Paul Dehner Jr.

Cincinnati

At an NFL press conference, you typically hear the same cliches and catchphrases over and over again. Pad level, do your job, team defense, speed, athleticism, etc.

When comments outside the standard realm of the normal press conference come out, it makes the ears perk up. That happened again Wednesday when Marvin Lewis sat at the podium for his weekly preview presser.

The question came from Paul Daugherty about Vontaze Burfict and here was the question/answer:

Q: Any concern for (Vontaze Burfict) not just as a football player but as a human being given the number of concussions he's had?

ML: "Well, he had a concussion against Atlanta. That's that biggest concern that way. You don't want him to have, you know, but again I coached defenses and linebackers for a long time and concussions didn't linger. Now we have found that because of the media and things they seem to linger longer. There's a lot of attention paid to it. I don't know why they linger longer. I don't remember them lingering like they do now."

His words don't exactly fall in line with the standard company charge driven home by the NFL these days and turned more than a few heads inside the room.

An important fact to remember is that concussion protocol these days essentially eliminates all coaches from having any authority. Lewis has referenced that as such many times that a player goes into the protocol and he leaves it in their hands. Team doctors must go through the steps with the player and an independent neurologist must then clear them to play on Sunday.

Rules have changed dramatically regarding hits to the head in recent years and Lewis also chatted a little bit about the intricacies of coaching the game differently with linebackers, particularly for Burfict, who drew two personal foul penalties Sunday against Carolina. Those were more along the standard refrain regarding the topic.

Q: What are the challenges mentoring Vontaze encouraging passion while discouraging the other stuff?

ML: He's got to continue to play within the rules. He got called for a penalty last week that again was not necessarily a penalty. We just have to continue to do -- football is changing. We are trying to really coach the head out of football. That has been the mission of the league for the last two or three years. That continues daily. We have got to do that. We are teaching young guys new habits. Sometimes when that ball goes in the air its difficult to do all the time."