Madden Mod Brings Concussions Back to the Game and Challenges Football’s Culture of Toughness

Fifteen years after Derek Sheely passed following a traumatic brain injury, his family is still asking football to reconsider what it means to be tough

Cover image of Modden26 game presented by The Derek Sheely Foundation | Image provided by Klick Health

Kristen Sheely remembers the plastic chairs.

Her son Derek would come home from pee-wee football practice, arrange them around the backyard and run through them as if they were defenders. Then he would do sit-ups and push-ups – as well as a eight-year-old could – and whatever he thought might make him better.

“He was really, really into it,” Kristen said.

Football remained part of Derek’s life through high school and college. There were video games, too: Nintendo, then Xbox and Madden. Derek said football is “the greatest game ever invented.”

Derek passed at the age of 22 following a traumatic brain injury suffered during a Frostburg State University football practice. Finding the strength to remember their son's life, his family started the Derek Sheely Foundation, but the foundation is not asking young athletes to stop playing football.

It is asking whether football can become better at telling them when to stop.

During that August 2011 practice, Derek complained of a headache and not feeling right before returning to the field.

The details of what happened afterward have been recounted in legal filings, news stories and, more recently, Kristen’s memoir, Very Dark Places: A Memoir of Grief, Family, and Learning to Survive Unimaginable Loss. The book chronicles Derek’s death, the investigation that followed and a family’s attempt to build a life around an absence that never really leaves.

Football’s Concussion Culture 

Fifteen years later, though, perhaps the most unsettling part of Derek’s story isn't how foreign it sounds, but how familiar it is. If you’ve played or been within earshot of the game in person or subject to a weekend TV binge full of college and NFL games, you’ve heard at least once:

Shake it off.

Got his bell rung.

Play through it.

Be tough.

Some version of those words has existed in football for generations. So has the effort to make the game safer.

In 1877, Princeton player L.P. Smock was credited with introducing primitive football padding, sewing protection into his uniform. Since then came shoulder pads, helmets, improved helmets, rule changes and, more recently, soft-shell covers such as Guardian Caps.

In Georgia this season, the state’s high school association went a step further in girls flag football, requiring every player to wear approved soft-shell protective headgear or a protective headband.

Football has spent nearly its entire existence trying to put something between the player and the hit.
But there is no padding around the decision to say, Something doesn’t feel right.

That problem returned to the national conversation this week when brain-injury researcher Chris Nowinski appeared on Pablo Torre Finds Out and sharply questioned the assumptions surrounding Guardian Caps and the level of concussion protection they provide, particularly for younger players.

The debate over the equipment continues, yet the larger issue remains.

Concussions can be difficult to recognize. There may be no visible sign of injury, nothing that immediately announces to everyone watching that an athlete can’t “shake it off” and continue to play.

“It would be easier if you could see a bone sticking out or blood,” Kristen said. “You can’t see it.”

Why High School Football Players Still Hide Concussion Symptoms 

Even when athletes do recognize symptoms, research into high school sports has repeatedly found reasons they might choose not to report them – like wanting to remain in the game, not wanting to disappoint teammates or coaches, or not wanting to appear weak.

While the first few days of football practice, like Tuesday, August 25, 2026, are without pads, Abington could still get in some blocking training to get ready for pads later in the week. The helmet covers are applied to all helmets to protect against concussions. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Which is where things can become complicated for a young athlete. Toughness, perseverance, and commitment are celebrated values. These are the attributes that become the lore of our favorite athletes. The Jordan flu game. Matthew Stafford refusing to quit on the goaline despite injury. Byron Leftwich being carried down the field by his Marshall offensive linemen so he could keep playing.

It’s the stuff we love most about athletes that makes this conversation difficult.

Learning that every uncomfortable moment is not a reason to quit can be one of the lasting lessons sports can give a young person.

But a headache after a blow to the head is not fourth-quarter fatigue. It’s not a reason to push through. Dizziness and confusion are not things an athlete should be praised for overcoming.

How Football Is Trying to Improve Concussion Safety 

The NFL has increasingly built that distinction into its concussion systems. Its protocol does not rely exclusively on a player recognizing an injury and removing himself. Unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants work alongside team medical staffs, while athletic-trainer spotters watch games from above the field and can alert medical personnel when they see a potentially concerning impact. Staff removes a player suspected of suffering a concussion for evaluation.

And yes, at the high school level, concussion rules also exist nationwide. Athletes suspected of suffering concussions generally must be removed and medically cleared before returning.

