The only thing that I can say here is wow. The players are going absolutely nuts with the NFL's newest points of emphasis here when it comes to the hits to the head. Now, this was an especially brutal weekend, as many people have brought up, where there were 4 pretty darn serious hits that would make any of us cringe a little bit. I was also watching Sports Center last night, and they were also reporting that, to this point in the season, there has been a jump of 14 concussion/head related injuries amongst players, from 21 to 35. Now that is pretty significant.
That jump, as well as the rather brutal weekend, led the NFL to say that they may begin to do more than just fine people for those particularly violent hits to the head. They may begin suspending players for this. So here's the long lasting, and very heated, debate that is going to be looming with players now. Is the league going too far in their punishment of these types of violent hits?
We certainly know where many of the players stand on this debate, as mentioned here by Yahoo Sports contributor Chris Chase. By and large, of course, the defensive players are going to be more riled up, as you see with Urlacher's comments in the article above. James Harrison has even threatened to retire because he isn't sure how to play football anymore. The players certainly have hit the right note of overly dramatic reactions to this whole situation.
The players are insinuating that the NFL is trying to take out one of the inherent attributes of football, the big hit. They are saying that people should expect injuries in football, that it is violent by nature, and to take this kind of a stand on hits to the head is analogous to, as Urlacher said, just putting flags on everybody and making it the National Flag Football League instead of the National Football League.
Now, I teach high school, so I am very familiar with the concept of people blowing things out of proportion when it doesn't work for them. Personally, I'm with the league on this; and I have a feeling that if the players think about this, instead of going with their initial, emotional reactions, then they will see this as well. The NFL is not out here saying, don't tackle hard, don't make big hits, don't make the play that you've always been taught to make in this situation. The NFL is saying respect your fellow players, and don't go for the kill, so to speak. There is a difference, no matter what the players say, between good, hard tackling that adheres to the fundamentals everybody is taught, and trying to hurt people.
Look at that hit that Brandon Meriweather put on Todd Heap on Sunday. That hit is exactly the kind of thing the NFL is trying to get rid of. That is an incredibly dangerous hit on a play where Meriweather had to have seen that the ball was already out of Heap's hands and the pass was incomplete. Then there was the Dunta Robinson hit on Desean Jackson. I understand the flag during the game because it was bang bang, and if you see the hit, you see Jackson's head fly back, as if his head got nailed. But the fine for this one, I have to believe, will be overturned because he clearly lead with his shoulder, not his head. This type of hit is the one that is not illegal, and that people are not trying to get rid of.
Then there's James Harrison. I feel that the announcers do a good job of differentiating why the hit on Cribbs was not flagged, versus why the hit on Massaquoi was. Here are both of the hits. So, people against these new points of emphasis are to tell me that Harrison wouldn't be able to make a legal tackle that doesn't involve him driving his forearms through Massaquoi's chin and still prevent him from making the catch? Really?
Now, let's also be realistic about this. The NFL has made these types of hits a point of emphasis in the last few years, doing more fining and flagging things like this more often. Yet, as I said at the beginning, there has been this spike of head injuries on these types of hits. What is the NFL supposed to do, just allow it to continue? Here's why I think the NFL is in the right on this. People say that this is what makes football exciting. Well, in my opinion, if the excitement comes from the types of hits that can end people's careers, or even their lives, then there is something wrong in the sport. If there aren't people willing to play the sport, because this injury gets out of control, then there won't be a game at all. Your players are what make the game exciting, and the NFL is doing the absolute right thing in protecting them.
I am open to other's opinions on this, so please share away!
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