Patriots safety Patrick Chung was removed from Super Bowl LII with a concussion. But he appeared to keep playing after he suffered that concussion.
With nine minutes remaining in the third quarter, Chung was in on a tackle on Jay Ajayi and stayed down after everyone else in the pile got up. Ajayi appeared to be signaling to the Patriots’ sideline that Chung had been knocked unconscious, while referee Gene Steratore attended to Chung before the medical staff got on the field.
But after Chung was checked out on the sideline, he returned to the field and played. It wasn’t until three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, when Chung was in on another tackle and hurt again, that he was ruled out for the game with a concussion.
Chung should have been removed from the game after the collision on the Ajayi run, which a medical spotter should have recognized as a hit that caused a concussion. That he returned to the field is another failure of the NFL’s concussion protocol.