The Price of Head Injuries 

Football has come a long way in raising awareness about the seriousness of concussions, but the resulting knowledge could end up having a negative impact on how college players are scouted before the NFL draft

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If an NFL team in 2014 knew a college player had sustained such a violent concussion while not fully recovered from a previous concussion, the team likely would scrub the player from its draft board. The reasons would be somewhat altruistic—no one wants to potentially contribute to long-term medical issues or early death—but mostly business. Teams wouldn’t want to sink money into a player who might quickly suffer another brain injury and leave them with no return on their investment.

I asked an agent last week if he worried about his clients’ concussion histories hurting their draft stock. He said it hadn’t been an issue in the past, but then he paused. He wondered if, going forward, concussion counts will become as important a part of the pre-draft process as an accounting of knee surgeries. Teams don’t want to waste money on a guy whose knee might give out in year two. Wouldn’t they feel the same about a guy whose head injuries ultimately might keep him from playing?

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This is potentially good and bad. It’s good because the increased attention might save a player from sustaining a brain injury that could debilitate him later in life. It’s bad because college players might try to hide brain injuries and avoid treatment out of fear that they’ll hurt their draft stock. Players have always had to weigh the consequences of revealing any injury to coaches and doctors, but knowing what we know now about brain injuries, the stakes are higher here.