The Concussion Blog Original, NFL Concussion Report, is a weekly compiling of the reported head injuries in the National Football League.  Concussions are added to the list each week from multiple sources to give you the reader a picture of what is happening on the field.  Each week we will bring you the information along with relevant statistics.  If we have missed a concussion or put one on here erroneously, let us know (we will also be using Fink’s Rule to classify a concussion/head injury).

REMINDER: I am asking for your help this week; as you probably have noticed by my tweets and facebook posts.  The NFL teams that do not make the playoffs and don’t play in the Wild Card round (24 of them) do not have to report concussions after this week.  I am looking for you the reader to tweet/email us any concussion found.  It has to be within these parameters:

1. Reported by team/media
2. Have a source

As always you can tweet/send me info about a particular instance of questionable action taken after a huge hit.  I thank you in advance as we are pumped to possibly have the first ever “official” Week 17 concussion report.

Week 16 brought us the “usual” numbers but an unusual occurrence of a player fessing up to a concussion four days later, as Greg McElroy divulged his injury to the team late in the week.  Along with the “usual” numbers we have surpassed last years total concussion count in the regular season (by four and counting).

I really don’t have an opinion this week to share with all of you so let us get onto the numbers for the past week in the NFL… Continue reading →

The Concussion Blog Original, NFL Concussion Report, is a weekly compiling of the reported head injuries in the National Football League.  Concussions are added to the list each week from multiple sources to give you the reader a picture of what is happening on the field.  Each week we will bring you the information along with relevant statistics.  If we have missed a concussion or put one on here erroneously, let us know (we will also be using Fink’s Rule to classify a concussion/head injury).

After last week and the NFL reporting only six concussions this week picked right back up to previous levels.  We have unearthed 14 concussion for Week 15; showing that last week was definitely an outlier.  Since Week 11 the number of concussions per week were as follows: 16, 19, 15, 6, and 14.  As my two-year old’s favorite TV show says “one of these things are not like the others”.

Our data collection, the most comprehensive since 2010, has shown that more than 50% of ALL concussions in the NFL occur after week number 9, or the back half of the season.  As of this week we have surpassed the Week 1-9 total of 80; there have been 82 since Week 10.  Of course the pundits will tell you that all the byes have taken place, so more teams means more concussions; true.  However, as the season wears on and the accumulation of hits to the head compile, the theory of cumulative subconcussive blows eventually creates concussive episodes may also be a culprit of our bigger numbers in the second half.

Going forward into the last two weeks – wait one week (I will get that in a second) it will be interesting to see if the trend continues or if there will be another “outlier”.  About that “one” week thing I just mentioned; sure there is two games left but because 67.5% of the league is done after Week 17 concussion reporting is horrible.  As was explained last week, teams will not – do not – report concussions if they are not playing a game in the 1st round of the playoffs.  It takes work from the media and other information gathering Continue reading →

The Concussion Blog Original, NFL Concussion Report, is a weekly compiling of the reported head injuries in the National Football League.  Concussions are added to the list each week from multiple sources to give you the reader a picture of what is happening on the field.  Each week we will bring you the information along with relevant statistics.  If we have missed a concussion or put one on here erroneously, let us know (we will also be using Fink’s Rule to classify a concussion/head injury).

It seems that concussion tracking has hit a “major market” finally with the launch of the PBSFrontline/ESPN Concussion Watch, which is another good source for information.  Their Concussion Watch includes all players that were listed on the NFL Official Injury reports, with either “concussion” or “head” injuries.  This gathers a vast majority of the concussions but they will miss some.

I had the opportunity to pseudo-collaborate with the entities that are compiling this information (via phone and email contact), and we discussed how their numbers would be different from ours here or a place like @NFLConcussions on Twitter.  Our discrepancies go to further the hot mess that is the NFL concussion issue summarized by the Fainaru brothers today.

I not only utilize the Official Injury Report but other methods; data mining and sources.  I had to go that route after Will Carroll explained to me that teams only have to list players that are/may be in a position to play that week or will be out.  In other words, if for some reason a player was concussed and was told he was concussed – even reported as concussed – but miraculously had no issues come Wednesday deadline for the OIR then they would not be listed.  Likewise if a player Continue reading →

Guess the holiday season has many people behind on tasks, including yours truly.  Anyhow, here is the report from after 13 weeks in the NFL.  The report for week 14 should make it to this space by the end of the week (cross your fingers, ha).

During Week 13 we found 15 concussions, seems the weekly average is going up.  We now have 142 regular season concussions – 190 since camp opened.  NOTES: The offense continues to hold roughly a 10% advantage in concussions, which is weird it should be a 50/50 split…  Including preseason DB’s have more concussions (48) then the rest of the defense (38) – 36/28 split in regular season…  Interestingly RB, TE, OL, DL and LB all have similar occurrence; WR and DB’s are higher and QB’s way low…  I think we are going to see a new season “high water” mark, credit to Will Carroll for calling this before the season…  ()’s represent last week’s numbers…;

• 142 Concussions/head injuries (127)
• 10.92 Concussions/week (10.60)
• 185 Projected Concussions (180)
• 0.73 Concussions/game (0.70)
• 12.90% InR (12.49)
• 10.95% EInR (10.61)
• 70 Offensive (78) – 57 Defense (64)
• Positionally Speaking
  • QB – 7 (7), RB – 14 (16), TE – 13 (14), WR – 24 (27), OL – 12 (14), DL – 10 (13), LB – 15 (15), DB – 32 (36)
• Team Breakdown
  • OAK – 12
  • DET, JAX – 8
  • CLE, IND, KC, WAS – 7
  • NE, NYJ, PIT – 5
  • CAR, CHI, DAL, MIN, NYG, SEA, SF STL, TB, TEN – 4
  • ARI, BUF, CIN, DEN, GB, MIA, NO, PHI – 3
  • BAL, HOU, SD – 2
  • ATL – 1
  • NONE – 0

Our definition of Incidence Rate (InR) is projected concussions/45 players taking the field per team per game, our definition of Epidemiological Incidence Rate (EInR) is projected concussions/53 man roster per team.

Comparing to past seasons the following has been found after Week 13: # (2011, 2010):

• Regular Season Concussions – 127 (122, 119)