Why Risk Bringing Brian Westbrook Back This Season?

Brian Westbrook hopes to play this weekend in the Eagles' game against the New York Giants, despite suffering two concussions in a three-week span earlier this season.

This news comes with Westbrook expressing concern this week about the permanent damage he could be doing to his brain by returning to the field this year.

It all leaves me left to wonder...why risk it, Brian?  

Use your brain.  While you still can.  And shut yourself down for the season, before it's too late.

On Oct. 26—all of 43 days ago—Eagles nation had to watch Westbrook lay motionless on the turf of FedEx Field after a vicious collision between his head and Redskins' linebacker London Fletcher's knee.

Then, just three weeks later, Westbrook returned for the Eagles' 31-23 loss to the Chargers...only to suffer another concussion during the third quarter.

After the Chargers game, Eagles coach Andy Reid said, "In these types of situations, football is secondary.  You've got to look at this kid and for his future, and make sure everything's OK for him before he gets back out there."

If that's so...why risk bringing him back at all this season?

Westbrook spoke out on HBO's Joe Buck Live this week about fearing for his future, after fellow NFC East back Clinton Portis landed on IR on Tuesday because of a concussion he sustained on Nov. 8 of this year.

"I'm worried about it," Westbrook said on Tuesday. "Concussions have been all over the headlines and all over the papers, and it has been on the top of my mind since the Redskins game on the 26th of October."

Let's re-hash.  Portis has been shut down for the season after sustaining one concussion on Nov. 8.  Westbrook has suffered two—one on Oct. 26, one on Nov. 15—and has been practicing this week with every intention to play against the Giants on Sunday.

Why bother coming back?  Why risk permanent, life-altering damage for a shot at the playoffs?

For those of you who haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's piece about concussions, take 10 minutes out of your day, do yourself a favor, and do so immediately.  His article came out in the middle of October, (coincidentally?) right when the NFL seemed to start paying closer attention to head trauma in their players.

He details the collective injury history of a lineman from the University of North Carolina in 2004, who also suffered two concussions in a season.  

UNC tracks each of their practices and games with a system called HITS by placing six sensors in each player's helmet that track the force and placement of each hit to the head.  On one day of two-a-days during training camp, this lineman experienced two hits with the approximate force of a car slamming into a wall at 25 mph...and 31 hits altogether.  

He sustained a concussion during the evening session of the two-a-day, from a hit that was two-thirds the force of the two he encountered that morning.

Gladwell revealed, "A football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too."

With that in mind...the question bears repeating.  Why risk further injury by coming back this season, Brian?

Arizona QB Kurt Warner and Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger both sat out of games two weeks ago due to post-concussion symptoms, despite both intending to play throughout the week.  

Steelers receiver Hines Ward even initially expressed dismay at Roethlisberger's inactivity, saying the team was split "50-50" over whether Roethlisberger should have played in a crucial divisional game against the Baltimore Ravens.  

Ward brought up his own injury history, saying, "I've been out there dinged up.  The following week, [I] got right back out there.  You know, Ben practiced all week...To find out that he's still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to doctor's didn't feel that they was gonna clear him...It's hard to say, unless you're the person..."

Football trains athletes to get into the warrior mentality, where they prove their toughness by playing through injuries.  But unlike a broken limb or a torn muscle, which can always eventually heal, an injury to the brain can have permanent, unseen ramifications.

The NFL is finally more aware of the dangers posed by head injuries, and they're forcing players to play it smart.  

Considering the lack of long-term research regarding football players and head trauma, the NFL's new stance comes not a second too soon.

"That's my biggest concern. How am I going to be when I'm 50 or when I'm 60?," Westbrook wondered on Tuesday. "Will I have all these brain diseases and will I have a problem remembering things?...Now, I'm trying to get myself together with the help of the doctors as well as coach [Andy] Reid and the training staff. Now, the most important thing is to get 100 percent healthy—and not play football...until I'm 100 percent healthy."

And yet...coach Reid (who just signed a contract extension on Wednesday that will keep him in Philadelphia through 2013) brought Westbrook back to practice on Wednesday to run plays with the scout team.  While he's now unlikely to play against the Giants on Sunday, the Eagles do appear to intend to bring Westbrook back this season.

Westbrook's comments on Wednesday echoed his team's sentiments.

"You want to play the game," Westbrook said. "It's weird. You see the situation with boxers and they just want to fight the next fight and you ask them why they want to come back and I think it's because of the love of the game. You feel like you can still play. In my situation, I still think I can play, still think I can produce.

"Really what I've learned from the doctors is that I don't have a high risk of getting a concussion by coming back after healing completely. That's the number one thing. You have to heal completely before you come back. I want to play football. That's what I love to do."

Gladwell ended his article with an anecdote from Kyle Turley, a former lineman who played for the New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Rams, and Kansas City Chiefs in his nine-year NFL career.  Turley recalls a time when a concussed teammate of his passed out after a game in the cold tub ("I don’t know anyone who has ever passed out in the cold tub," Turley said), then denied that anything was wrong.

Gladwell surmises, "That moment in the cold tub represented a betrayal of trust. He had taken the hit on behalf of his team. He was then left to pass out in the cold tub, and to deal—ten and twenty years down the road—with the consequences. No amount of money or assurances about risk freely assumed can change the fact that, in this moment, an essential bond had been broken. What football must confront, in the end, is not just the problem of injuries or scientific findings. It is the fact that there is something profoundly awry in the relationship between the players and the game."

For the sake of Brian Westbrook's long-term well-being and for any Eagles fans who hope to ever see No. 36 put on an Eagles uniform again...it's become time to pray.

It's not time to pray that Westbrook fulfills his reckless dreams and returns to the field this season.

It's time to pray that Westbrook comes to realize that the consequences of returning this season far outweigh any potential benefits.  

And it's time to pray that the Eagles don't jeopardize one man's future for the sake of football, no matter how far they go this season.