the game? Last night, following a head neck injury suffered by
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we say good morning to our audience. On peacock. Sirius
XM, 85, we are live today on Sky Sports NFL in the UK and in
Ireland, Peter King is with me. I say Peter, good morning,
welcome back. Great to see you on another Friday. We've got
some important things to talk about today before we pivot to
the Less important subject of what happened last night in
the game
and what will happen this weekend in the remaining games.
Mike, I think this could be a seminal moment for the National
Football League because clearly
what happened five days ago
is that the NFL through its program,
including the unaffiliated, neurotrauma consultant on every
side line of every NFL game
looked at to a tongue of a low, after he got up wobbly from
a hit, where his head hit the ground, got up wobbly.
Had to be helped from the field
and then
at the that was late in the second quarter. And at
the start of the third quarter, he came running out to play
football.
And so everybody said, wow, what's going on? What's
Happening? And the NFL obviously said, hey, we have
an unaffiliated,
neuro traumatic consultant at every game
and he tests the players
on protocol for head injuries and head trauma. And if he
passes
that, Concussion protocol
that head trauma protocol. He gets to go back in the game.
Okay, fine. He goes back in the game and then to a tongue of
a low, it gets hit again
Thursday night in the game
and it was
a significant hit obviously for those who saw it
and his finger start twitching, his arms start twitching and
moving in,
in odd ways.
And so we soon learned Earn that this can be a result of
such an incident, such a concussive tight blow.
And so the reason I say this could be a seminal moment for
the NFL is that the NFL
I believe needs to further, examine its
return to play protocol.
And needs to basically say that if a player
walks off the field wobbly,
And appears to the unaffiliated, neuro traumatic
consultant, that there are some
possible head trauma. There is a head trauma situation in
the case,
regardless of whether he passed the tests or not, he should not
return to play that day. That to me is what this the last
five days tells me.
You're absolutely right. And I want to go back to Sunday
because it sets the table for what happened last night.
I spent a lot of time on Sunday, afternoon
reviewing, the concussion protocol communicating with
the league office trying to understand
what happened, why he was allowed to return. And then as
the NFL players Association got involved, what would happen
going forward?
And here's the key aspect of the concussion protocol that
needs to be considered very carefully. And I, Unanswered
questions that I posed to the league multiple times on Sunday
and they didn't answer me and they still haven't answered me.
And I assume they have an answer me because they have to
answer to the nflpa,
when a player demonstrates. What the protocol calls gross
motor instability? And we all saw it, after two atong of
Aloha, had his head, hit the ground on Sunday,
he got up, he was wobbly. And then
after that, he has to be held up by a player. We see
the wobble there.
And then he keeps walking and a teammate comes up and actually
holds him up that is gross motor and stability under
the concussion protocol,
as the policy is written Peter.
The player cannot return unless the team physician and
the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant, both conclude that
the gross motor instability did not have a neurological, cause
my question of the league that has still not been answered.
What did they do to come to the conclusion?
That, that was not neurologically cause because
we all saw it, we saw it. We know it.
When we see it, we saw it. So we know it
when Mike McDaniel the head coach of the Dolphins. After
the game says, I thought it was a head injury to yes. So did
anyone else with functioning eyes?
We all saw it. So, how did they find a way
to wedge to, in this loophole of
Wasn't a neurological cause
because if it was,
if it was, he can't return.
He can only return
if they conclude there was not a neurological cause so what
did team physician and UNC do to come to the conclusion?
Did they study the film?
Do they study it, carefully?
Did they just take to his word for? It's my back.
Don't worry. I'm fine. You can trust me. I have. No,
I have no skin in this game.
I don't care if I
Later. I don't come on. We can't listen to players in
situations like this. We should have learned that by now and if
we didn't we know it. Now we can't say going forward.
Well yeah, which is listen to the player.
But what did they do? Peter
to come to that conclusion? They haven't answered that question.
They'll be answering it within the context of this investigation
and the investigations important now because it takes
on far greater significance.
Because if he had been ruled in, do go in the concussion
protocol parlance
on Sunday, there's a good chance, you would have been
playing on Thursday night and that's the real question.
Should he have been playing
on Thursday night?
