It's a quick snap and the quarterback retreats from the pocket. He scans the field, looking to see who is open. Down the field, 20 yards away and going deeper, his wide receiver looks like a bullet shot out of an AK-47. He's all over this. The quarterback locks in on his target and uncorks the football.

It spirals in midair with plenty of hang time. The wide receiver can feel a catch in his bones. "This is mine," he thinks to himself. "I got this."

Nothing can stop him from making this reception. He throws his gloved hands up, his tingling fingers ready to secure the ball and metal-spiked feet prepared to continue the mad dash to the end zone. The crowd is screaming. He turns. Just a bit further…

WHAM!

It's a direct hit. One so strong the brain clatters in the skull. The receiver crumples immediately, clutching his head. His helmet lies seven feet away.

He tries to collect himself, but he can't focus. Teammates and opponents begin to circle him as trainers barge their way through the huddle.

The dazed look on the player's face says it all: He has suffered a concussion. The trainer signals to the coach. This receiver's game is over.

In an ideal world, that is. In reality, some trainers or coaches may gaze into the receiver's eyes, send him to the sidelines to get checked, and may send him back out moments later. That was the case in September for Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley who suffered a concussion during a game against the Green Bay Packers. He was taken to the sidelines, where team trainers performed an unspecified test before Eagles' Head Coach Andy Reid threw the weary player back in the action. When Bradley did not feel better later in the game, he was removed permanently.

The Eagles did not handle Bradley's situation correctly, and across many sports leagues, the prevalence of concussions is growing. Concussions are defined by Dr. Tony Strickland, CEO of the Sports Concussion Institute in Los Angeles and an Associate Clinical Professor of Neurology at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as "A blow to the head, neck or body that transfers energy to the brain and alters the way that a person thinks, feels or behaves."

When a player suffers a concussion or experiences concussion-like symptoms, the athlete should not return to play under any circumstances that day. Players should be monitored for "Issues related to the orientation (where they are); do they know where they are, who they are or why they are there?" Dr. Strickland said. "Nausea or vomiting, which are very significant for an impact that may involve potentially significant adverse (neurological) damage."

Situations like Bradley's are not unique. However, despite regulations in place to keep players healthy, some teams and coaches do not allow for an appropriate recuperation period and for the possibly-concussed athlete to undergo a battery of tests to determine the severity of the injury.

How forthcoming an athlete is about his or her symptoms is an entirely different matter. Athletes want to be out on the field, in the midst of the action, and may attempt to hide concussive symptoms to get back on the field faster. In an ideal situation, a brain scan would have already been taken so that doctors could consult the scans to what the player's brain looks like following the concussion.

"The athlete is either going to significantly underreport or not report their symptoms," Dr. Strickland said. "If we have a baseline and know what they look like before they are injured, we won't have to rely on the athlete because if they are symptomatic, they are not going to be able to perform neuropsychologically as they would have if they were not symptomatic."

Helmets can help to prevent concussions and serious mental trauma. However, current regulations only require that helmets are capable of withstanding forces that could cause skull fractures.

There is only so much a helmet can do; simply wearing one does not guarantee that there will not be a concussion. Other collisions and forces can cause an athlete to suffer a concussion. Redesigning helmets can bring support, but there are limits to the amount of work that can be done. Adding cushioning or other modifications to various sporting helmets can adversely affect the athlete.

While there is no way to eradicate concussions or risk, there is still the opportunity to prevent more severe injuries, like second-impact syndrome.

Second-impact syndrome occurs when a player who has been injured, suffers another concussion before the first concussion had been resolved. Potential side effects include, "An increased risk of herniation, edema and swelling in the brain," Dr. Strickland said.

"The cumulative effects of even sub-concussive impacts can be the same as boxers," said Dr. Todd Aaron in an interview with Sports Illustrated. "But the interesting thing is that the model we use for concussions is based on deaths. We think you get hit on one side of the head, the brain sloshes to the other side and is bruised – the ‘coup contracoup' model. It’s 200 years old and based on the gross anatomy of corpses. You have a concussion bad enough to kill you, yes, there’s likely bruising!"

Furthermore, concussions can impact a person's memory and ability to learn new information. Former football players including Wally Hilgenberg, a member of the Minnesota Vikings' Purple People Eater defense, had brains so damaged when they died that there were hardly any undamaged sections.

Instead of changing the games of today to prevent concussions or tinkering with protective gear, Dr. Williams believes teaching proper playing techniques could have a huge impact on concussion reduction.

"The more people are educated about concussions and risk, you start to realize you can have an impact on concussion frequency and concussion severity by teaching proper techniques," Dr. Williams said. "You can also have an effect on concussions by teaching people to play the game in a manner that reduces the risk of head-to-head, head-to-elbow or head-to-knee contact."