182

Here's some news that is very hard if not impossible to find on the NFL website. The number of concussions in the 2015 season.

PFT has the number at 182 - or more than 10 per week in the 17 week/16 game season. It's a stunning 32% increase over last year's number! And as an indication of the opaqueness of the NFL stats as well as the whole process of diagnosing and counting concussions, it's not clear whether Case Keenum's Nov. 22 head injury was included in the count. 

In fact, the NFL's Dr. Ellenbogen attributed to the spike in concussions to "lower threshold for diagnosis." The Keenum case would seem to directly contradict that statement and suggest that that the NFL and its hired medical personnel are still in denial about the extent and severity of its head trauma crisis.

It also would be interesting to see the numbers for the playoffs. Off the top of my head, there were 2 concussions in the Steelers-Bengals game (Bernard and Brown). How many others? 

Also, in a weird way the concussion count distracts attention from the more serious and much more prevalent problem of sub-concussive blows to the head that are a primary cause of CTE. In that respect, 182 should be considered a floor and not a celebratory ceiling.