Not sure why the Saints bounty goes back to a Steelers player, but…It was a “defenseless Wide Receiver” Mohamed Massaquoi that caused this controversy 2112ruler. That play was the reason for the new rule against defenseless receivers. The penalty was for the blatant style used on the tackle that was not defined to a referee at the time as far as a penalty is concerned. However, the players were warned about helmet to helmet hits prior to this occurring. Harrison wasn’t the poster boy for these hits at first(in fact 3 others were fined the same weekend as this first instance), but his reluctance to change the way he “tackled” made him the poster boy going forward.

Running backs already have the ball in hand and therefore can “defend” themselves against an oncoming hit. A receiver with his head on a swivel as the ball is coming into their gut renders them defenseless against seeing these types of hits and was the cause of many of the concussion issues of recent study.

Indeed. All people have to do is use a little logic. When you see how many hits Vilma had that qualified for this mysterious ‘Kill the head’ category, logic would dictate that it means something significantly less dastardly than the NFL is trying to paint.

That would mean that approximately four times a game, in every game of 2010, Vilma took out the QB…

I have to agree. According the proof all Saints had nearly 500 “kill the head” tackles in one season.
There weren’t nearly 500 head 2 head tackles in the entire NFL in 2010.

I’m with those who say “kill the head” means to take out the QB, who is the field general. This seems like an old military term to “take out the leader” so the rest of the army will fall apart. At least, that’s how they made it sound in Braveheart.

I think it is a reach to try to apply a literal translation to this.

i hope this post is acceptable to the moderator here. It seems when there is an easy explanation to a pot stiring article it gets deleted.

Incidentally, this is why James Harrison being fined/suspended for hits to the Browns running back a year or two back was so puzzling – he wasn’t defenseless and it was on a running back, hence no penalty flag. Penalty came afterward in the form of a fine from the league.

Rules like this need to be clarified and applied more equally for the betterment of all, but I after watching Vilma’s style of play, I don’t doubt he had 60+ helmet-to-helmet hits over the course of a year that weren’t penalized.

Regardless, the definition as given by Gregg Williams to an anonymous somebody indicates that it’s a helmet-to-helmet hit. Listening to him say that certain players have had concussions recently and to be sure to kill the head of that same player support this.

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Helmet to helmet hits are a lot like offensive lineman holding. It happens a lot but rarely gets called.