ements and the testimony shared similarities, Roux said, impl

PHOENIX - The number of recorded concussions dropped 25 per cent during the regular season, according to the NFL, even as injury reporting and trips to injured reserve list rose overall.Data released by the league Thursday shows there were 111 concussions in games during the 2014 regular season, down from 148 in 2013, and 173 in 2012, a 36 per cent drop over that three-year span.This follows repeated changes by the NFL meant to cut down on blows to the head, including reduced practice time and rules protecting defenceless receivers and barring leading with the crown of the helmet.It would have been nice if we had started this in 1930, but we didnt, said San Francisco 49ers chairman John York, who leads the owners health and safety committee. And as things came to our attention, we took more interest in looking at these questions.When preseason games, plus preseason and regular-season practices, are included, the 202 concussions this season declined 12 per cent from 2013, and 23 per cent from 2012. Thats despite no new rules meant to protect players heads.Players are changing the way theyre tackling, NFL Senior Vice-President of Health and Safety Policy Jeff Miller said. Theyre changing the way they play the game.Addressing two other areas of player health, Miller said that as concussions have gone down, We have not seen a correlation with an increase of knee injuries, at all, and that for the fourth consecutive year, injuries on Thursdays are no greater than they are on Sunday and Monday.In all, the concussion rate is down to 0.43 per game, Miller said, adding: You have to play more than two games to get a concussion in the NFL, by those numbers.A total of 59 concussions were caused by helmet-to-helmet or shoulder-to-helmet hits this season, the leagues data says, almost exactly half as many as two years ago.With all the technological innovations that weve had over the past few years, Im surprised the numbers keep going down, St. Louis Rams team doctor Matthew Matava said. Because youd think, with more vigilance, youd see more of any sort of condition.According to STATS, there were 265 players placed on injured reserve during the regular season in 2014, a 17 per cent jump from the 226 the year before.This season, for the first time, NFL injury data was collected by all 32 teams through electronic medical records, allowing for more comprehensive accounting. That system does a better job of capturing all injuries — from a bruise, say, to a broken leg — according to Christina Mack, an epidemiologist at Quintiles, a clinical research organization that works with the league.One change is that less-severe injuries, such as a first-degree sprain, are captured more frequently now, she said. Something worse, such as a concussion or torn knee ligament, is just as likely to have been reported under the old setup.A 15 per cent hike in injury reporting from 2013 to 2014 — an increase of about 0.9 per game, on average — is at least in part due to the new system, according to Mack.___Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich___Online:AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/AP_NFL Cristian Pavon Jersey . The day began ominously for the Rangers when star pitcher Yu Darvish was scratched from his scheduled start with stiffness in his neck. Fill-in Scott Baker gave up three hits over six innings and Chris Gimenez hit a tiebreaking two-out RBI single in the sixth off Phil Hughes. Gonzalo Higuain Jersey . -- D. J. Williams finally has his packing strategy down. http://www.argentinasoccerauthentic.com/Gonzalo-Higuain-Copa-America-Jersey/ .C. -- With a chance to start over and maybe drive in any series he wanted, Juan Pablo Montoya thought long and hard about what mattered most at this stage of his career. Lionel Messi Jersey . Listen to the Raptors vs. Jazz live tonight on TSN Radio 1050 at 9pm et/6pm pt. The Raptors are 1-1 so far on the five-game junket after defeating Denver and losing to Portland. Javier Mascherano Argentina Jersey . The International Ice Hockey Federation says Pavlovs avoided a two-year sanction because he acted "without significant negligence in failing to verify the safety of the supplements he was taking.PRETORIA, South Africa - The chief defence lawyer in Oscar Pistorius murder trial sought on Wednesday to undermine the prosecution testimony of a couple who say they heard a womans screams and gunfire the night the athlete fatally shot his girlfriend. Lawyer Barry Roux said telephone records will show that the banging sounds the neighbours heard were instead a distressed Pistorius hitting a toilet door with a cricket bat to get to fatally wounded girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Charl Johnson and his wife Michelle Burger have testified to hearing a sequence of events in the pre-dawn hours of Valentines Day last year that involved a woman screaming, a man shouting for help and then the sound of gunshots. Cross-examining Johnson on the third day of the blockbuster trial, Roux says call records will show Pistorius called an estate manager at around 3:19 a.m. and soon after he bashed in the door with the bat. In Johnson and Burgers testimony, they say they heard what they described as shots straight after making a call to security at 3.16 a.m. The similar times show the sounds were the bat on the door, Roux argued. "There is only one thing you could have heard, because it coincides precisely," Roux said to Johnson. "That was the time that he (Pistorius) broke down the door (with the bat)." Johnson replied, addressing the judge: "My lady, I am convinced the sound I heard was gunshots." "I understand," Roux said in the exchange, suggesting Johnson had convinced himself they were shots. Throwing doubt on the witnesses recollection of the sequence is crucial for Pistorius defence after the state maintained there was a loud argument on the night he shot Steenkamp through a door in his bathroom and screams and shouts before a gun was fired. Pistorius team wants to show the screams were Pistorius calling for help after the accidental shots. After a break, prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked for permission to stand down Johnson until Thursday to get more records. The judge agreed and the case moved on to its fourth witness. Pistorius, 27, has said he shot 29-year-old Steenkamp by accident, fearing she was a dangerous intruder in his home. The case has transfixed people around the world, and the proceedings are being broadcast on television, adding to the scrutiny of South Africas criminal justice system as well as the character of a globally admired athlete whose career peaked when he ran in the 2012 Olympics. Pistorius was born without fibula bones because of a conngenital defect and his legs were amputated when he was 11 months old.dddddddddddd He has run on carbon-fiber blades and was initially banned from competing against able-bodied peers because many argued that his blades gave him an unfair advantage. He was later cleared to compete. He is a multiple Paralympic medallist but he failed to win a medal at the London Olympics. Lawyer Roux earlier attacked the testimonies of Johnson and Burger by also saying similarities in their accounts indicated that they had aligned their versions at the expense of truth. In his testimony Johnson told the court in Pretoria, the South African capital, that he heard the cries of a terrified woman and shooting around the time that Pistorius killed Steenkamp. Johnsons wife, Burger, had given similar testimony and at one point broke down in tears because of what she said was the memory of the terrified screams of a woman. Roux said there were differences between the statements that Johnson and Burger had given to police after the shooting, and testimony that they gave in court. Both the statements and the testimony shared similarities, Roux said, implying that the couple had contaminated their evidence by talking through what they were going to say. "You could just as well have stood together in the witness box," Roux said. "What do you say to that?" The tart assertion drew a caution from Judge Thokozile Masipa, who told Roux he had gone too far. Roux contended that crucial elements in the testimony of the couple were missing in their earlier comments to police, including the statements that they heard a womans screams rising in anxiety and intensity and that they heard the womans voice "fading" after the last in a volley of gunshots. Johnson suggested that he and his wife were more expressive while testifying in court than when providing information for a police document. "I would venture a guess that its the way you verbally tell the story," he said. "Theres a lot more emotion involved ... whereas the statement is more factual." At the beginning of proceedings on Wednesday, prosecutor Nel said Johnsons telephone number had been read out in court a day earlier. Johnson then said he had since received a "large amount" of missed calls. He described one voicemail message as saying: "Why are you lying in court? You know Oscar didnt kill Reeva. Its not cool." ___ Gerald Imray is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP ' ' '