The "Brady Rule" Asks Defensive Players To Bring It Down Too Many Notches

No one should have been happy when Tom Brady went down with his season-ending knee injury in Week One.

As easy as it is to despise the Patriots and their quarterback, the truth remains that we want to see an NFL without career-threatening injuries. It's only wishful thinking, though.

This game prides itself on finding the toughest and strongest physical freaks with the most tenacious of intangibles. The best players are adored for their heart, passion, and internal motors. It's especially true for defensive players.

Engaging in battle with an offense, calculating a play, and making sure your feet never stop until the whistle is something that's preached to players the very first time they hit the practice field.

This is true from childhood leagues all the way up to the pros.

Never. Stop.

But the NFL's Competition Committee has elected to send mixed messages.

Creating a rule that will penalize players for doing something their momentum won't allow them to adequately control is a contradiction to everything players have been taught throughout their football-playing lives.

When Bernard Pollard dove towards Tom Brady in the first quarter of the season opener, different people saw different things.

Most Patriots' fans saw filth as slow-motion replays led them to believe it was an intentionally dirty blow from a low-down dirty player. Fans of other teams saw a player who was blocked to the ground trying to regain his composure and make a play for his defense.

Who's wrong in this situation?

The problem is that no one can really tell, or make a convincing argument in either direction.

Pollard was being forced to the ground and saw an opportunity to disrupt the timing of a pass. He took his opportunity at the same time Brady planted his foot, and the rest was history.

Should Pollard have simply accepted his defeat while Brady stood feet away, preparing to throw the ball? 

Most coaches would say, "Absolutely not!" But this new amendment to the "roughing the passer" guidelines suggests that defenders should NOT take those opportunities anymore.

It's asking players to shut down their motors before the whistle is blown.

The fifth provision of Rule 12, Section 2, Article 12 asks defensive players to give up on a play after a clean block, and allow a play to unfold however it should. It insists that the defender chalk the play up as a failure and not make any extra effort to help his own team.

Worse than the concept of quitting defenders is that the enforcing of this rule falls directly into the judgment of the officials.

The amendment reads, "It is not a foul if the defender is blocked (or fouled) into the passer and has no opportunity to avoid him.”

In a 2008 season that saw weekly controversy surrounding the officiating, involving blown calls and phantom penalties, it's unwise to place an incident based on circumstance in the whistle of a referee.

Allowing more of their decisions to be judgment calls takes the game away from the actual competitors!

Despite that, how is avoidance going to be properly determined?

If fighting off a block—a tactic players practice to perfect—no longer signifies avoidance, then how is defense supposed to be played?

Is a defensive lineman weighing well over 300 pounds supposed to stop his rush on the drop of a dime?

It didn't work for Kimo von Oelhoeffen when he fell into Carson Palmer's knee.

There was nothing dirty in that play. Kimo von Oelhoeffen was trying to do his job, break through the line, and disrupt Palmer. The offensive line stopped providing resistance, and gravity and momentum forced von Oelhoffen to take a bad angle on Palmer's knee.

It was something unfortunate—just as it was when it happened to Tom Brady.

What kind of precedent does it set when potential accidents are penalized?

This can't be officiated like the NBA with a difference between flagrant and personal fouls.

It's an exercise in futility, or a complete bastardization of the NFL from what it once was—whichever phrase you prefer.

No amount of penalty yardage is going to subdue the pain of an injury. And the NFL will soon learn that there's no appropriate way to judge the legality of contact in a game of speed and strength.

This is a full-contact sport where hits happen, and some hurt a lot worse than others. That's not a reputation that can be effectively harnessed without changing the entire landscape of the game.

Injuries suck, and player safety should be a priority. But allowing a committee to remove the competition from this sport turns it into something completely unrecognizable.

Angel Navedo is a contributing writer to TheJetsBlog.com. He is also the Jets-Examiner" target="_blank">Examiner for the New York Jets and the Head Writer at NYJetsFan.com. 

He can be reached here.