“Every Concussion in the NFL This Year” Documented in a Chilling Five Minute Video

Over at  The Inter­cept, Josh Beg­ley, a data visu­al­iza­tion artist, has post­ed a video enti­tled “Field of Vision — Con­cus­sion Pro­to­col.” By way of intro­duc­tion, he writes:

Since the sea­son start­ed, there have been more than 280 con­cus­sions in the NFL. That is an aver­age of 12 con­cus­sions per week. Though it claims to take head injuries very seri­ous­ly, the Nation­al Foot­ball League holds this data rel­a­tive­ly close. It releas­es year­ly sta­tis­tics, but those num­bers are pub­lished in aggre­gate, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to glean spe­cif­ic insights.

I have been track­ing these injuries all sea­son. Using a vari­ety of meth­ods, includ­ing review­ing dai­ly injury reports from NFL.com, I have cre­at­ed what I believe is the most com­plete dataset of indi­vid­ual con­cus­sions sus­tained dur­ing the 2017–2018 sea­son.

The result­ing film, “Con­cus­sion Pro­to­col,” is a visu­al record of every con­cus­sion in the NFL this year.

He goes on to add: “This film does not make an argu­ment for end­ing foot­ball. Rather, it invites a set of ques­tions… When we watch Amer­i­can foot­ball, what are we see­ing?” Or, real­ly, what are we miss­ing? It’s only by “cut­ting togeth­er these scenes of injury — moments of impact, of inti­ma­cy, of trau­ma — and revers­ing them,” that we “see some of this vio­lence anew” and under­score the sheer bru­tal­i­ty of the game.

It’s worth read­ing Beg­ley’s arti­cle in full here.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

This Is Your Brain on Exer­cise: Why Phys­i­cal Exer­cise (Not Men­tal Games) Might Be the Best Way to Keep Your Mind Sharp

Your Brain on Art: The Emerg­ing Sci­ence of Neu­roaes­thet­ics Probes What Art Does to Our Brains

How Stress Can Change Your Brain: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion