The NFL Is Heading Down a Slippery Slope

The NFL is currently heading down a slippery slope.

One of the most fundamental aspects of the game – a defensive player’s right to hit someone – is under assault by vague, undefined rules that seem to change by the week.

We are a lot more knowledgeable these days about the permanent damage a single concussion cause, and the NFL wants to put an end to the rise in concussions players have incurred in recent years.  

But the way the NFL is going about doing that is foggy to say the least.

What constitutes deliberate head-to-head contact?

What constitutes a defenseless receiver?

The fact of the matter is that no one, not even the referees or defensive players seem to know the answers to these questions.

Heck, it doesn’t even seem like Roger Goodell knows the answers.  

Here’s a picture for you:

A receiver comes bounding across the middle of the field and jumps for a high pass.

From the other side of the field, a free safety is heading directly towards the receiver at full speed as he sees the ball in the air.

The ball tips off the receivers fingers, and less than a second later he is completely leveled by the free safety that was bounding across the field to make a play.

A yellow flag immediately flies through the air for a hit on a “defenseless” receiver.

This is a scene that takes place all around the NFL each and every week, yet no one seems to really know what a defenseless receiver is.

Was that receiver defenseless when a catchable ball tipped off his fingers less than a second prior to being hit?

Or did he become defenseless in that tenth of a second between the ball tipping off of his fingers and getting hit?

Either way, how in the world is a safety bounding across the field at full speed meant to see the ball tip off the receiver’s fingers and stop dead on the spot?

Within just a split second that safety is meant to see the ball tip of the receiver’s fingers, realize that he has become defenseless and stop in mid stride?

Folks, that is a physical impossibility for a small dog, let alone a 225 pound free safety running across the field at an exuberant speed.

Guys are being fined large sums of money and the outcomes of games are being altered by defensive players simply playing the game of football.

A ball is flying through the air and a receiver is jumping for it – every defensive football player that has ever thrown on a pair of pads has been taught the same thing in that situation – hit the receiver as hard as you can and make sure he does not come down with that football.

What should younger players be taught these days? Stand in front of the receiver and wait?

If he catches the ball, then take your shoulder and hit the receiver below the chest but above the knees? If he doesn’t catch it, he is defenseless and you should just remain standing there?

That is not and has never been what the game of football is all about.

Racecar drivers know they may die in a fiery wreck during a race.

Pilots know there’s a chance they may die each and every time their plane lifts off from the ground.

Jockeys at the Kentucky Derby know that they may fall and be trampled by a thoroughbred horse.

Boxers know that one wrong shot to the head during a fight could damage their brains forever or even kill them.

And football players are well aware of the risks they take on when they throw on a pair of pads.

For better or for worse, that’s the game.  If you don’t like it, don’t play.

You don’t see Nascar imposing 40mph speed limits on their tracks, do you?

Yet the NFL wants to more or less impose speed limits on defensive players.

Massive hits are going to happen.

Quarterbacks are going to get hit hard.

Receivers coming across the middle of the field are going to get leveled.

Kick returners are going to get hit so hard that they nearly swallow their mouthpieces.

That is and always has been the game.

You start changing a fundamental aspect of the game…and you begin heading down a slippery slope with no breaks.

Whether or not there’s a soft, popular and lucrative landing at the end of that slope remains to be seen.