WW has yet another concussion, his third in less than a year.
When is enough enough? I think there should be some sort of max-concussion limit set in the NFL where you are medically released/retired against your will if need be. I just don’t get how the NFL can let him keep playing and hope to build goodwill with the medical community regarding TBI in the NFL.
Sam Bradford is the same situation but to a lesser degree IMHO. Kid tore his ACL 2 times in a year. How can he continue to play at this point? Why would any team let him?
Imagine the labor problems that would result if the NFL tried to force a player to retire. They could create some kind of limit on concussions with the cooperation of the NFLPA, but that seems really doubtful to me.
Yeah I know it would be a mess, but I don’t see how you can try to hold an organization responsible for the safety of it’s players and then deny them the right to force players out of the game when they become a liability to both the organization and the player himself.
The NFL has been sued for millions of dollars due to concussions and will probably be sued for millions more. Either it’s an acceptable risk to the NFLPA and they stop suing or it’s not and they start forcing players out of the league. I don’t see any other way to handle it.
ACL tears are different than concussions. With concussions the ongoing damage can strip away the central piece of you that makes you… YOU. Our intellect, our consciousness is what separates us from the animals, and makes life in our modern society possible.
It depends on what you mean by “the NFL”. The team can certainly refuse to put him on the field, they can put him on IR, the PUP list, or release him. Other teams can also refuse to sign him as a result of his injuries. NFL contracts are not guaranteed.
Or, do we mean can the NFL Commissioner decide that a particular player shall no longer play, despite the wishes of the player and team? That is a lot trickier, and I don’t know if there is any precedent to do it.
Should football teams have yet another way to void contracts they don’t want to pay? I think the only sensible answer here is “no.” Maybe there should be a process in which players who have suffered multiple head injuries are no longer allowed to play, but if so, the players and owners will have to come to an agree on how that process works and will have to keep it free from inappropriate influence. That means the decision should be made by doctors and doctors alone, the teams or the league shouldn’t be able to put their thumbs on the scale, and a player who is forced to retire should be able to get all the money he is owed.
The evidence just isn’t clear enough for the league to step in and take away a guys ability to earn. Yeah, concussions are bad and lots of people are messed up, but there’s lots of people who had a lot of them and seem to be perfectly fine. It’s not like we’re anywhere close to having some sort of method of gauging the actual risk. Plus, kicking him out of the league just further encourages players to lie about symptoms potentially making the risk dramatically worse.
I doubt the issue of him retiring or not is money, because he most likely is set for life.
The reason he would stay on would be because retiring would mean no longer doing the thing he loves the most: Play football.
Do they need another way to void contracts? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought most all NFL contracts are unguaranteed to begin with, and the team can just release a player for any reason at any time.
Though, I did just read that you can’t cut a guy who’s ‘injured’, so the team would have to certify the player as no longer injured before cutting him, for being injured…
Very few people are weighing in on the first question:
SHOULD he retire.
Would YOU retire in this circumstance?
How comparable is this to boxing or MMA in terms of # of concussions in a year? Do boxers/MMA fighter sustain multiple concussions in a year like this regularly? If so maybe I am over estimating the risk of permanent brain damage.
I do think the NFL should be able to set some TBI threshold and force players out after that line is crossed. Like I said, I find it hard to hold the NFL accountable for the brain damage that (can?) occur from repeated concussions and then turn around and prevent them from retiring players when they hit some magic number.
Though the point made upthread about players hiding their injuries if they knew they would be retired if they reported them is a good one unfortunately someone has to be responsible and if the players are going to choose to hide those injuries then it’s on them. They are grown men.
(Oh, FYI I’m not a doctor and don’t know shit about TBI and concussions other than what I read on ESPN so take it for what it’s worth)
Marley, in Welker’s case, he should have been paid his $6M guaranteed money already, $4M Signing Bonus (pro-rated $2m each year for cap purposes) + 2M salary last year. This year, he’s got $6M more un-guaranteed, based on a $3M salary and $3M roster bonus. The team, for any or no reason at all, can cut him prior to the date for the roster bonus and save the $6M. He then becomes a free agent and can sign anywhere that will take him.
What I’m getting at is they can cut him just because they don’t want to pay him, they don’t need a concussion based excuse. The only hard restriction I’ve seen is that you can’t cut someone while they’re injured, or at least if you do there are specific payments to be made. So I would expect that teams would not want an injury based reason for cutting the player, to avoid running afoul of these rules.
How about if a player is mandatory retired he gets up to 2 years of his contract value paid for by BIG NFL instead of the team? Something like that. I’m sure there’s plenty of money there to handle that.
Beyond those 2 years well, unfortunately, life is rough. People who aren’t professional athletes lose their jobs all the time due to not being able to physically perform them and they are generally not compensated. I’m not talking about people who are hurt on the job and can no longer function in daily life, they get some sort of workmens comp. I’m talking about the guys who paint and their backs just can’t take it anymore so they move on to another career that doesn’t mangle their back. Or carpet layers, roofers etc… Football should be handled the same way. Once you can’t safely do the job any more you move on to something you CAN do safely. No one is entitled to a long career in the NFL just because they start one, no matter how hard they worked for it over the course of their lives. No team should be required to pay someone for work they can’t safely do.