Whipped Cream Difficulties

At last, the concussion column.

WCD comes up with a total of 3,041 words out of a 9,479 word column (or about 32%) devoted to the concussion problem in the NFL. Easterbrook’s points:

• The incentive structure for coaches at the high school, college, and pro levels is skewed. Coaches benefit by winning games, but aren’t penalized if their players are harmed. WCD actually disagrees somewhat with Easterbrook on this; if a player dies from a heat stroke during practice, for example, you can bet that coach will suffer. (Look at l’affair Mike Leach for another example.) The problem with concussions is that they don’t have immediately visible harmful effects. By the time the damage shows up, the coach has moved on down the road to the next joint, or probably retired.
• The NFL’s policy on concussions is toothless, as shown by Stewart Bradley. Agreed. Until the NFL starts benching coaches, this policy will be ignored.
• Football practice needs to be rethought and reformed. The problem with concussion risk is that it may not be just one hit that does the harm, but the cumulative effect of a whole bunch of smaller hits – the kind you get in practice.
• Better training in recognition and management of concussions, especially at the high school level.
• Properly fitting mouthguards (as in, fitted by a dentist) should be a requirement at all levels of play.
• More legislation.
• Properly fitting helmets. Easterbrook has been pushing concussion reducing helmets for quite a while. WCD doesn’t necessarily think these are a bad idea, but we’d like to see some controlled studies showing these helmets work before making them mandatory. We also wonder if concussion reducing helmets would result in even more risk-taking behavior during tackles. Peltzman effect, anyone?
• Announcers excessively praise “big hits”. Easterbrook quotes some chilling dialog from MNF, where the three announcers basically minimized the 2008 Eric Smith – Anquan Boldin hit during a game. (Boldin’s jaw had to be surgically rebuilt; Smith was suspended for “flagrant violation of player safety rules”; both sustained concussions.)
• Testing of players before the season starts, in order to establish a cognitive baseline and track post-concussion recovery, is a good idea. WCD agrees, but wonders: who is going to pay for this? In TMQ’s cited example, the school has an association with a local children’s hospital. Would someone like the Dell Children’s Hospital be willing to do baseline testing for every football player in the Austin Independent School District? And the Round Rock ISD? And the Westlake ISD? What would the per football player cost be? What would the data storage requirements be? Are there privacy concerns that need to be dealt with? (Who would have access to the player’s baseline information, and who would make the decisions?)
• This is not a point that TMQ makes, but one worth asking about and discussing: would requirements for things like baseline mental testing and concussion-reducing helmets end up pricing football programs in smaller, poorer districts out of existence? If so, would this be a bad thing? Is it okay for poor kids to risk their long-term neurological health because they can’t afford proper protective equipment?
• It comes as something of a surprise to us, given Easterbrook’s point of view, that he actually expresses some skepticism about the Alan Schwarz profile of Owen Thomas.

(Editor’s note: The last two bullet points were actually pulled from a separate section of TMQ, much lower in the column, “Two More Concussion Points”. In order that readers might better follow the logical flow of Easterbrook’s arguments, we collapsed those points and Easterbrook’s initial arguments into one section.)

We wanted to highlight this “Stat of the Week”: “The Dallas Cowboys have lost both opening games at their new $1.3 billion stadium.”

Serita is just kind of okay looking. We can’t tell for sure, but we suspect she has sharp knees.

Sweet and sour plays. “Stop Me Before I Blitz Again!” highlights the Texans-Redskins game, arguing that Washington blew a comfortable 3rd quarter lead by going blitz-wacky.

Wacky disclaimer: the iTunes store.

Adventures in Officiating: DeSean Jackson, Calvin Johnson, and the catch/no-catch rule. If the former head of NFL officiating can’t understand the rule, isn’t it too complex? And (recurring trope) why is the NFL officiating manual not public?

TMQ on fashion: “Apparently the perfect New York City couple would be a very thin woman in a dress that makes it impossible to walk, squired by a metrosexual wearing a snorkel.”

Adventures in Announcing: exaggerating the blitz (another recurring trope). I’m not sure what Buffalo’s poor draft choices have to do with announcing.

“Maybe It’s Not Such a Good Idea to Cut Your Starting Quarterback on the Eve of the Season”. Arizona, TMQ is looking at you. Also, preposterous punts.

In keeping with TMQ tradition, “The Town” is…wait for it…wait for it…unrealistic! My God! Can we no longer trust Hollywood to give us depictions of reality, like “Casablanca” or “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”? Good work here by Easterbrook, though, in linking to Maggie Lloyd and her article about actual bank robbery statistics. (This has nothing to do with TMQ, but WCD absolutely loved Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World, co-written by a former FBI agent who worked on the bank robbery squad in LA.)

Preposterous punts, college edition. The football gods frown on your shenanigans. Crabtree curse. Manning Bowl. Wasteful spending on bodyguards (special guest appearance: Rick Perry).

Christmas creep.

Malone 69, Anna Maria 0. Citadel 26, Presbyterian 14.

Reggie Bush didn’t do anything “ethically wrong”, he just violated NCAA rules. NCAA rules that he agreed to abide by before playing football for USC. Isn’t there something “ethically wrong” about breaking an agreement? Meanwhile, O.J. Simpson is still in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That’s the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in Canton, Ohio. Not the “College Football Hall of Fame” (which actually exists, in South Bend, Indiana; yes, O.J. Simpson is in that Hall of Fame as well). While WCD thinks Simpson is a scumbag, we fail to understand the relationship between his conduct (which took place after his retirement from football) and that of Mr. Bush (which took place while he was playing for USC).

Reader comments: East Carolina-Tulsa and deconstruction of the celebration penalty. Thucydides did it first. Cupcakes in I-AA. Michael Caine. And police escorts for PeeWee football teams.

That’s a wrap for this week. Tune in next week, when we’ll hear the tastefully named Gregg Easterbrook complain that “Citizen Kane” is an unrealistic portrayal of a media tycoon’s life.