NFL concerned about concussions, injuries on special teams

Updated Feb. 7, 2022 6:59 p.m. ET

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NFL is taking a hard look at special teams, which had a disproportionate number of injuries this season.

While league executive vice president Jeff Miller stopped short of saying rules changes to further limit kick plays could be coming, the concern over the amount of concussions and lower extremity injuries was clear in a Zoom call Monday.

According to Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, and Miller, one in six concussions came on special teams. Add in 30% of major knee injuries (mostly ACL tears) and 29% of other lower body injuries were on kick teams.

Considering that only about 17% of all plays involve special teams, those numbers are alarming.

“That's a primary area of focus on the health and safety side,” Miller said, “to take a look at kickoff and punt. That jumps up in what otherwise is a very good story.”

The “good story” includes a decrease in concussions overall. But the concussion rate on punts in particular could lead to action as soon as the owners' meetings at the end of March.

“We think that is something that demands our attention,” Sills said. “The punt play is the one we particularly would be targeted by us. The data speaks for itself, the rate of injury far exceeds others.”

While it is worrisome that recent changes to kick team rules don't appear to have had much impact on the injury front, there are other ways of trying to make them safer. Those would include revamping techniques players use, plus using the data collected to specify areas to clean up.

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