OPINION:
This was the NFL’s big move?
This was what they came up with, after studying various ways to make their very dangerous product safer (sort of like making fire less hot)?
Last week at the NFL owners meeting in Orlando, the league revealed its long-awaited “solution” to the concussion fears that have put the foundation of the game at risk — fears that are prompting state legislatures to consider passing laws banning tackle football for kids.
The NFL’s answer for football players? Try to ignore that battering ram sitting on top of your head. The new rule prohibits players from lowering their helmets to initiate contact. There will be penalties and ejections for those who can’t comply.
“We think this is going to help us take the helmet out of the game and get it back to a protective device,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. “Our focus is how to take the head out of the game. Make sure that we’re using the helmet as protection, and it’s not being used as a weapon. That’s the core of what we’re focused on. I think we made a tremendous amount of progress in that this week.”’
Did I miss something, or did Goodell just testify on behalf of the plaintiffs suing helmet manufacturers?
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They are putting the hard sell on the impact of this change. “For us, this is a pretty significant change,” NFL competition committee chairman Rich McKay told reporters last week. “This one technique, we saw so many hits when a player lowered his head and delivered a hit and either hurt himself or the player he was hitting. It was time for a change of this magnitude.
“This has very little requirement to it,” McKay said. “This is simply if you lower your head to initiate contact and you make contact with an opponent it’s a foul.”
There’s nothing simple about this, though.
NFL players, of course, are balking at the change — defensive players in particular.
Redskins cornerback Josh Norman told USA Today questioned how you could play the game that they have trained for under this new rule. “I don’t know how you’re going to play the game,” Norman said. “If your helmet comes in contact? How are you going to avoid that if you’re in the trenches and hit a running back, facemask to facemask and accidentally graze the helmet? It’s obviously going to happen. So, I don’t know even what that definition looks like.”
San Francisco cornerback Richard Sherman said it was “ridiculous. Like telling a driver if you touch the lane lines, you’re getting a ticket. It’s going to lead to more lower-extremity injuries.”
They may be right. No one has a clue if this will work — or how it will work. It is, in NFL parlance, a Hail Mary pass by the league to change the destructive perception of their business.
Former NFL vice president of officiating and current FOX analyst Mike Pereira told Sirius XM radio that he doesn’t see how officials will be able to legitimately enforce the change. “I think it is going to be impossible to officiate,” Pereira said. “You’ll see the same things happen with this as we’ve seen with the crown-of-the-helmet rule: very few calls. I think most of it will be taken care of after the fact with potential fines.”
The NFL’s answer to the possibility of the difficulty of enforcing the new rules on the field? More replay.
“If we’re able to have replay confirm one of these fouls and also confirms a player be ejected,” Goodell said. “I think there is more confidence among the coaches it will be called accurately.
“We think that is appropriate to do and it would be the first time we use replay for safety or in respect to any kind of foul,” he said.
Yes, more replay. Vince McMahon, who is bankrolling a rival league, thinks that’s a good idea for the NFL.
The reality is there are no answers for the avoiding the potential long-term destructive damage of the game. They haven’t found any answers yet in the laboratories where they are cutting open the brains of dead NFL players, and they likely didn’t find an answer last week in a hotel boardroom in Orlando.
There are victims, though — like Redskins Super Bowl quarterback Mark Rypien, who told his hometown television station KHQ and The Spokesman-Review that he once tried to commit suicide because of mental health issues he suffered from playing football.
“I suffer from a complex stew of mental health conditions,” Rypien said. “Dark places, depression, anxiety, addictions, poor choices, poor decisions, brought about from dozens of concussions and thousands of subconcussive injuries from playing this sport.”
And the reality is likely despite desperate rule changes, there are future victims as well. Josh Norman and Richard Sherman should take note.
⦁ Thom Loverro hosts his weekly podcast “Cigars & Curveballs” Wednesdays available on iTunes, Google Play and the reVolver podcast network.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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