With Case Keenum’s concussion stealing headlines and a Will Smith movie (“Concussion”) about to bring a wave of negative publicity upon the NFL, the league has planned a conference call open to all players for noon E.T. on Friday, according to Pro Football Talk.
The call, reportedly a requirement of the CBA, will include the NFL, the NFL Players Association and the players and address player “health and safety.”
The NFL could use some positive PR as it continues to look like a callous profit-minded corporation that doesn’t care an iota about player safety.
The latest debacle comes from St. Louis, where Keenum, the Rams’ quarterback, was allowed to remain in a game Nov. 22 after suffering a concussion. On Wednesday, USA Today published quoted NFLPA president Eric Winston going off on the team for its handling of Keenum’s situation:
“Show me someone that says, ‘No, the Rams did exactly the right thing.’ They didn’t. Everybody knows they didn’t. So, there has to be discipline then, right? Because when a player doesn’t do something that he’s supposed to do, he gets fined for that when it comes to health and safety.”
Concussion protocol doesn’t seem like something that will be figured out in Friday’s conference call, but hearing the players’ voices on the issue is at least a start, right?
