Objective: The National Football League (NFL) has seen increasing scrutiny regarding its handling of concussions, especially following an on-field incident involving Miami Dolphins' (™) Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in the 2022 Season. The authors hoped to elucidate recent trends in the diagnosis and management of concussions over the course of five NFL seasons across 2019-2023.
Methods: The authors queried NFL injury reports from the 2019 through 2023 database recording players listed with Concussions. Weeks missed were calculated using NFL game logs. Player's concussions that did not occur in games, complicated by other injuries, or roster status were excluded.
Results: Searches of NFL injury reports resulted in the identification of 664 of 692 (96%) concussions that occurred in regular season games across the 2019-2023 seasons. Over the course of these five seasons 31% of players returned without missing a game, 39% of players missed one game, and 30% of players missed two or games. No significant difference in the number of concussions per game or weeks missed was observed across the seasons observed. Players with concussions on teams that made the playoffs saw less weeks missed than those on non-playoff teams (0.86 v. 1.37, p=0.002).
Conclusions: Since the start of the 2021 NFL season, an increasing incidence of concussions has been noted, yet there was no change observed in the number of weeks missed following concussions. Trends in the rates of concussions across seasons remain largely stable, despite increased scrutiny over concussions in the sport.
Keywords: Concussions; Football; Neurotrauma; Traumatic Brain Injury.
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