Pittsburgh Steelers running back Isaac Redman shared some information with reporters on Wednesday that is likely to make Roger Goodell cringe and could result in his team being fined. During Pittsburgh’s Week 2 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Redman left the game and the team announced he was being evaluated for a concussion. Apparently he fooled the medical staff.
Redman returned to the game shortly after leaving. According to him, he did so while concussed.
“I had a concussion,” the 28-year-old veteran said, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I was pretty much out of it the rest of the game. I just tried to go back in.”
That is precisely what the league does not want to hear. When asked how he was able to pass the concussion tests, Redman gave a very simple answer.
[Related: Terrelle Pryor tweets he ‘didn’t remember much’ after concussion]
“I said I was all right,” he replied.
Redman did not appear on the injury report the following week. The league claims to have very specific medical evaluation tests in place and requires a player to pass those tests to reenter a game after he is suspected of having suffered a concussion. Players also have to pass another series of tests before playing the following week. If Redman was indeed “out of it,” he should not have been playing. Expect the NFL to remind the Steelers of that in the near future.
