What do you think would have to happen to Wes Welker to make Wes Welker decide to walk away? What do you think would have to happen for someone else to make that call for him? Why will we most likely have to wait until it’s too late to find out?
Welker is a five-time Pro Bowler, three-time AFC champion, three-time NFL receptions leader and a four-time All-Pro selection. He’s also a six-time concussion victim (at least).
And now he’s back in the NFL, signing a one-year deal with the receiver-desperate St. Louis Rams. The Rams lost their slot man, Steadman Bailey, to a suspension on Monday and brought in one of the NFL’s all-time best slot men to replace him. The sentiment from most fans is that this will end badly—both for Welker and for the NFL’s already-damaged image when it comes to the health of its players brains. So why is Wes Welker in St. Louis at all? Why does this have to happen?
Those aren’t questions for the Rams, of course. They get a player with serious credentials at a serious discount at a time when they need him badly. They’re questions for Welker and the league. I don’t know if they have answers now, but they should—and soon. The more clearly we can diagnose brain injuries, the more we’ll know about early-30s players like Welker: guys with a lengthy history of head trauma who are hanging on, looking for one more payday or that elusive trophy, and seriously endangering their quality of life while chasing them.
Yes, Welker’s been cleared to resume his career. But his career is just one not-even-that-bad hit away from ending yet again, and his life might be one very bad hit away from changing forever. I mean, his former Broncos teammate Champ Bailey said publicly after Welker’s last concussion that he should retire.
Shouldn’t the league, at some point, decide that it’s in a player’s best interest to be barred from further physical punishment? And can they even do that?
I’m aware that’s a stupid question at the moment. Right now, there’s nothing the NFL can do. These are grown men, and it’s not the league’s job to bar a healthy and competent football player from making money while doing what he loves.
But why can’t that change in the near future?
The NFL is an organization badly in need of an image boost—for more than a year now it’s been stumbling from one scandal to the next. Sending a clear signal that they’ll at least attempt to protect the brains of their most-concussed players—even when they’re protecting them from the players themselves—might go a ways to showing the public that commissioner Roger Goodell is willing to back up lip service paid to long-term health with actions.
It won’t be easy. A mandatory four-strikes-and-you’re-out concussion rule or something similar might sound appealing, but that would likely only diminish the likelihood of players reporting their injuries. Any sort of edict that applies to all players all the time will only result in some younger, lesser-compensated and even unluckier soul than Welker fighting for his right to earn a living—just what the league needs, another court case.
The solution doesn’t exist yet, because it’s a tough conversation to have. Perhaps it’s a panel that determines when the factors add up to end a career, and the panel also recommends a job for the player within the league’s purview—a “death panel” and a job handed to you by a commissioner; Sarah Palin would have a field day!—to help support the player for a period of time, based on how long the player has been in the league.
Maybe the decision needs to be put into the hands of the NFLPA, who have long claimed the league doesn’t care about its players’ safety. It could be time they take a shot at protecting their most vulnerable members from themselves.
It’s a difficult discussion that should have happened a while ago and it’s one that should start now, not after Welker’s career is over and we’re all just hoping he’ll be okay in 20 years.