NFL: A sports cartel without integrity

The National Football League (NFL), faced with lawsuits from over 1,000 ex-players, admits it is facing a “concussion crisis” – its cover-up for a football and a credibility crisis. The negligence of the corporate owners of the safety of the athletes is not confined to brain injuries, as SALLY JENKINS of the Washington Post writes. The Washington Redskins NFL franchise invested in quarterback Robert Griffin III, then everyone put his future in jeopardy.

Video: Washington Post columnist Jason Reid talks about his conversation with Redskins’ head coach Mike Shanahan and describes why he thinks Shanahan should have benched Robert Griffin III in the Redskins’ loss to the Seahawks.

By Sally Jenkins, Published: January 8

TEHRE IS no confusion over Robert Griffin III’s knee — and there never was. The Washington Redskins drafted a healthy, thrilling young player and by the time they got done using him up this season he lurched around like a pirate with a peg leg. Let’s be clear: Griffin is not suffering from an old injury, or from just one injury, either. Anyone with eyes saw the kid hurt his knee three times in the past month, twice in the same playoff game, until a strained ligament turned into a torn one. Every decision maker in the organization, from the rock-headed coach to the renowned surgeon in the silly team pompom cap, is responsible for that.Yeah, we get the cute distinction between “injured” and “hurt” that Coach Mike Shanahan keeps trying to make, and we understand the play-with-pain culture of the NFL. But here is the real distinction: Griffin started an NFC playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks already hurt and wound up so badly injured that he requires surgery on his torn lateral collateral ligament, and his future is compromised. The supposed confusion over how much Shanahan and orthopedic surgeon James Andrews consulted on the sideline, and over the extent of damage to Griffin’s knee, is nothing more than rope-a-dope and rationalizing, feeble attempts to excuse the indefensible.Griffin should never have been back on the field after halftime against the Seahawks last Sunday, and if the people in the organization weren’t so starved for success, they would have made a better decision about that.There is nothing subtle about the situation. Ample evidence shows Griffin shouldn’t have been out there, more than enough to override the pleas of an impassioned rookie who wanted to play. Griffin’s right knee has already been reconstructed once, in 2009 when he was at Baylor University. The Redskins spent three first-round draft picks to get Griffin in uniform, and he is the most expensive and valuable player they have had in 25 years. Do you think for a moment they didn’t study MRI exams of that knee as if it were Sanskrit before giving up those draft choices for him? You think they don’t know what his knee should look like?

Four weeks ago, when Griffin hurt his LCL against the Baltimore Ravens, the Redskins were overjoyed to announce that an MRI showed no structural damage at that time. He had just a “strained” ligament. There was no trouble reading that picture — it was totally clear to them.

You didn’t need a grainy medical film to know that Griffin came back too soon from the LCL strain when he completed just 9 of 18 passes for 100 yards and no touchdowns against the Dallas Cowboys in the final game of the regular season. A deadly accurate 70 percent passer became a so-so 50 percent passer.

What a strain means is that the ligament is dangerously stretched, if not already partially torn. There was only one real question for Shanahan and Andrews from that point on: whether Griffin could continue to play without injuring himself further. The whole point of putting him in a cumbersome leg brace was to prevent an injury from turning into something worse.

Source: Washington Post

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Robert Griffin III’s knee injury: A complex joint and a complex decision

Ligaments work to allow the knee to bend forward while limiting its ability to rotate and flex side-to-side. On the play in which Robert Griffin III was hurt, the lower half of his knee makes both of those movements to excess, suggesting an injury to the anterior cruciate ligament.

By David Brown, Published: January 7

The human knee is an unusually complex structure. The decision of whether to let an athlete play on an injured one is no less complex.That’s the conclusion of medical experts watching from afar as the drama of Robert Griffin III’s injury in Sunday’s game with the Seattle Seahawks unfolds.

Previous injury can change the stresses put on the knee’s components, making them more vulnerable. Equally important, pain from a new injury — even a minor one — can change an athlete’s running, foot-planting and body-turning mechanics and subject a joint to further damage.

Whether to let an injured — or reinjured — athlete continue to play is a collaborative decision, made by trainers, physicians, coaches and the player, who all must consider many variables.

“The assessment whether the player can perform at a high level — and equally important protect themselves — requires judgment,” said Les Matthews, chief of orthopedics at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore and a longtime team physician. “Sometimes it’s very difficult. It’s a subjective call.”

The seriousness of Griffin’s injury was immediately apparent to James C. Dreese, an orthopedic surgeon for the University of Maryland at College Park’s sports teams. He suspects the 22-year-old Redskins quarterback injured his right anterior cruciate ligament, and possibly tore it. Griffin tore his right ACL in college and had it surgically repaired.

While the knee’s main action is a forward bend, it has some ability to rotate and to flex side-to-side. The joint’s four main ligaments work to allow the first movement and limit the second two.

Specifically, the ACL keeps the bone of the bottom half of the knee joint (the tibia) from sliding too far forward and rotating too much inward in relation to the bone of the upper half of the joint (the femur). In the fall that took him out of the game, Griffin’s tibia makes both of those movements to excess.

“What you can see on that video is that it looks like the knee failed in both the hinge mechanism and the rotational mechanism,” Dreese said. “That would suggest an ACL injury, but the MRI [exam] will be definitive.”

When ACLs rupture, they usually tear in the middle rather than pulling off at one of the attachments to the bone, Dreese said. A successfully repaired and rehabilitated previous ACL rupture would not make the ligament more likely to rupture a second time, Matthews said.

Four weeks earlier, Griffin suffered a sprain to the lateral collateral ligament, which runs lengthwise on the outer side of the knee strapping the femur to the fibula. He missed one game and wore a knee brace when he returned to play.

That sprain wouldn’t specifically predispose a person to an ACL tear, the experts said. But residual pain can be a more general hazard.

“If they have to alter their running mechanism because their knee is not at 100 percent, that is potentially a situation where there is risk for further injury,” Dreese said.

The people deciding whether a player will return to play must answer two questions: Is it safe? Can the athlete perform? The player’s desires count, although not always.

“There are times when there’s no way someone is going to be sent back even if they want to be,” Matthews said. “The best example is concussion. If they don’t meet the criteria and pass the test there is no way they are going back on the field.”

Judging the fitness of an athlete with a mild joint injury, however, is especially difficult. The variables to be weighed include not only the severity of the earlier injury, the success of the rehabilitation, the outcome of tests of strength and agility and the amount of residual pain. Also important is what a player may be called upon to do. A sore knee may be acceptable for a center pushing straight ahead, but not a quarterback whose job includes cutting and running.

“I think it’s fair to say that many athletes return to play before there’s complete resolution of their symptoms,” Dreese said. “In football, it’s part of the mentality that if they have to put up with some pain then that’s part of the game.”

Nevertheless, both experts said that professional teams tend to err on the side of protecting their players.

“I have every belief that they would not have allowed him [Griffin] to go back to play if there was any feeling that he was at enhanced risk of reinjury or anything that would jeopardize his career,” Matthews said.

If Griffin’s right ACL turns out to be torn and need surgery again, the previous repair doesn’t rule out a good result.

“That makes it a more complex procedure, but not necessarily one that precludes return to play,” Matthews said. “There are countless athletes who’ve had revision of an ACL and who’ve returned to high level of competition.”