Nevius: When will NFL get serious about concussions?

Although it is the offseason, you will be glad to hear that the National Football League is keeping its eye on the ball. In a giddy news release, commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the NFL is going to relax the rules on celebrations.

Wow. Earthshaking.

The new rule allows using the ball as a “prop.” Can’t wait for the hilarity. Someone alert the judges from “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Meanwhile, Dwight Clark watches silently from the sidelines. The former 49ers receiver announced in March that he’s suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). The effects are debilitating enough that although Clark appeared in public, looking frail and drawn, he did not speak. Instead he issued a statement.

“I’ve been asked if playing football caused this,” Clark wrote. “I don’t know for sure. But I certainly suspect it did. And I encourage the NFLPA and the NFL to continue working together in their efforts to make the game of football safer, especially as it relates to head trauma.”

According to official league stats, 244 players suffered concussions last year. The league touted the number, saying it showed a drop of 11.3 percent from 2015. Actually, that’s just 31 fewer concussions - not a huge improvement.

But even at that - 244 concussions, 32 teams - that’s 7.6 a team. A player can walk into the locker room on the first day of the season and say that in the next six months seven players in that room are going to have brain injuries. And hope he isn’t one of them.

Actually, of course, the number is higher. Tom Brady’s wife Gisele Bundchen said recently she’s sure her husband played with a concussion last year and hid the symptoms. And, she said, this wasn’t the only year.

This all creates a hue and cry for the players to step up and admit they are hurt. It’s for their own good, people say.

That sounds like blaming the victim to me. The real problem is the league can’t keep its players safe. It isn’t doing enough to stop scary, debilitating helmet-to-helmet collisions.

Now, you’re going to say that this is just football and there’s nothing to be done about it. Nonsense. Here are two thoughts off the top of my head.

Stop the late hits. It happens 20 times a game. A ball carrier is stopped, clearly down, and a 300-pound lineman, leading with his helmet, piledrives him. There’s only one explanation - attempt to injure.

Flag it. Late hits will go away if they are punished with a regular, consistent penalty. Late shots put some of the most charismatic players in the league in jeopardy. They cause unnecessary injuries. And they have nothing to do with the game.

Second, the head hunters have to go. Crown-of-the-helmet hits on quarterbacks, full bore head shots on unsuspecting wide receivers and helmet-first spearing are beyond the pale.

A 15-yard penalty or a $3,000 fine the next week doesn’t begin to address this. C’mon, there is not a coach in the league who wouldn’t give up a 15-yard penalty in exchange for taking the other team’s best player out of the game.

Technically, a player can be thrown out if the offense is “flagrant.” But you know how rarely that happens. Officials have to toss those guys - immediately. If you want to make it a replay decision from New York City, fine. But those head shots have to go. Not the second time. The first time.

Are there problems? Oh sure. The fans will boo the officials mercilessly. And the coaches will be melodramatically outraged if a player is tossed.

Off the field, someone will surely smirk and wonder if we’re going to put a frilly dress on the quarterback. Some old-school type will tell the story of the game when he scored three touchdowns and doesn’t remember a moment of it.

The fact is, if the officials and the league are serious about this, they will have to step up and take the heat. They should announce zero tolerance at the start of the season and enforce it. These are the most gifted athletes in the world. They can adjust.

And to those of you who say the game is fine the way it is, I’d say this. There were the 275 concussions in 2015. There’s convincing evidence that repeated blows to the head cause debilitating health problems.

But more than that, we have the voices of those who played the game, were marked by the game and now must suffer the consequences of the game. You can dispute the numbers, but not those voices.

The NFL is at a crossroads. There’s never been a time when fans, players and doctors have been more aware of how dangerous this sport is. I don’t think it is a huge stretch to say that it is a part of the decline in TV ratings for NFL games.

The game can be made safer. The changes won’t come from bigger, more-padded helmets. They will come from the players who stop headhunting and from coaches who discourage it. It can happen.

And that would be something to celebrate.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius.