Buffalo Bills receiver Isaiah McKenzie sustained a concussion in the team’s Week 4 game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday. He detailed the scary injury in uncomfortable detail in an interview on Tuesday.
McKenzie discussed his concussion on his own The Isaiah McKenzie Show on YouTube with Tyler Dunne. There, he detailed that he could not move following the hit.
“I wasn’t out, I was on the ground and I was stuck there,” said McKenzie. “I couldn’t move, but I could speak. After a couple of seconds, I was able to get up and run.”
The Bills‘ receiver then went on to say that he lost total movement in his arms and legs for a moment. He said that “comes with the territory” of playing in the NFL.
“It comes with the territory,” McKenzie said. “We choose to play this sport and we know it’s a brutal sport. That’s what happens, and you’ve got to be fine with it. You’ve got to be fine with getting hurt, you’ve got to be fine with getting a concussion, you’ve got to be fine with everything that comes with it. That’s why you sign the contract. So I was fine with it.”
While head injuries are obviously going to happen in a game with as much contact as football, it’s very unfortunate to have this type of injury become as normalized as it is in the NFL.
The league recently decided amidst the Tua Tagovailoa controversy to adjust the NFL concussion protocol.
Now any player showing “gross motor instability” will be instantly removed from the game and put into the protocol. But that hasn’t always been caught, with Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ TE Cameron Brate avoiding being placed in the protocol immediately Sunday thanks to the spotters’ controversial ruling that he hit his shoulder rather than his head. Brate returned to the game a few plays later, and was only pulled later still after exhibiting head injury symptoms.
Luckily McKenzie was removed from this game after taking this devastating hit. But hearing of a player losing movement in their body from a hit is certainly very concerning.
