Should Jamaal Charles have undergone concussion testing after a big hit on Sunday?

On the first play of the second quarter of Sunday's victory over the San Diego Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles pulled off an impressive 16-yard broken-field run for a touchdown. However, the play ended with a vicious hit from cornerback Brandon Flowers. While Flowers left the game with a concussion, Charles stayed in ... even though he might have been at real risk for a concussion.

“It definitely hurt,” Charles told ESPN Radio. “It’s like, I woke up ... I mean, like, a couple plays later I was seeing light bulbs, like, light bulbs around my eyes, and I was trying to catch them. But I was in the game so I was like, ‘Alright, let’s get the ball and run again.'"

Was Charles concussed? Perhaps, perhaps not. As LBS notes, "light bulbs around my eyes" are a definite concussion symptom. However, Charles managed to avoid getting tested by the independent doctor on the Chiefs' sideline, in part, Charles says, because he wanted to stay in the game. Charles was taken out of the Chiefs' playoff game last year against Indianapolis, and the Chiefs ultimately lost that game.

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"I didn’t have a concussion but it definitely was a hit that shocked me," Charles said. "But I don’t think I had to go through the concussion protocols and all that. I didn’t want to go through that again because of what happened in the playoffs. I was definitely fine, I think I came out pretty good." Charles ended up rushing 22 times for 95 yards and that one touchdown.

This, then, is the key issue in the ongoing battle to take concussions seriously: if the very players getting concussed don't want to take the necessary steps to protect themselves, what can the NFL and teams do? Obviously, there are situations in which it's obvious a player was concussed, but in many plays, it falls to the player himself for initial self-diagnosis. And if the player understands the downside of coming out of the game, the long-term health concerns take a back seat to immediate short-term gains.

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

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from Yahoo Sports http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/did-jamaal-charles-dodge-concussion-protocols-after-a-big-hit-on-sunday-152416805.html