NFL Analysis
1/3/24
3 min read
NFL Injury Analysis: Why Players Missed Less Time With Concussions in 2023
As the 2023 NFL regular season comes to a close, we all can agree injuries have affected your favorite team in one way or another.
Concussions are still one of football’s most common injuries. We wanted to compare year-to-year data on the number of concussions suffered and the different ways they occur in the game.
Season By Season Concussion Data
| Year | Concussions Per Game | Total Number of Concussions |
| 2021 | 0.39 | 106 |
| 2022 | 0.40 | 109 |
| 2023 | 0.41 | 105 (on pace for 112) |
We’ve seen a slight uptick in the number of concussions. But with the NFL’s initiatives on player safety, teams and personnel are more aware of these head injuries and are looking out for them.
This season, there have been 387 plays resulting in fines for players. Almost all of these are unnecessary roughness fines, and many don’t get penalized during the game.
This could be why there are fewer games missed due to concussions in 2023 compared with years prior. With detection and spotting improving, we are diagnosing more concussions players would have played through.
This results in more “mild” concussions that don’t result in time missed.
| Year | Games Missed per game due to Concussions |
| 2021 | 0.39 |
| 2022 | 0.43 |
| 2023 | 0.26 |
The tricky part about concussions is each player is affected differently due to a variety of factors. How the concussion occurred, the player's personal history with head injuries and different symptoms all play a role in a player returning.
Trevor Lawrence suffered a concussion and got through the five-step return-to-play protocol and didn't miss the following week. On the other hand, Hayden Hurst suffered a concussion in Week 10 and hasn’t played since; he was recently put on injured reserve, ending his season.
We can also look at the contact type for how the concussions occurred in the past few seasons.
| Year | Contact With Player | Contact With Ground |
| 2021 | 0.32 per game (87 total) | 0.05 per game (14 total) |
| 2022 | 0.33 per game (90 total) | 0.06 per game (16 total) |
| 2023 | 0.32 per game (on pace for 87 total) | 0.07 per game (on pace for 19 total) |
Clearly, a majority of concussions happen from contact with other players. However, there has been a slight rise in concussions that occur from the ground. C.J. Stroud’s concussion that cost him two games happened when he slammed his head on the dreaded MetLife turf against the New York Jets in Week 14.
Turf vs. Grass
That raises the question of whether more concussions are due to contact with the ground are happening on turf or grass fields. It is one variable we could change to try and limit the number of concussions.
| Year | Contact With Ground (Grass) | Contact With Ground (Turf) |
| 2021 | 0.05 per game | 0.05 per game |
| 2022 | 0.07 per game | 0.05 per game |
| 2023 | 0.07 per game | 0.08 per game |
There don’t seem to be any consistent trends year to year. However, this season, more contact with ground concussions are happening on turf fields.
Earlier this season, we broke down the numbers in this article on more head injuries happening on turf. Still, concussions directly caused by hitting your head against the ground don’t seem to be field-dependent.
Most importantly, while the number of concussions in the most recent years has stayed around the same, the efforts the NFL has made to reduce the number of games missed due to concussions have worked.
Rule changes, equipment changes and educating players are the driving forces of making the game safer.
This articled was written by Brett Barnes.
