The Concussion Blog

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 was concussed and then put on IR for that reason he would not be listed on the OIR.  Also, players that have another injury – say ankle – along with a concussion sometimes those players are not listed as concussion or head, just ankle (I also use “Fink’s Rule” but no player has fit that criteria this year, maybe progress).  So as you can see the need to track concussions in various methods and not trust the OIR.

Here are the differences in black and white, the first number is our number of concussions in that week and the (2nd number) is what the Concussion Watch has; Week 1 – 12 (10), Week 2 – 12 (9), Week 3 – 10 (6), Week 5 – 12 (8), Week 7 – 6 (4), Week 9 – 7 (4), Week 10 – 12 (9), Week 11 – 16 (13).  HOWEVER, when you add all that up, you notice that there is a 24 concussion difference in our databases yet only a 10 concussion difference in total numbers…  I don’t know where we are off…  Like I said, hot mess…

UPDATED: I added up all the weekly numbers on the Concussion Watch and get 120, there is our difference, it is not 132 like at the top…

UPDATE #2: I would also like to add players on teams going into a bye that sustained a concussion and resolve by their next game will NOT be listed on the Official Injury Report.  Another massive problem is Week 17 concussions, unless a team plays the following week in the Wild Card round their injury will not be listed either.

Regardless, this is where it all began, in September of 2010 with post season wrap ups in 2010 and 2011.  Without further haste here are the post Week 14 numbers.

During Week 14 we found SIX, yes only 6 concussions.  There are now 148 regular season concussions – 196 since camp opened,()’s represent last week’s numbers…;

• 148 Concussions/head injuries (142)
• 10.57 Concussions/week (10.92)
• 180 Projected Concussions (185)
• 0.70 Concussions/game (0.73)
• 12.48% InR (12.90)
• 10.60% EInR (10.95)
• 81 Offensive (78) – 67 Defense (64)
• Positionally Speaking
  • QB – 7 (7), RB – 16 (16), TE – 15 (14), WR – 28 (27), OL – 15 (14), DL – 13 (13), LB – 15 (15), DB – 39 (36)
• Team Breakdown
  • OAK – 12
  • DET, JAX – 8
  • CLE, IND, KC, WAS – 7
  • DAL – 6
  • MIN, NE, NYJ, PIT, STL – 5
  • ARI, CAR, CHI, NYG, PHI, SEA, SF, TB, TEN – 4
  • BUF, CIN, DEN, GB, MIA, NO – 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 14: # (2011, 2010):

• Regular Season Concussions – 148 (138, 127)