NFL Rules: Penalizing "Devastating Hits" Is Confusing

As I have not quite decided on what format to use with this column, I played around with a couple of different ideas until I got it right. This week, I decided to cover a topic that has raised feelings in so many forms, from thankfulness to disgust, from total agreement to outright anger.

You have probably guessed that we are going to be discussing the NFL's comments that came out Monday, stating that there would be an announcement by Wednesday that "players will be suspended for devastating hits and head shots."

As stated by Chris Mortensen, the senior NFL analyst for ESPN, the NFL will announce by Wednesday that effective this weekend, even first-time offenders face suspension for “devastating hits” and “head shots,” according to Ray Anderson, the league's Executive Vice President of Football Operations.

“We can't and won't tolerate what we saw Sunday,” Anderson said Monday. “We've got to get the message to players that these devastating hits and head shots will be met with a very necessary higher standard of accountability. We have to dispel the notion that you get one free pass in these egregious or flagrant shots.”

Anderson was alluding to the normal disciplinary measures in which the league has issued fines for first-time offenders and, very often, second-time offenders.

“What we saw Sunday was disturbing,” Anderson said. “We're talking about avoiding life-altering impacts.”

OK, let's take this piece by piece.

Devastating Hits

Can anyone tell me clearly what constitutes a “devastating hit?” If that term has no specified guidelines, someone could get injured with a perfectly legal hit.

While looking it over, the commissioner is having a bad day (we all have them, it HAPPENS, folks) and all of a sudden we have a player being suspended for a "devastating hit," simply because when someone got hit, they got hurt. Anything that causes an injury could (technically), be a “devastating hit.”

Someone else, (I believe it was Jon Gruden, but am unable to access it), commented that it was “any hit that makes you go 'ohh.'” If the term “devastating hit” is to remain in the “possibilities for suspension,” then there needs to be a definition of what it is before one happens.

Head-to-head shots are illegal—have been and will continue to be. That is a given and there ARE reasons for that: Even football helmets are unable to protect people completely if they are knocking their heads against each other while flying across a football field.

So many injuries result from concussions. Just look at players such as Troy Aikman, Trent Green, Kurt Warner, David Carr, Ben Roethlisberger and many more.

First-Time Offenders

Now, let's get into some of the other issues created by making rules that promise to suspend players on a first offense. Some say that we are losing the game of football. Others have said that it is a privilege to play in the NFL, not a right, and that you can always, if worried about being injured, turn around and walk off the field.

Probably the best argument that I have read for adding rules to suspend players for head shots was found in this article by Linda Robertson of the Miami Herald.

Rick Reilly of ESPN.com quite vocally states that, whether the play is a legal hit or not, if a player hands out a concussion, he should be suspended, period. Ross Tucker, also from ESPN, and an ex-football player, states, "Pro football is a violent game played by violent men. Blows to the head are an occupational hazard that we can attempt to avoid, knowing full well that we will never completely accomplish that goal."

We already go out of the way to protect "defenseless" players: kickers, special teams receivers who have called a "fair catch" and quarterbacks to a large degree.

But to what degree are we going to go?

James Harrison spent some time considering retirement after being slapped with a $75,000 fine for two plays that were deemed "ugly," but (that's right, folks) were not flagged. Legal hits that cost him the better part of 100K.

Is it surprising that people are confused?

I see televised flag football in our future...and am not happy about it.

Chiefsmom is a Jabberhead and SJ Magazine columnist. Read & discuss this article and more in the Inaugural Edition of SJ Magazine.