My two favorite sports leagues in the world are the NFL and the NHL…both are dealing with this crisis. It’s more entertaining for all of us to see high-speed collisions and bone crunching hits, but ex-players are dying way too young. The evidence is too strong to ignore that allowing hits targeting the head is too dangerous.

If you’re a defensive back in the NFL, lower your shoulder and drive it into the players torso, like you’ve been taught to do your entire life. Receivers that “crouch down” causing blows to the head are no longer defenseless, and aren’t classified by the rule. When refs screw that part of it up, it doesn’t mean the rule is bogus, it’s just a blown call.

Tackles where the defender lowers his head, or spears the ball carrier with the helmet, or just headhunts like James Harrison does should be called. Incidental stuff like this is overkill.

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Exactly!!

With guys moving every which way at such high speeds your bound to have helmets collide. Incidental or inadvertant contact is part of the game. It’s using the helmet as a weapon that needs to be stopped.

FYI the reason the falcons have been playing so badly this season, you make the game a pissing walk in the park, smash mouth becomes irrelavent, the run becomes useless. How often do the packers run? How about Pats? The run is next to useless nowadays….it’s really sad.

“It is a foul if a player initiates unnecessary contact against a player who is in a defenseless posture.
(a) Players in a defenseless posture are:
(1) Those players not on the field.
(2) There is no (2).”

“Any contact to a player’s head that is not deemed a runner in possession of the football will be a 15 yard penalty.”

That protects your quarterbacks in the pocket and receivers that are quote “defenseless.” The defensive players will be able to understand it much more than the jibberish that the rule currently is.

So this makes the refs game changers, and it shouldn’t be that way. let the players decide the games, not officials.

I just don’t get how they are so WRONG with the defenseless receiver penalty, QB roughing, and illegal contact call. All three of these are called completely differently based on the refs working the game.

Instead of the referees having less of an impact on games they now, play a large role who wins and loses.

Either get rid of these calls or get more concrete definitions of these rules.

2) That WAS holding in the end zone on the Saints. How does the fact that the ref determined the play to be a screen pass make it not holding? Are the ref’s going to start calling out the “Mike” before the plays as well?

3) Jeff Triplette should not have a job – but if he keeps up what he’s doing it seems the NFL will make him the next Mike Pereira.

4) Mike Pereira should not have a job. He is terrible.

5) “macbull says:
The NFL continues to use the same basic football helmets they used in the 1960s…a rock hard plastic outer shell with air bags and padding added to the inside to absorb the shock.

Padding added to the outside of helmets was successfully used by NFL players concerned about career threatening concussions, yet the NFL refuses to mandate the use of those helmet options.”

Padding on the helmets actually causes more of an injury risk to the players. Yes the brain is protected, but because the helmet “sticks” upon impact, there is a much increased risk of serious neck injury.

It will be their jobs to try and interpret and explain the rules to the coaches and players as the games are being played. I had enough of the Pereira BS when he was in the NFL, I sure do not need what has always been the NFL self serving BS Spin on bad calls.

What is that old saying? “do not (*& down my back and try and tell me it is raining”.

See all the records that may be broke this year?, more BS in today’s game of pitch and catch, they mean nothing.

Just last week there were at least 2 lawsuits brought by 2 different groups of players regarding player safety.

So when complaining about the penalties, fines, and suspensions go talk to the players and remind them that they are the people asking for the more hardline approach.

The owners and the NFL would like nothing more than to let them beat themselves into oblivion, that makes them more money.

To me it seems that we have a gladiatorial sport where the gladiators want more protection, complain when the are given it, the fans want blood and complain when they can’t get it.

How does the NFL win?

Where is “unnecessary contact” defined?

If someone is catching a ball and you want to break up the catch, contact is necessary. If you’re worried about a helpless receiver, then don’t ask the receiver to do things that make him helpless.

The players have to make split second judgement calls and get them all right, but the refs are allowed to talk things over and get them wrong? This is insanity.

Football is a dangerous sport. Goodell needs to be the commissioner of a flag football league. The NFL is obviously too violent for him. His rules are outrageous and any rule that comes with a “Err on the side of caution” can not be enforced justly or consistently. Goodell is nuts.

You could have a rule with 1200 words to describe a defenseless player…in the course of game action, it really doesn’t matter. Any hit to the head should be illegal and that’s that.

RB constantly put their heads down and slam into tacklers’ helmets and somehow that’s legal. Stupid.

Why doesn’t the NFL hire professional refs like all other sports? Oh that’s right they can hardly afford it…………

I think everyone agrees that penalties should get called when a defensive player uses his helmet as a weapon when trying to tackle someone. But can we start being adults when it comes to this stuff?

Let’s be honest, when playing in the NFL, concussions are an occupational hazard. If guys are really concerned about their well-being when it comes to head injuries, they should walk away from the game…

I don’t say that to sound like a tough guy or a neanderthal, it’s just the reality of the game when played at an elite level. What I call “casual” helmet to helmet contact will always occur regardless of the rules put in place.

I compare football players to boxers or MMA fighters. When’s the last time you’ve seen a fight stopped due to “possible concussion symptoms”? It’s an occupational hazard that’s fully understood when stepping into the ring. A guy gets rocked with a big punch/kick, but as long as he is able to defend himself, he is allowed to continue.

If an NFL player suffers a head injury, but passes all the field tests and is coherent and lucid, it should be his choice to go back into the game. If a guy clearly is out on his feet, then you sit him.

I just think we need to start acknowledging that the game of football at the elite level is inherently dangerous.

Further the rules are not enforced with any consistency…to many subjective rules in the game now, imho.

The NFL continues to use the same basic football helmets they used in the 1960s…a rock hard plastic outer shell with air bags and padding added to the inside to absorb the shock.

Padding added to the outside of helmets was successfully used by NFL players concerned about career threatening concussions, yet the NFL refuses to mandate the use of those helmet options.

The NFL needs to upgrade the safety capabilities of their helmets and stop changing the game.

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That is the problem. You didn’t see the hit. The receiver did lower his head which caused the defensive player and the offensive player to collide. These rules are a joke. I tell ya what, if the NFL wants to make these rules fair how about evening out the stakes for both sides. Pass interference in the endzone on a 60-yard bomb results in 1st and goal. How about offensive pass interference results in 15 yards AND a loss of downs. How about any offensive holding penalty results in a loss of down. Same thing for a false start. Allow the teams to play some defense for god sakes.