Jeff Millerexecutive vice president of the NFLrecognized a increase significant in the concussions in the 2025 league season: 35 compared to eight in 2024.
“This year we saw an increase in concussions compared to last year,” the NFL vice president said.
“We will work with the competition committee to analyze plays such as the kickoff and some others. “We always said that with the opening play we would learn more and that we would continue reviewing it,” he said.
Despite the modifications in the kickoff that the league has implemented to reduce the speed of collisions between players, 35 concussions were recorded compared to 8 accumulated in the previous season.
One of the reasons for this increase was the greater number of kick returns that this season totaled 2,076 returns compared to the 919 in 2024, which caused there to be 1,157 more contact plays.
“We have already started the conversation with the Competition Committee to analyze those impacts, the formation, the structure and the speed of the play. We will study each of those concussions with the committee and see if there are aspects that we can adjust,” said Jeff Miller.
Despite these numbers, Miller pointed out that with the changes made to the teams’ position in the kickoffwhich are placed five yards away on the field of the returning team, to reduce crash speeds, the results are below the number of concussions recorded before these modifications.
“Despite the increase in the number of plays, we are still far below where we were with the previous kickoff,” he stressed.
Concussions also increased on offensive and defensive plays to 168 versus 129 in 2024.
Miller also reported that ACL injuries are down 25 percent from last year, marking their lowest level in 7 years.
Another injury that raised their numbers was the tear or rupture of the Achilles tendon, with 16 records, which exceed the annual average of 13.5 per season.
Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, reported that the injury rate on synthetic and natural grass fields was virtually the same as in recent years.
With information from EFE
