One of the first things doctors did when they ushered Amon-Ra St. Brown into the blue medical tent at AT&T Stadium last month was give the Detroit Lions receiver a list of 10 words he had to repeat.
St. Brown, who had been pulled from the Lions’ Oct. 23 game against the Dallas Cowboys after an official noticed he looked disoriented on the field, got “six or seven” of the words right.
Doctors repeated the list, and St. Brown correctly remembered “seven or eight” of the words on his second try.
“Then I did some more tests, did some balance tests and some other tests, then they said, ‘All right, now can you name the 10 words that I asked you earlier?’ And I got all 10,” St. Brown told the Free Press on Wednesday.
St. Brown said he had to follow a doctor’s finger with his eyes and answer a battery of basic questions on the sideline. He passed all those tests without issue.
But he experienced dizziness on the field for “5 to 10 seconds” after Anthony Barr hit him in the helmet after a first quarter catch, and his initial memory recall was far enough below the baseline number he reached when healthy — a perfect 10-for-10 in repeating words — that doctors pulled him from the game under the NFL’s new concussion guidelines and made him the test case for changes that could have big ramifications going forward.
St. Brown said he was angry when he first was pulled from the game and ushered to the locker room.
More:What T.J. Hockenson trade means for rest of Lions offense: ‘It sucks going through that’
He had family in the stands in Dallas and the game was crucial for the Lions, who lost 24-6, failed to generate much offense with their top receiver out and now have an NFL-worst 1-6 record.
Two weeks later, St. Brown still isn’t sure he should have been pulled from the game, but looking back, he is “appreciative, definitely,” that he was.
“’Cause at the end of the day, football doesn’t last forever and your brain is the most important thing in our body besides our heart,” he said. “I mean, I want to be able to have a thinking brain when I’m older, don’t want anything wrong, so I’m glad they’re looking out for me but at the moment I definitely was pissed.”
The NFL modified its concussion protocol in early October to add “ataxia,” or balance issues, to the list of symptoms requiring players to be removed from a game.
The changes came after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was involved in two high-profile incidents during a four-day span in September. Tagovailoa briefly left a Sept. 25 game against the Buffalo Bills when he showed imbalance issues after a hit by linebacker Matt Milano. Tagovailoa re-entered the game after halftime and played in the Dolphins’ next game, Sept. 29 against the Cincinnati Bengals, when he suffered a brain injury after his head slammed to the turf on a sack.
After a two-game absence, Tagovailoa returned for Miami’s Week 7 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and threw for 382 yards and three touchdowns last week against the Lions.
St. Brown said he sees both merit to and problems with the new concussion guidelines.
“It’s tough,” he said. “I mean, we’re all competitors out there. We all want to play. We do appreciate them looking out for us. I feel like concussions is such a — it’s such a fine line. We don’t know what is, what isn’t, and obviously it’s not normal to stumble after getting hit, so — but I just feel like, there’s going to come a point in the season, maybe not on our team, but a certain team, a player that a team really needs … it’s going to happen to one of them and I just hope that if he is OK and truly is feeling fine, passes all the tests, that he can still go in the game and help his team win. Whether that’s in the playoffs, Super Bowl, whatever it is. But like I said, it’s hard ’cause I appreciate them trying to look out for us.”
The Lions lost a second player to the NFL’s new concussion policy last week, when tight end Brock Wright was removed from the game in the second half.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said Wright’s situation was slightly different than St. Brown’s in that he had more symptoms, but Wright already has moved through the beginning of the concussion protocol and is expected to play Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.
St. Brown said he does not have any suggestions on what more could be done to tweak the concussion policy, but does not want to see a situation like his impact an outcome in the playoffs.
“That would be crazy,” he said. “It would be hard. That’s a conversation that needs to be had.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.