent Neurologists,’ Etc.

Mike Florio of NBC Sports’ Pro Football Watch is doing some good work on the story of Kris Dielman – the San Diego Charger who played through a blatantly obvious mid-game concussion, then had a seizure on the team plane, which required emergency measures.

But there’s a big BUT behind my praise of Florio’s reporting and analysis.

In “Dielman’s seizure could change the league’s concussion procedures,” http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/31/dielman-seizure-could-change-the-leagues-concussion-procedures/, Florio pounds the idea of using independent neurologists during National Football League games.

I’m not going to belabor the loopholes of that proposal, which Florio presents in good faith. I only want to point out that his closing sentence is flat wrong:

“If the league begins to use better tools for diagnosing concussions, all lower levels of the sport will follow suit.”

This is lethally naïve. Even assuming that it’s a real solution, your average high school football program cannot afford to have a neurologist on the sideline for the immediate aftermath of every scary collision at every game, every practice.

What the general public has yet to grasp is that the pro game is both better and worse on safety than the amateur game. Worse, of course — because it is competitive and dollar-driven to the exclusion of all else. But also better — because it has resources. At lower levels of football, the NFL can only be aped, less competently … by definition, less professionally … off the field as well as on it.

And that is why youth football is doomed. Having-it-both-ways good intentions will not save lives and protect public health.

Irv Muchnick