On the day the NFL announced that concussions were down 25 percent from last season — and helmet-to-helmet or shoulder-to-helmet concussions down 50 percent from two years ago — I thought I’d share this headline from 1966 I just happened upon. It ran atop a column by Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times about Jim Taylor, the Packers’ Hall of Fame fullback.

Some of the highlights:

[Taylor] uses his head for a living. Which is to say he butts it into peoples’ affairs — like linebackers’. His head is like a crew-cut boulder and has been known to rearrange more internal organs than an ulcer clinic. . . .

Jim Taylor’s head was a major part of his arsenal.

“The Goat,” they called him on the old New York Giants, where Sam Huff did more dental work on Jim Taylor than a lifetime of dentists. Once, in Yankee Stadium, when the fans swarmed onto the field, a player is supposed to have hissed at Taylor, “Quick, over here, there’s a door!” and a teammate, baffled, protested, “There’s no door over there!” and the first fellow, gazing in satisfaction after the churning, head-down Taylor, replied, “Well, there soon will be!”

(If you want to read the whole column, click here.)

At any rate, assuming the latest figures are correct, the NFL must be making progress in this area. By that I mean: fewer goats.

Source: pro-football-reference.com