I'll wait.
It's not a pretty sight. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable (well, maybe a little) (OK, maybe more than a little). But if you're into NFL football, all up on the TV every Sunday, you need to watch it.
It is a pretty sickening sight to see. As Case Keenum, playing at quarterback for the St. Louis Rams, tries to escape a tackle, he gets wrapped up and slung down by an onrushing Baltimore Ravens defender, his head being slammed against the turf in the process. The slightly-slo-mo replay ... it hurts just to watch.
Keep in mind that this game is being played in Baltimore. The Ravens play in something that is currently called M&T Bank Stadium. Some years ago the stadium had a natural-grass playing field. Even so, having your body slung against it was going to be painful and damaging. However, the Ravens (presumably) switched to an artificial surface in 2003, and changed to a different artificial surface in 2010. There may be some who will try to tell you that artificial surfaces aren't that hard any more. They probably have a vested interest in your believing that. Harry Frankfurt has a word for that kind of thing.
So Case Keenum's head makes very hard contact with a hard surface. Next, Keenum tries to get up, but it doesn't go very well. Somehow a teammate thinks the best thing to do for his fallen quarterback is to drag him up from the ground by his arm. A trainer comes on the field to check him out.
This was apparently a pivotal moment. Because this trainer took the field, apparently the ATC spotter for the game -- a certified trainer designated by the NFL with the authority to stop the game -- didn't do so, or at least that's what Rams coach Jeff Fisher thought. The trainer, in turn, was eventually waived off the field by an official (again, according to Fisher), leaving the quarterback in because, supposedly, he said he felt o.k. Keenum ended up staying in the game for two more ineffective plays, the second of which resulted in a fumble that gave the Ravens the ball and the chance to win the game, which they did.
OK. So if the ATC spotter and the trainer somehow got prevented from doing their work, what of the head man? Sorry, but Fisher was in "game management mode." The game was tied and late, and Fisher was apparently already on to the next play. Somehow none of the other coaches on the field managed to take note of Keenum's wobbliness. It didn't occur to any of his teammates on the field that maybe, if at the most base level, a wobbly and unsteady and possibly concussed quarterback (who was the backup QB at the start of the season, at that) might not ought to be on the field. The trainer apparently thought that a guy whose head was just slammed into the concrete was somehow capable of answering for himself coherently.
At least one person on the Rams sideline suspected something bad was up: backup quarterback Nick Foles. While probably not completely devoid of self-interest in getting up and starting to take warmup tosses, even an opportunistic Foles was aware that Keenum was not right in the head, in the most literal sense of the word.
I was in the midst of a long drive on Sunday, so my first exposure to this story was on Monday, with a few hits on ESPN and other sports media outlets and a brief "trending" moment on social media. Keenum was entered into the NFL's "concussion protocol," meaning he has to pass cognitive tests before he can return to football activities. A handful of stories and editorials popped up, expressing various levels of scorn or outrage, particularly in the St. Louis media, not surprisingly. Yesterday, you might have thought that this would be, maybe, the incident that would provoke enough outrage or scorn or some kind of emotion to force some kind of reckoning. You might have thought this would be the last straw, or something close to it.
Today? All you can hear about the NFL is about Johnny Manziel's party habits.
Seriously, go look at that page. Notice all the NFL stories queued up to the left: you have to scroll down an awfully long way to find anything about Keenum's injury and the fallout from the procedural failure.
In essence, the story has already blown over.
We may hear a little more when the NFL concludes its "investigation" (no, I don't really expect much from it, hence the scare quotes). Maybe the trainer or the ATC spotter will get some kind of It's possible that Fisher might lose his job, although that was already a pretty strong possibility before the game. The mediocre Rams might face some sort of fine or other punishment. It's possible that local outcry in St. Louis might be more pronounced.
But really, I despair of anything changing signficantly.
Maybe if the affected quarterback was somebody more famous than Case Keenum. Would there be more reaction if it were Tom Brady's head being slammed into the concrete, or Peyton Manning's or even Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco's.
I'm beginning to wonder if even an NFL player dying right there on the field, in front of God and all the cameras, would even provoke the needed outrage any more.
So, a few points to review:
1. A player who has just taken that blow to the head is the last person who is credible to determine his own condition. Let this be clear: EVERY ATHLETE WILL LIE in that position. These people do not care about their own health and well-being at this point. I know that makes no sense. It's still true. There are sheep herders in remote Mongolia who would have been more qualified to determine Keenum's fitness for play than Keenum himself.
2. Coaches really are not going to be paying attention to the quarterback's or anybody else's immediate health when the game is on the line. To be blunt, we pay them not to pay attention to anything but getting the next play called. So they're not going to pay attention to anything but getting the next play called. Coaches simply have too much stuff in their faces in that situation. These calls cannot be left up to them.
3. If a designated spotter is going to be given authority in these situations, that authority cannot be conditional. The spotter has to be able to call the medical timeout even if a trainer is on the field. This business can't be preempted by turf wars over authority.
4. Officials need to be disciplined as well in these situations.
5. Anybody who's going to be intimidated by fans in such a situation cannot be trusted with the job. A similarly ugly situation occured in an MLS playoff match a couple of weeks ago, in which a concussed goalie was left out to dry for about five more minutes of play before finally being removed from the match when he more or less belly-flopped after a shot on goal. The goalie was on the visiting team, and the home fans did not allow for the league's protocol on head injuries to be carried out properly. That can't happen. If some means of disciplining fans becomes necessary, do it.
6. It bears repeating: EVERY ATHLETE WILL LIE in that situation. Keenum was no different than any other athlete in any other sport in that respect.
At this point, how do you, followers of Christ and fans of football, trust the NFL any more?
If you don't, what are you doing about it?
(If I sound angry...well, I am. Why aren't you?)
He's good to go.
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