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The New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton announced Friday that he will be starting Trevor Siemian this weekend against the Tennessee Titans. Siemian was also the starter last week against the Atlanta Falcons in favor of Taysom Hill, and the consequent loss was surrounded by speculation at quarterback and the usage of Hill, or lack thereof.
It’s well known that Hill’s edge lies in his running abilities; the news that Alvin Kamara was ruled out of Sunday’s game in Tennessee with a knee injury made a sincere case for calling Hill’s number under center. But without further specifics we likely won’t be made aware of involved in the decision, there’s no analysis of this choice that isn’t pure speculation.
Still, as someone familiar with concussions and traumatic brain injuries, here’s insight on what could be potentially afflicting Hill. More specifically, how the road to recovery is highly complex for someone playing quarterback. He was concussed in the Saints’ Week 5 game with the Washington Football Team and missed the next two games and their bye week before he could return to practice, signifying a serious brain injury.
Concussions always range in severity from mild to very serious and permanent traumatic brain injuries. Recovery time and duration of symptoms are unfortunately not linear to the seriousness of injury; post-concussion syndrome and other lasting effects can afflict even the mildest case.
It can be dependent on the part of the brain you hit. The frontal lobe controls your thinking and processing, memory, behavior and moment – an injury can impede judgement, concentration, problem solving, and loss of focus. The parietal lobe helps us know our left from right, reading, and understanding special relationships – an injury can make spatial perception quite difficult. The occipital lobe gives us sight and vision – an injury here leads to blind spots and blurred vision. Last, the temporal lobe handles learning, memory and organization – an injury can cause problems with short and long-term memory and processing. The cerebellum is at the bottom of the back of our heads and that handles balance and coordination.
These are problems that make everyday life a struggle for concussed people, let alone professional athletes competing at the highest level. The most common symptoms after a concussion (from mild to severe) are headaches, trouble with vision and blurred spots, dizziness and general irritability. Recovery from a concussion typically requires a combination of rest and vestibular therapy to restore functions of vision and physical balance, both uniquely intertwined in our vestibular system.
In cases involving post-concussion syndrome, a phenomena that leads to long-lasting symptoms regardless of severity, longer term vestibular therapy can be required. More often than not, brain injuries can deeply affect balance, coordination and visual/spatial processing. Our sensory system that helps us function everyday processes information about motion, head positioning, and orientation in order for us to have balance and stability.
Following a concussion, the vestibular system usually isn’t working correctly; our brains process info from innumerable sources at once to process something as simple as balance. While the occipital lobe controls balance, for example, an injury to the parietal lobe or cerebellum can compound that vision disorder to feel similar to vertigo.
In the case of a quarterback, they’re required to process spatial information in a complex and immediate manner. From reading the defensive alignment to calling the corresponding protection calls, handling the timing of the snap and the right-hand placement to catch it, to reading the field as it unfolds in mere seconds, and the timing of the ball placement in stride with the receiver route to place the ball where intended. One of these things is off and the rest is a domino effect. Oftentimes, when the vestibular system is affected, our brains will overcompensate by relying on visual cues. This can compound symptoms to cause blurred vision and blind spots, headaches, mental fogginess and fatigue.
The decision-making and accuracy required by a quarterback is intrinsically tied to our brain functions in tandem. Any brain fog or cognitive slowing – typical for all concussions in short-term, can cause the house of cards to fall down entirely. A quarterback may have slowed or delayed processing of the field; their pocket awareness can collapse and timing of throws off entirely.
For a player like Taysom who has notably struggled with his ability to read the field, process those reads, awareness of the pocket collapsing and his positioning, and seemingly not knowing when to take off, these issues magnify ten-fold in concussion recovery. Even more so when you consider the edge of his mobility. If his spatial awareness and balance are off even a little, that makes running not just untimely, but potentially dangerous. In light of that, it puts him back at pure pocket passer with no edge and exponentially more pressure on his cognitive abilities.
In knowledge that he remained in concussion protocol for three weeks with no practice until just last Thursday prior to the Falcons game, Hill’s account of memory loss post-hit implies higher severity. And concussions are unfortunately the most unpredictable injury there is, with no true correlation to recovery timetables. If Hill’s concussion indeed played a case in the quarterback decision, it’s quite plain to see why. By limiting his snap count and starting Siemian under center, they’re able to offer him a greater degree of protection against re-injury.
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