December 20, 2024
What’s asked of an NFL player wouldn’t be asked of anyone in another profession, and that could be applied across so many aspects of this unusual job. None is more striking than watching a colleague get knocked out cold, kneeling with co-workers in a circle — please, please, please, man, move your limbs — as he comes to, watching him be helped in a wobbly daze to the locker room and then hearing the whistle. Time for the next play.
“It’s a violent game,” quarterback Marcus Mariota said. “You know there are things that happen. You know that’s part of it. But you have to have a little separation. Once the person either is removed from the field or comes off, you have to kind of lock back in. Just because if you play timid or play scared, you open up your possibilities of getting hurt as well.”
These guys are built differently. On every snap of every game, they are subjected to career-altering — no, make that life-altering — danger. Their response is essentially this: More, please.
“You think of your brother,” special teams ace Jeremy Reaves said. “You check on your brother. You hope your brother is okay. But at the same time, hey, you still have a job to go do. It’s part of it, right? You can’t let that engulf you.”
On Sunday in New Orleans, the Washington Commanders watched tight end Zach Ertz make an impressive, one-handed catch — then be unable to stay on his feet by himself before he was woozily helped to the sideline. They watched safety Jeremy Chinn get involved in a tackle, then lie limply on the turf, motionless for what seemed like minutes. They had already endured running back Austin Ekeler going off late in a November game against Dallas, a memory-erasing hit to the head sending him to injured reserve.
After all that, you’re supposed to go play this violent sport with the same type of violence?
“For sure, it is a challenge,” Coach Dan Quinn said. “… At that point, the focus is on the player. Being able to get into the next space — that does take mental training to go on to the next thing. Because you don’t want to be callous to say, ‘Next man up’ or [anything like] that. That’s not what we say at all. But you do have to shift back into the mode of the game and responsibilities.”
One theme as the Commanders approach the final three games of the regular season — games that will determine whether they make the playoffs for the first time since the 2020 season — will be their health. In a day-to-day world, those updates appear on an injury report. By Friday, injured players will be listed as “questionable” or “doubtful” or “out,” and that will help inform fans about Washington’s chances Sunday against Philadelphia. (It’ll help inform bookmakers, too, on how to set the line on the game.)
But I can’t shake the idea that assessing concussed players with a line on a sheet of paper is dehumanizing to a degree. We can imagine what it takes to rehab a pulled hamstring or a torn knee ligament. Rebuilding a brain is different. I have seen it up close.
A few years ago, a close relative suffered a concussion in a fall. The rehabilitation process was some combination of demanding and demoralizing. Doctors would provide tests: Recite back this string of eight numbers. Repeat a list of objects: apple, button, car, etc. In normal times, it’s simple stuff. In those foggy days, it read like quantum physics. Bursting into tears in front of a doctor you didn’t know — frustration mixed with fear — wasn’t uncommon.
The rehab instructions included playing simple board games such as “Sorry” to practice counting and moving a game piece at the same time — then finding that task damn near impossible. Getting through a day meant writing down menial tasks in the most minute details: Find number for doctor. Call doctor. Make appointment. Get keys. Lock door.
Driving proved to be a cognitive potpourri. The eyes have to move from the car in front of you to the rearview mirror to the road sign displaying what exit number is for which direction, then around again. The brain must process what all those moving parts mean and get the body to react. It took months to safely drive across town.
That’s one experience. It’s different for everyone.
“For concussions, they all have a life of their own,” Ekeler said this month on 106.7 the Fan.
Nine days after he couldn’t remember coming off the field against Dallas, Ekeler made his weekly appearance on the “Grant and Danny” show. Co-host Grant Paulsen, listening to Ekeler’s mostly upbeat assessment, said it sounded as if his season wasn’t over. Ekeler yanked the reins — hard. He had already recovered from a concussion suffered in Week 3 against Cincinnati. This is serious for football, sure. But it’s serious for life, too.
“Hey, man, it’s week to week,” Ekeler told Paulsen. “It’s one of those things I want to continue to learn more about: Hey, it’s my second concussion. Am I more susceptible for a third one now that I’ve had two, and [considering] the severity of mine? It’s a learning process for me because I’ve never had anything like this — this bad and twice in the same year.”
Chinn appeared at Washington’s practice Wednesday. Ekeler and Ertz did not. The coming games against Philadelphia, Atlanta and Dallas are paramount for Washington’s season. The coming years are more important for the lives of those three players. In that context, the Commanders’ position in the playoff picture doesn’t matter. Their health does.
“What’s been good throughout the last few years is just how open and honest people are about those symptoms,” Mariota said. “Because early on in my career, you got a concussion, it was kind of like, ‘Shake it off and get back to the next play or the next game.’ That’s been good for us as players, to be honest about how you feel. Because it’s a scary thing.”