It doesn't matter what the medical staff thought, once he shows signs of any head injury, the rule says he is done! period, the officials are charged with making that call!!! That is what the new rule says.

The bolded part is where the officials' responsibility for observing the signs, symptoms, and behaviors kicks in.....

In this play, the officials should be aware that a player down for a while is back in the game so soon. If they don't observe anything unusual upon his return, they allow him to stay. If they observe the siggs, symptons or behaviors, they send him out.

IF THEY OBSERVE IT! You keep c&p'ing snippets out of context...NOTHING in this law, policy, training, interpretation, etc., requires or even suggests that officials should actively insert themselves into the actions of coaches and trainers. Indeed that's why THEY are covered as well.

So player is lying on the ground a few minutes....knee injury, wind knocked out, rib injury, potential neck injury, head injury, what? They all look the same if he's just lying there. He has to be helped up....wow, we've really narrowed it down now. The trainers are 20 yds away doing something...you think the officials are going to go running into that huddle and demanding what's up? Idiotic. They help the kid to the bench area...again, could be a hundred things.

Maybe it's time this dead horse gets locked.

Wrong. It's not solely on the officials.


Also, the rule makes no mention of an ex-coach or fan making the observation.

And once again, you're WRONG. The officials, coaches, AND medical staff are equally charged with enforcing the rule, based on what THEY individually observe. The officials are absolutely not held accountable for what the medical staff observes (and vice versa).

Agreed....

I'm done with people just making things up.

Actually there's a significant difference between being simply ignorant, and being, unfortunately, stupid.

Ignorance is usually caused by a simple lack of knowledge, which can be easily corrected by providing the knowledge necessary to elleviate the problem. Stupid is an entirely different matter, and at times can prove to be uncorrectable.

So it is stupid of me to think that 5 trained officials of Division 1 State Finals caliber should be able to see that a kid clearly was showing signs of a head injury and that the medical staff was checking to see if he was concussed?

I should not assume that any of them noticed that he was definitely wobbly and apparently woosy and probably had no idea where he crapped last. I should assume that they were carrying on with other duties that were much more important than this young man's health and that they are absolved of all fault because they have performed their duties with due diligence?

Run its course