St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum will not play in the team's game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. Keenum sustained a concussion during last week's game against the Baltimore Ravens when he was thrown violently to the turf by defensive lineman Timmy Jernigan.
After the play happened, a teammate attempted to help Keenum up, but he stumbled right back to the ground, clearly impaired.
The game was not stopped and Keenum was not removed from the field. It's safe to say that the league's concussion protocol did not work as planned. As our Sean Wagner-McGough wrote earlier this week, the handling of Keenum's concussion raised more than a few questions about the protocol:
After the game, reporters discovered that Keenum was diagnosed with a concussion, which raises questions: Why wasn't the game stopped? Why didn't Keenum come out of the game? Even if the Rams official spoke with Keenum and thought that he was fine, why didn't an NFL concussion spotter stop the game so Keenum could be examined off the field? Could a concussion test really be administered in 30 seconds? Did the Rams even give Keenum a concussion test?
League sources told CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora that the NFL will continue to review all aspects of the situation but that the Rams are not facing discipline for how they handled it. The league will continue to look for ways to close any loopholes in the protocol to detect potentially concussed players.
The NFL held a conference call with all 32 medical teams last week which served as a warning to the rest of the league that discipline could be coming in the future, sources told La Canfora. The NFLPA did not officially comment on the matter though union sources said they would be very disappointed if in fact the NFL announced no punishment of any sort in this matter as the PA had significant concerns over how the Rams medical team handled the situation.
This, of course, raises another question: if a team doesn't get penalized for bungling the concussion protocal this badly, what exactly does it take to receive a penalty?
