NFL News: Rams Escape Penalty for Keenum Concussion Issue
Last week's bunch of NFL games saw one that could have placed the St. Louis Rams in a lot of trouble, when quarterback Case Keenum appeared to have been seriously hurt after sustaining a head injury. In most instances when a player gets hit on the head or appears to be injured in the head due to a play, his team would usually take him off the field. But that didn't happen in the Rams' game against the Baltimore Ravens.
The league has a strict concussion protocol designed to protect players from serious and even life-threatening injuries to the head, and the Rams almost crossed the line. Adam Schefter reported through ESPN that the team escaped the penalty for mishandling the incident.
There was no official word or statement as to why the Rams won't get penalized or punished after failing to get Keenum out of the field. It was seen that a trainer went to the field to do a check on the quarterback but he obviously did not remove him in order to be subjected to an official concussion evaluation, something the NFL has been quite strict since the protocol was created and implemented.
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The incident happened when defensive lineman Timmy Jernigan of the Ravens threw him to the turf in a very aggressive manner. After failing to get up after the play, one teammate tried to help Keenum but he couldn't stand up straight and stumbled. After that, it was kind of obvious that the player was impaired and visibly shaken.
Although the Rams won't get penalized, it was obvious that the league wanted to do something about it after calling a meeting with the head athletic trainers of each team. The conference call is a sign that there will be some changes to be made focused on making sure that teams will be penalized when the same thing happens once again. In order to do that, it is expected that some rules will be added to the existing protocol.
