There's been a lot of talk about concussions this season, particularly what they've done to a slew of former players. And it's looking like the league and the Players Association are close to making a deal that will help stave off some of those post-concussion, post-playing day trauma that players suffer, according to ESPN.

The word is that the new rules won't let players go back into a game that they've had to leave due to a concussion-related injury, no matter how much the player wants to back and prove his manliness at the time. And the new rules wouldn't be put into place in 2011 or 2012 or some other distant time. It would apparently be put into place before the ink is even dry.

"We're really at a stage where we're dotting the i's and crossing the t's," Dr. Thom Mayer, the NFLPA's medical director, said this weekend. "We're waiting on the final draft."

Source: ESPN