The NFL will start requiring players to wear leg pads this season. Titans safety Bernard Pollard thinks that shows the people who make the decisions in the NFL never actually played football.
“It’s not going to stop no injuries,” Pollard told the Associated Press. “It’s not. You can put pads on all you want to. If you get hit in the knee the wrong way you’re going to tear an ACL. You’re going to sprain something. You’re going to get a contusion. You’re still going to get a contusion with a pad on.”
Pollard, who has previously said Commissioner Roger Goodell would like to change the NFL into a flag football league, believes that the requirement of leg pads stems from a disconnect between the players and the owners and executives who make the rules that the players have to play under.
“I don’t know what their thinking was behind it,” Pollard said. “But at the end of the day, we play the game. You got a lot of guys voting on something that never played this game before that they think is going to help. But it’s not going to help.”
Pollard may not like leg pads, but he will wear them this year. And given the direction the NFL is going on player safety issues, it’s safe to say that leg pads are here to say.