The NFL Concussion Protocol

Have you ever wondered why the NFL takes so long when players get hurt into a game to clear them? Fans argue that the concussion protocol does not work and that it should be taken out of the game because it ruins the game for the fans. The NFL Concussion Protocol does not ruin the game of football because the players need to be kept safe and live a healthy life, the NFL needs to be a safety organization, and it helps the players avoid higher risks of injury like CTE.

The NFL Concussion Protocol should be supported because NFL players are starting to get CTE, and it is not slowing down. “We 've seen it in 90 out of 94 NFL players whose brains we 've examined, we 've found it in 45 out of 55 college players and 6 out of 26 high school players,”

The NFL commissioner needs to make the players and college athletes aware that they care about their players and care about their health, the Concussion Protocol does just that with showing the players that they will go drastic measures to make sure and keep them safe. For example, the NFL’s commissioner allowing the players to protest during the national anthem. The commissioner allowed the players to speak there beliefs during the national anthem before every game by either allowing them to stand, lock arms with teammates, or sit. The players were not criticized by the commissioner, but were by the President of the United States, and even then the commissioner stood up for their beliefs. The commissioner stated during the whole propaganda that he “...would like zero players to protest during anthem, but it won’t force any rules to change and will support players and their beliefs…,”(Martinez, Peter). Now others may say that the NFL does not care about the players, they only care about the revenue stream and views, but the commissioner supporting and backing up the players and enforcing the NFL Concussion Protocol shows that he cares about the players mental, physical, and emotional

Do you remember Sean Taylor? If so, you remember him as former Washington Redskins free safety who was famously known for his big hits. He sadly passed away at the age of 24, but what we don’t truly know is that is when the NFL started to change the way the game has been played because NFL players deserve to have a healthy life and be safe. In 2009 the NFL put in place the “NFL Gameday Concussion Protocol” which put in affect “the rules and regulations on players to keep them safe,”(Stites, Adam). This was the biggest change that happened and Roger Goodell stated to ESPN the day that it was first put into place “... too help the players from suffering life threatening injuries, because they as human beings, deserve to have the right to live a healthy life after football,”(Seifert, Kevin) Now people can say well if the NFL cared about the players and their right to be safe then why put the NFL GameDay Concussion Protocol into effect in 2009 when it started to be a big time problem in 2004. Well people do not know that the organization was trying to help but they were trying to fix it with small changes rather then big time changes due to the risk of viewer