Heads Up Football Program Analysis

There are many in the grassroots community that feel the NFL has not created a public affairs campaign concerning the safety of playing football at all levels. Increased player safety has been a priority of the evolution of the game and the league is proud to say that the game is safer and more exciting than ever. The NFL is actively attempting to protect football participants by funding the Heads Up Football Program, enforcing safety - related rule changes at the professional level, implementing a new concussion protocol, and establishing the Player Care Foundation, that is dedicated to helping retired NFL players. In 2014, the NFL Foundation rewarded USA Football with a five – year, $45 million grant to help expand the Heads Up Football Program that teaches safe tackling to youth football players. The Heads Up Football Program is designed to eliminate the …show more content…
In response to concerns, the NFL has introduced a new concussion protocol for the 2016 season. With the new protocol, it’s required that at least 29 medical officials are at every game. This group includes team physicians, athletic trainers, medical spotters, and unaffiliated neurological consultants. These independent neurologists work with team doctors to identify, evaluate and diagnose concussions, and must provide explicit approval for any player to return to the game. Since the neurologists are unaffiliated to the team, they won’t take into account the circumstances of removing a player from the game. Spotters are used in the stadium booth to report injuries that might be missed by on – field observers (Seifert 2016). NFL teams that violate the concussion protocol will be subject to fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars and possibly the loss of draft picks if they fail to remove players from the game after sustaining a concussion (Belson