Buffalo Rumblings
Does the NFL’s protocol need to be reexamined?
Buffalo Bills cornerback Christian Benford had an early exit from the AFC Championship Game. Benford exited the field after a collision with safety Damar Hamlin left him looking stunned.
Despite Benford trying to reenter the game, cornerback Rasul Douglas alerted the Bills’ staff that his close friend needed attention. A quick head check and the third-year corner was sent to the locker room via cart.
There was plenty of speculation — both immediate and in the day to follow — from fans as to whether or not Benford should have been playing in the game at all. The 24 year old suffered a concussion at the very end of the Bills’ divisional round win over the Baltimore Ravens.
While the injury wasn’t announced until the next day, most likely because it came on the last defensive play of the game (an onside kick attempt), head coach Sean McDermott announced last Monday that Benford was in the league’s concussion protocol.
Two days of limited practice indicated that Benford was in the fourth step of the NFL’s five-step program. He then missed the final practice of the week due to what McDermott listed as a “personal matter.”
Benford was seen traveling with the team on Saturday as they boarded a plane to Kansas City, and, with the Bills not elevating a cornerback from the practice squad that afternoon, all systems pointed to go for Benford to suit up.
On Sunday, when Buffalo announced their inactives 90 minutes before their game with the Chiefs, Benford’s name wasn’t on it. But neither was fellow 2022 draft pick Kaiir Elam, who had been a healthy scratch four times during the regular season and in both of the Bills’ previous playoff games.
Did Buffalo know that Benford was going to be a risk? Or, with safety Taylor Rapp out did they just want as many defensive backs active as possible?
While across the league it’s common to see players miss a game after a concussion, the Bills’ have had four concussions in two years’ worth of postseason play and all four of those have been cleared to play the following week. In 2023 it was Ty Johnson and Taron Johnson. This year it was Ray Davis who suffered a concussion in the Bills’ Super Wild Card Weekend win over the Denver Broncos but was able to play when the Ravens came to town seven days later. And then there’s Benford.
Benford, whose concussion against Baltimore is his first documented head injury, seemed to follow the same path that the others did: limited all week and then assigned a questionable diagnosis on Friday, clearing the final step sometime either Saturday or even Sunday morning. While we don’t know how long it took any of them to get the final okay, we do know that the league requires the clearance come from an Independent Neurological Specialist — a doctor who is board-certified and specializes in head trauma and who is...