What varies is everything around those rules: training, medical staffing, and the people available on a Friday night to recognize something has happened before a teenager decides to keep quiet. And you can’t ignore that those resources to spot those symptoms can look very different from one school to another.

And here’s the hardest part of concussion safety to legislate.

Culture.

Kristen remembers the culture surrounding Derek’s high school team as serious and disciplined. Players sat at the front of classrooms. They wore ties on game days. There was film study and study hall.

Parents were told not to schedule appointments that might make their sons miss practice, because if you missed practice, you might not play.

Kristen does not recount those memories with anger or frustration. She talks about Derek’s time playing high school sports with fondness. She later became a junior varsity field hockey coach herself and remembers receiving instruction on lightning, CPR, and how to use an AED.

“I don’t recall very much emphasis about concussion,” she said.

Today, considerably more information is available. And the Derek Sheely Foundation has spent years helping provide that information.

The organization created concussion-awareness kits containing Derek’s story, information about traumatic brain injuries and signs and symptoms young athletes should recognize. The foundation added magnets, pens, and wristbands because, as Kristen put it, ”What do people usually do with another piece of paper?”

The message was uncomplicated.

“Maybe if you know the signs and symptoms, you can look out for your teammates,” Kristen said. “You can look out as much for them as you can for yourself.”

How a Video Game Is Teaching Players About Concussions

Then a health agency called Klick came to the foundation with another way to deliver that message.

Put concussions back into Madden.

The idea eventually became MODDEN 26, a free modification for the PC version of Madden NFL 26.

Madden, among other things, is a franchise famous for its obsession with realism. The video game includes broken ribs, ankle injuries, authentic tattoos, throwing motions, and increasingly detailed simulations of professional football.

Concussions once existed there, too.

In a 2011 interview with The New York Times, John Madden argued that they belonged in the game, saying concussions had become too important for the video game to ignore. He specifically connected that responsibility to young players who learn about football through Madden: “It starts with young kids — they start in video games.”

Eventually, concussions disappeared from the official video game, but MODDEN brings them back in a different way.

A player experiencing the modification might see the screen blur or shake. Sounds can distort. There may be ringing meant to replicate tinnitus — the perception of ringing, buzzing, or other sounds without an external source. Gameplay becomes more difficult.

“If you’ve seen any of our video assets, it makes you dizzy,” said Devon Taylor, a strategist at Klick and one of the creative gaming minds behind the project. “It makes you have blurry vision. It gives you the tinnitus. So it’s not just this passive kind of pop-up. It’s really something you can feel.”

No video game can tell someone precisely what a brain injury feels like. Concussion symptoms differ from person to person, and MODDEN makes clear that its experience is educational, not diagnostic.

Its value is simpler than simulation; it’s recognition.

Taylor describes the mod itself as a pebble meant to create a larger ripple. Most Madden players will never download the modification. They might however see someone streaming it, or a clip online.

“Kids are learning the game of football through this game,” Taylor said. “If one kid plays it or sees it ... that’s going to start the conversation.”

For Derek’s family, that conversation has always included something important.

Derek loved football.

“We did not want to stop football, change football, none of that,” Kristen said. “All we want is to make it safer for everyone who loves it.”

Perhaps doing that requires expanding football’s definition of toughness — because toughness matters in sports. Morning worksout come early. Practices don’t wait for your legs to recover. . Games pressure makes winning moments come alive.

But toughness cannot mean ignoring everything your body tells you.

Sometimes the best thing a player can do is tell their coach that their head hurts. Sometimes the best teammate you can be is to notice that your friend isn’t acting right. Sometimes the best way an adult can lead young people is to tell a player who desperately wants back into the game that the answer is no.

Early in my conversation with Kristen, I asked her to tell me who Derek was. Then I corrected myself. Who Derek is.

Kristen noticed.

“Thanks for saying who he is,” she said. “I appreciate it. Because he’s with us for sure, he’s my heart.”

Derek Sheely and his family at a game the fall of 2010. | Photo provided by The Derek Sheely Foundation

Recently, Kristen became a grandmother, and during our conversation she said with a smile, “Derek held the title of smartest baby ever born.”

That is, until her new grandson apparently took the crown.

The newborn, whose middle name is Derek, carries something else from the uncle he will know through stories, as Derek’s legacy continues through both his family and the foundation bearing his name.

There will always be another football game. Another new helmet. Another piece of equipment designed to make the game safer.

And there will always be young players who want desperately to stay on the field.

The work Derek’s family has chosen is making sure they know that protecting themselves — and one another — belongs in the game, too.

To learn more about the Derek Sheely Foundation and its concussion awareness work, visit the foundation’s website: www.dereksheelyfoundation.org.