Did the Redskins handle RGIII's concussion properly?
Somewhere in between the Washington Redskins recognizing that Robert Griffin III received a concussion on Sunday and the correct decision to keep him out of the rest of the game, it somehow got twisted that the team had erred in their handling of the rookie quarterback's brain injury.
The team was criticized for giving an in-game status update that said Griffin was "shaken up."
Then head coach Mike Shanahan took heat after the game when he said Griffin had a "mild concussion."
"When he really wasn't sure what quarter it was, what score it was, we knew he had a mild concussion, at least according to the doctors," Shanahan said after the game.
Take it away, peanut gallery:
"Oh, he didn't know what was going on? Just a little shaky! Shanahan's a classic smashmouth FOOTBALL coach, and it's hardly a surprise to hear him talk about a concussed Griffin like there was any chance he could've gone back in the game. But this is the battle the NFL has to fight as it continues to try and improve player safety."
"In using that term, Shanahan is doing his superstar rookie quarterback a disservice. And in allowing teams to use phrases like "mild concussion" or "neck injury" to describe what are obvious injuries to a player's head, the NFL is doing a disservice to player safety.Concussions aren't chicken wing flavors. Calling something a "mild concussion" is like telling someone that your wife is "kind of pregnant." A concussion is, medically speaking, known as TBI. That stands for Traumatic Brain Injury. Not mild brain injury, spicy brain injury or Caribbean jerk brain injury. Traumatic brain injury."
"The term "mild" concussion may be more descriptive than "shaken up," which was how the Redskins initially described Griffin, but with the NFL's emphasis on protecting players from head injuries, it's probably better for coaches not to refer to any concussions as 'mild.'"
It's time to kill the term "mild concussion." It's only mild if someone else suffers it. Apart from being medically inaccurate, the term downplays the severity of suffering a concussion. It basically is an update of the outdated terms "bell rung" or "shaken up."
Oh, Internet, you never fail to disappoint when bloggers try to out-earnest each other.
There are only two ways to deal with a concussion: the right way and the wrong way. RGIII didn't play another snap on Sunday. The Redskins did it properly.
So what's the issue? Shanahan's word choice in diagnosing his quarterback? Did the football media suddenly turn into MDs and English professors? Are we all so concussion sensitive that we can't accept all brain injuries aren't created equal? I can Google "CDC mild concussion" and read the same report everybody else did. What I read is that the severity of concussions can vary, the same as heart attacks, strokes and forms of cancer. Assuming the concussion was not on the severe side, why is it a disservice to say that? We need more awareness about concussions. Lumping all of them together is a terrible way to do that.
The NFL is looking into the Redskins' injury reporting because the NFL has been a great champion of concussion awareness for the past five minutes. What better way to make up for a half-century of looking the other way than hitting a team for using an adjective.
Late Sunday, Griffin tweeted he was okay and would likely play next week after concussion tests. I suppose we should get mad at him for not treating his injury seriously enough.