And the broader question, the NFL needs to reckon with
is whether other players should have a higher bar
for playing on Thursday,
when they're injured on Sunday, regardless of the injury,
is that enough time for certain injuries
to recover and play again? Whether it's back,
ankle, rib shoulder,
but most importantly of all
concussion and head trauma,
do there need to be bright lines.
That have no loopholes
that apply no matter what in these situations. I think
that's the real question. The NFL has to ask because it seems
like Peter anytime there's a loophole, somebody finds a way
to shove a camel through it.
Yeah. Mike, I think once you saw the video on Sunday
and once you saw the gross instability
and it wasn't necessarily when he first got up and just shook
his head, like use trying to get the cobwebs out, it was
obviously the second time when he got up and almost fell over
and that to me basically says to to a team to anyone
that that person should not be involved in. Athletic contest
for the rest of that day and not again, until he passes very
stringent standards.
One other thing I guess I would say about the whole thing Mike,
is that
this really reminds me
of the battle days?
When remember how a player would say, oh, I it wasn't my
head, it was my neck.
I just had a lot of pain in my neck or,
you know, my shoulder. I was, you know, my shoulder was
really bothering me and that's Why I was making those motions
out there that some might consider motions
common to
concussive effects
and so, and in the old days, everybody would say, oh yeah,
yeah, okay. All right. Just go play now because so many
players over the years abuse that because they just,
it was a Badge of Courage to go back in the game.
So many players really abused that
that not until the Ben Roethlisberger incident in.
Yeah, that'll
when they were down eight points late and he voluntarily
took himself out of the game because he just couldn't see
straight. That's really about the first time or one of
the first times that I remember
in a competitive environment,
a really good player taking himself out of the game and
just saying, hey, it's not worth it. I don't know what
the future holds for me, but I'm not going to risk going back in
and playing
with what is likely a concussion.
So to me, I think Think there needs to be even an extra layer
here.
Not only
the unaffiliated neuro traumatic consultant on
the sidelines, but also the ability to Simply say that, if you have
this gross instability,
if you are wobbly, if even for a moment, you appear to be
punch drunk, your day is over.
And I remember the Roethlisberger incident, Peter
did a great job working that story, but you and I have
the conversation at the time, you may not remember this. But my
point was
Ben Roethlisberger is one of the very few players in the NFL
who has the luxury of tapping out. Most guys can't do it.
Most guys, can't say I choose to not play
and give my backup a chance to play better than me
and keep me on the sidelines
indefinitely Ben Roethlisberger. Knew he was
playing, no matter how much time he missed.
Due to his belief that he had, what the Steelers used to
famously, call or notoriously, call concussion-like symptoms.
And
I think the easy fix to the concussion protocol, is there's
no longer an exception. If you have gross motor instability,
it doesn't matter what tests you pass
in the locker room. Wrecked
gross motor and stability,
needs to be treated the same as the fencing posture. A lot of
people got a lesson last night and what the fencing posture is
and we've seen that happen to play.
As in the past Case Keenum, had it in 2015, a very bad
situation for the NFL, where no one bothered to take Case
Keenum out of the game. After he was in the fencing posture,
which as Mike Ryan NBC
Sports Medicine analyst, explain to Al Michaels last
night. And now, Michaels explain to the audience,
because, Mike Ryan is part of the Amazon broadcast,
the idea that the fencing posture is
a reaction to neurological trauma. It's involuntary
arm and hand reaction
to neurological. Trauma.
We saw it. We're not going to show it to you is troubling,
it's difficult to see but when to his head hit the ground last
night we immediately sought that is a no-go.
No matter what protocol you pass,
no matter how healthy you are deemed to be later. You're not
coming back into that game. Easy fix.
When we see gross motor and stability,
we're going to treat it the same
as the fencing posture.
That's the easiest fix they can make because someone somehow
found a way to check the
box that it wasn't neurologically caused. When
anyone with common sense would have concluded that what we saw
on Sunday was neurological. Cause how could it not have
been? It was in his back,
it wasn't anything other than his head. And I'm not calling
the guy a liar, I said the same thing. If I was in his
situation, I want to play football. It's my back, I'm
fine. Let me play, let me play, I'm bills. It's the biggest
game that you've right were played in your NFL career. That
is Why players
say I'm fine? I'm fine.
They want to play in the game. They've been training their
whole lives including in major college football to play in
games. Exactly like this.
You think they're voluntarily going to want to come out of
the game? They have to be forced to come out of the game.
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