Panthers Luke Kuechly missing two games because of concussion isn’t outside the norm

Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly will likely miss his second straight game because of a concussion, and a question I’ve gotten a few times the past week is, “What’s taking so long?”

Kuechly suffered a head injury, so the fact that he’s going to sit out a second game in one of the most physical American sports to protect his brain really shouldn’t be in question.

But we’ve become desensitized to this type of injury for a couple of reasons.

The first, as any old-school football player will point out, is guys played with concussions plenty back in the day.

The second is that players do return from concussions in a week, including some on this Carolina Panthers team. So fans have come to believe that can be the norm.

“I try to explain to everybody, again, back when I played, we had no idea. We really didn’t,” Panthers coach Ron Rivera said Friday. “Guys played. I know some guys played when they probably shouldn’t have. But nobody knew. Nobody understood. And now we’re starting to get more information.”

Even with all the information, and even as we try to break down the jargon within “concussion protocol,” just watching the play on which Kuechly was injured would make people reasonably say “maybe he should take some time off.”

Kuechly led with his helmet. His neck was scrunched. He was wobbly. He was disoriented. He tried to stand but couldn’t.

Everyone knew he wasn’t returning to the second half of the Jacksonville game in Week 1, but there was hope the following Monday when Rivera told the media that Kuechly “looked like Luke to me.”

Was that irresponsible optimism? Did that give fans the impression that Kuechly would bounce back the next week, don his No. 59 jersey and rack up 20 tackles against the Texans?

I don’t think so. Understanding all concussions are severe, there are grades and degrees of concussions. Colts cornerback Vontae Davis suffered a concussion on Monday night and was cleared through the protocol on Thursday.

Meanwhile, University of Cincinnati quarterback Gunner Kiel suffered a concussion in Thursday night’s game against Memphis where he laid motionless on the field for 20 minutes. It was so scary that the most hopeful updates in the following hours were that he was awake and had movement in his extremities.

No one said Kiel “looked like Gunner” on Friday.

Kuechly can look and act like himself but still not be ready to carry out the duties of a middle linebacker on an NFL Sunday. But Rivera is in a difficult position because he took heat last year when he referred to receiver Kelvin Benjamin’s concussion as “mild” when Benjamin returned one week after suffering it.

Consider the Panthers’ recent history with concussions. Since 2011 – when Rivera took over – there have been 20 incidences of players appearing on Carolina’s regular-season injury report with a head injury or concussion, according to Observer research.

Of those 20 incidences, seven players played the next week, six missed one week, two missed two weeks and two missed three weeks. Three players eventually went to injured reserve because of a concussion/head injury.

Compare that to data compiled by PBS Frontline, which found that 49.5 percent of players who were listed on an injury report with a head injury or concussion in 2012 and 2013 did not miss a game.

There’s a perception that players can bounce back in a week from a head injury, and in some cases it’s truer than others. But Kuechly missing two games isn’t outside the norm.

The NFL has taken strides in understanding concussions in recent years as litigation against the league has piled up. In 2013, the league introduced the independent neurologist to the protocol, so that a doctor not affiliated with the team must clear a player before he returns to game action.

Rivera has been close to two of the most well-known concussion cases. Rivera played in Chicago with quarterback Jim McMahon, who by the age of 53 had been diagnosed with the early stages of dementia.

And Rivera was the defensive coordinator in San Diego in 2010 when former Chargers great Junior Seau drove his car over a cliff after he had been arrested for domestic violence. Seau survived the crash with minor injuries but eventually committed suicide in 2012.

Seau’s brain was found to have “definitive signs” of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which has been linked to concussions.

“I remember the whole Junior Seau thing when I was in San Diego when he had his episode, before the tragedy,” Rivera said. “He had had an episode and people were wondering what was causing it, what was creating it.

“That’s probably when everybody all of sudden ... I think it caught a lot of people’s attention.”

Times have changed, and Rivera wouldn’t even entertain a hypothetical about whether Kuechly would play if this had taken place years ago.

That Kuechly will likely sit out again on Sunday after that suffering a concussion shouldn’t be considered abnormal. But we’ve been conditioned to almost expect him to play.

And that’s an issue.

This story was originally published September 25, 2015 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Panthers Luke Kuechly missing two games because of concussion isn’t outside the norm."