Curtis Martin is being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame; if it weren’t for playing though concussions perhaps he wouldn’t be getting enshrined. Martin didn’t exactly say that but reading between the lines you can see that the former and current (see Troy Polamalu) way of thinking needs to be adjusted;
The former Jets and Patriots running back, who will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next month, candidly recounted his teammates peeling him up from the turf, shaking him awake and guiding him toward the huddle for the next play.
“This was just the mentality, it’s no fault of the NFL or anything, it’s just a part of the game,” Martin told reporters today at a luncheon in New York, in advance of his induction. “When I would get hit, they knew that I popped up just like that, every time I get hit. … Any time that I didn’t pop up, my fullback knew to come pick me up because I was probably either dazed or knocked out.”
Martin said he was reluctant to share exactly how many concussions he suffered during his football career, because it has become such a hot-button issue in the NFL. But the total was “a lot … more than enough,” he said.
We have discussed this a lot and we will be discussing it more as training camps begin the next few weeks; professional players are a different breed. It takes someone who is a few sandwiches short of a picnic to place their entire body in harm’s way on every snap/play. Now when you compile in an invisible injury the stakes get higher, fortunately for many players effects have yet to set them back, but they will.
Martin is not worried, per the article, but the closing statement says volumes;
Martin has a seven-month old daughter, Ava. If he ever has a son, he said he would “try to steer him in a different direction” from playing football because of his first-hand experience with how rough the game is.
The Concussion Blog 