They did this so it could be officially voted down and they’d have another example to hold up to the judge and say

“Your honor, we’re trying to make the sport safer but, the players shoot our sincere efforts down every time, and may we at this time also enter into evidence this collection of public comments, made by the players themselves, condemning the idea of NOT leading with their heads/helmets. Thank you.”

Matt Forte said it best: You can’t change the instinctive nature of running the football….[and the NFL knows this.]

I have no use for beer and chicken wing fans however, 30lbs overweight, at the bars on Sunday rooting for their fantasy teams, criticizing the safety efforts because the game isn’t violent enough for them.

Unless a significant number of fans in numbering in the many millions really stops watching every game for an extended time, Goodell is going nowhere. The owners care nothing about what we the fans think. As long as they keep making vast boatloads of money Goodell is here to stay

There is a difference between ‘lowering your head’ VS ‘leading with your head’.

I don’t condone leading (spearing) with the helmet as a weapon. I’m definitely against it on the defensive side of the ball where it’s usually pretty obvious and unnecessary in the open field.

But on the offensive side of the ball I’m not so sure that it won’t change the very nature of the run game. For the most part there are different objectives & mechanics at play for a player trying to run through or run away from the defense VS the defensive players who are running directly at a player to stop the forward progress. Although my gut feeling is to not mess with the running game from an integrity of the game standpoint, the answer isn’t 100% clear to me.

The NFL better watch it because they are entering areas of rules that could change the very sanctity of the game. I myself & I think a lot of fans won’t stand for it. Sad to say but I’ll just stop watching at some point if it gets out of hand. It would be very very bad on the impact on the game of football to change the very nature of how the ball is run, the instinctual reaction to being tackled & aggressiveness of how the game is played! Do we really want a running back to have to be thinking about this? Its also very very bad for the integrity of the game to leave more subjective calls that could change game outcomes to the interpretation of the officials. We already have way too much of that one! Offensive head lowering VS head leading… Good luck on that one.

I actually think there should be an in depth study through digitally filming experimental play dovetailed with computer modeling to come to a clear understanding of the mechanics & how the rule would impact the game. What is happening now is a knee jerk cacophony of subjective opinions from different perspectives which is always a bad way to come to an important decision.

NFL is a billion dollar business. They can afford to put a little science into this before making decisions that could impact the very nature of our beloved game.

Likewise, a runner can break a tackle with his shoulder without intentionally driving his helmet into the defender. Nobody would expect a runner to make zero contact with his helmet. The distinction between incidental and intentional contact would be a judgment call, just like any other penalty in the game.

These refs though, I could see a bunch of terrible calls.