pummeled for nine sacks by an unrelenting New York defense. When he didn’t emerge from the locker room after halftime, team officials said he was out of the game with a concussion.

Some used the word “apparent” to describe Cutler’s concussion, although there was nothing apparent about it. There was no single first-half moment where Cutler appeared to have suffered the knockout blow, no delay for him to be carted off the field. Instead, it was reported after halftime that upon examination, Cutler displayed signs of having experienced a concussion at some point and that his night was done.

In the past, the move to pull Cutler would’ve left football lifers aghast: Was he showing weakness? Shouldn’t he put the team before himself? Are we paying him millions of dollars to ride the bench? If he walked into the locker room at halftime, he certainly can walk out of it!

As we learn more about the severity of traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, those days and attitudes are fast becoming an antiquated notion of what pro football is. And we’re learning more than ever about the effects of concussions and brain injuries on athletes of all ages.

As a new generation of players train and compete with the knowledge of what concussions look like and how they happen, we’re headed toward a day where athletes won’t grow up to be debilitated and feeble from their days of playing contact sports. Only through education on the serious and long-lasting implications of concussions and related brain trauma can we hope to see this happen.

Cutler exemplified that concussions need not be obvious, owing to their strictly neurological nature. Quite simply, a concussion is when the skull is hit with such a violent force — whether that’s your head hitting the car windshield in a traffic accident or having your head slammed against the FieldTurf by an opposing linebacker — the brain literally shifts inside the cranium and smacks up against the bony walls of your head, thereby inhibiting normal brain function.

Obviously, you can’t see a concussion … well, actually you can. Here’s what it looks like:

But concussions can be deceptive to spot at times, so there are specific warning signs that the CDC asks coaches, parents and athletes to look out for when they suspect that a traumatic brain injury has occurred.

Historically, the largest obstacle has been a societal ignorance about what these symptoms look like, especially since it could be days or weeks for them to develop. To that end, the CDC has launched a concerted effort to educate high school athletes about the dangers and risks associated with undiagnosed concussions.

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Authors: Erik Malinowski

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