brumdog44
Club Member
Total anecdote incoming, so take it for what it's worth.
My son was a college athlete (played tennis for two years in 2019-20) and every athlete had to go through a baseline concussion test before the season started. I don't know the protocols that the NFL uses as compared to college, but the college test -- the BASELINE test just to get cleared to play at the beginning of the seaosn -- had a pretty big failure rate. Link below cites a study that says that the baseline failure rate among athletes taking preseason neurological exams (so ones with no reason to feel that they are concussed) is 29%. In my son's case, he failed it twice (with at least a week between tests) before he passed it a third time. He's never played a contact sport in his life nor had anything that we would ever had worried about a concussion.....zero reason to even slightly suspect he ever had one or certainly had affects when he took the test. In the baseline tests, athletes have a certain amount of memorization skills that had to be shown. I had some some of my co-workers (teachers) take the test and they didn't pass it initially.
Now.....I don't know what procedures are used in the locker room to test for concussion nor do I know what happens in follow tests the days after. I just know from son's experience that if there were a suspected concussion, he would have to take the baseline concussion test again. In Tua's case, we know he was examined at halftime and every day that followed. I think the characterization that you could fool medical professionals by lying about your injury is a mischaracterization.
Side note, I also know that at one point in college my son told me after he was done playing tennis that he felt he might have had a concussion (while putting the team's heavy cooler away on a shelf, it fell and hit him on the head) and he did not tell the staff because his initial experience with the baseline test had him concluding that whether or not he had a concussion, it would take him forever to pass the test. So if he had been tested the number of times that Tua had been, if he had affects of a concussion he would not have passed the protocol; even if he did not have a concussion, he might not have (at least right away).
My son was a college athlete (played tennis for two years in 2019-20) and every athlete had to go through a baseline concussion test before the season started. I don't know the protocols that the NFL uses as compared to college, but the college test -- the BASELINE test just to get cleared to play at the beginning of the seaosn -- had a pretty big failure rate. Link below cites a study that says that the baseline failure rate among athletes taking preseason neurological exams (so ones with no reason to feel that they are concussed) is 29%. In my son's case, he failed it twice (with at least a week between tests) before he passed it a third time. He's never played a contact sport in his life nor had anything that we would ever had worried about a concussion.....zero reason to even slightly suspect he ever had one or certainly had affects when he took the test. In the baseline tests, athletes have a certain amount of memorization skills that had to be shown. I had some some of my co-workers (teachers) take the test and they didn't pass it initially.
Now.....I don't know what procedures are used in the locker room to test for concussion nor do I know what happens in follow tests the days after. I just know from son's experience that if there were a suspected concussion, he would have to take the baseline concussion test again. In Tua's case, we know he was examined at halftime and every day that followed. I think the characterization that you could fool medical professionals by lying about your injury is a mischaracterization.
Side note, I also know that at one point in college my son told me after he was done playing tennis that he felt he might have had a concussion (while putting the team's heavy cooler away on a shelf, it fell and hit him on the head) and he did not tell the staff because his initial experience with the baseline test had him concluding that whether or not he had a concussion, it would take him forever to pass the test. So if he had been tested the number of times that Tua had been, if he had affects of a concussion he would not have passed the protocol; even if he did not have a concussion, he might not have (at least right away).