GREATER LANDOVER, Md. — Injuries are a part of the game, but at every game, the NFL’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr, Allen Sills, said there are around 30 medical staff keeping an eye on players.
"Each team will have orthopedic surgeons, internal medical doctors, athletic trainers, chiropractors, nutritionists, behavioral health," said Sills. "A whole variety of people.”
All of whom are armed with a plan when emergencies strike.
"Plan is written, plan gets rehearsed, and then importantly the plan gets circulated among all the teams," said Sills. "Outside of maybe a hospital emergency room, I think this is probably the safest place to be sick or injured, because we really have the ability to deal with any and all life-threatening medical and orthopedic emergencies here on site."
Most of the evaluation starts on the field, or in the blue medical tent on the sideline.
“You wouldn’t think so, but it’s private, it’s quiet," said Commanders Team Physician, Dr. Johnathan Bernard. "You can really assess a player well. You can do the exam well and it allows you to get a lot of information that is otherwise quite confusing without the tent.”
The tent is a big help, Sills says, when evaluating head injuries.
"In here, we can now have a conversation where we pay attention to each other, and I can make sure that I’ve got a good exam," said Sills.
The Commanders had two players suffer concussions in last week's game against the Cowboys, including Austin Ekeler, who was diagnosed with his second of the season.
“We make concussions a top priority for us. We want to have the best identification system we can possibly have. We want to try and capture anyone who’s injured, and we want to identify them and return them safely," said Sills. "We’re not perfect, no system is perfect, but we look at our data really, really carefully and try to look how good are we identifying those injuries and I’m very proud of our system. I think we’ve got a system that’s really evolved to be very sophisticated and I think the envy of a lot of other leagues around the world."
Who actually spots an injured player or potentially injured player during a game? It’s not just medical or team staff on the ground. There’s a large system of athletic trainers and physicians located across the stadium.
“There’s a whole network of communication that’s going on that’s very active throughout the game and shares information with the goal of supporting care of players," said Sills.
Including a group of spotters, eyeing the action from a skybox.
“They’re not watching where the ball goes or if it’s a first down or not. They’re looking to see, is anybody slow to get up, does anyone seem to be hobbled?” said Sills. "One of them is assigned to one team, one assigned to the other team and they are watching the field continuously looking for any player who might be injured at any time."
Using their naked eye and the help of any of the 30 to 60 cameras capturing the game.
“Essentially, we have access to any of those, any of those feeds in real time to be able to use and look at for the spotters and for the medical personnel," said Sills.
