NFL Proposes New Rules; Flag Football Can't Be Far Behind

An all-too-familiar theme of the 2010 NFL season was the league's well-publicized crackdown on what it deemed "illegal hits." Those included helmet-to-helmet hits or hits on a defenseless player.

On one weekend in October alone, James Harrison was fined $75,000 and Dunta Robinson and Brandon Meriweather were fined $50,000 each for illegal hits. That wasn't the only fine Harrison accrued that season, and many other players were docked pay as well.

Now, the league is trying to more carefully defined exactly what hits will be penalized. In a statement released on Wednesday, the league said it is considering making the following hits off-limits:

• A quarterback in the act of throwing
• A receiver attempting to catch a pass
• A runner already in the grasp of tacklers and having his forward progress stopped
• A player fielding a punt or kickoff
• A kicker or punter during the kick
• A quarterback at any time after change of possession
• A receiver who receives a blind-side block
• A player already on the ground

Now, some of those make sense. A player already on the ground just needs to be downed by a touch, not tackled again. A runner who's already had his forward progress stopped isn't picking up additional yards, anyway.

But some of these changes threaten the physical nature of the game and will seriously curtail defenders' ability to make plays.

If these rules are implemented, pass-rushers are no longer allowed to disrupt a quarterback who has not yet released the ball! Once he starts his motion, you have to let him make the pass uninterrupted!

Likewise, once that pass reaches the receiver, defenders would have to let him catch it! No longer are defenders allowed to try to separate the receiver from the ball. Defenders had better hope they can wrap and tackle, because you can bet receivers are going to have an easier time catching passes.

Let's say the quarterback misfires, and a defender picks off the pass. The quarterback can tackle the ball-carrier, but the defenders aren't allowed to block him! Think about that!

Look, I get it. The game is faster, the players are bigger, and player safety has become a priority. That's important, and correct. Likewise, the league is primarily quarterback-driven, and wants to protect its stars. That's understandable.

But these new rules would seriously impact the game on a basic level. We'll start seeing timid defenders, afraid of picking up a suspension or a hefty fine for a hit that would have been perfectly legal a year ago.

Part of the appeal of the NFL lies in its physicality. Heck, the game is built on physicality.

It's one thing to protect the players by defining what should be outside the scope of the game that's being played. It's entirely another to legislate how players are reacting within the flow of the game itself on bang-bang plays, where a split second seriously matters.

These new rules wouldn't sit will with fans, and they certainly wouldn't sit well with players. Even after league began to implement the rules last year, players were getting injured because defenders simply can't react fast enough to avoid illegal hits all the time.

That begs the question, what good would these new rules do?