Everyone in the NFL wants illegal blindside hits like the one Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis delivered to Packers receiver Davante Adams out of the game. The NFL suspended Davis, and Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said “the NFL is trying to do an awful lot” to make the game safer.
“I think it’s important we try to take the hits to the head out of the game best we can,” Zimmer said Wednesday, via Andrew Krammer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “You don’t want to see people get hurt or get injured.”
Zimmer, though, said NFL players can do more to protect each other. One of Zimmer’s recommendations is for quarterbacks to better protect receivers by making judicious throws over the middle, keeping the pass-catcher out of harm’s way as best they can.
“The whole league has changed in the 20 years I’ve been in the league you know,” Zimmer said. “I guess I’m a defensive coach. A lot of times these quarterbacks throw the ball in the middle of the field and these safeties are coming to make a play on the ball. Quite honestly the ball shouldn’t have been thrown. Back in the day the ball wouldn’t have been thrown.
“We have to adapt to the rules. The hard part especially for the safeties is when they’re catching the ball and the guy is going down, you’ve lowered your target, but he continues to go lower. Now you have to try to, in about the time it takes a golf ball to come off a club face, to move your target to another spot, which is almost totally impossible. I think they could take a bunch of these plays out if the quarterbacks wouldn’t throw the ball into places they shouldn’t throw the ball.”
Zimmer’s own safety, Andrew Sendejo, served a one-game suspension for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Ravens receiver Mike Wallace. It was the type of play Zimmer was referring.
“It’s something like that, yeah,” Zimmer said. “You see it all the time. I think there was one the other night in the Tampa Bay game and Atlanta. That’s just my opinion. No one cares.”