So now...running backs can't lower their head when they are going to get tackled. They might as well just ban the sport all together. I realize the seriousness of head blows...the NFL has scaled back to 1 hitting practice a week already. They estimated that 75% of long term concussion syndrome stemmed from the hits in practice 6 days a week.

They get payed millions because they have talent and are willing to take risks of playing a contact sport IMO.


http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdo...45532--nfl.html

course what they should do is man up and take all the armour off

Indeed.

Poofters! Soft as claggy toffee.

Rugby is brilliant. !

Just try to imagine the All Blacks Haka performed in protective gear...*shudder*


For the three or four people on this planet who don't know what I'm referring to:

It's interesting. Most of those big rugby hits are low, shoulder to chest collisions. I've taken and delivered more than a few of those. It's not the same thing as a blatant head shot. The helmet-to-helmet $hite in the NFL is what's being addressed in the new regulations.

Also, lowering your head is a great way to mess up your neck. It is instinct to lower your head, but way safer to keep it up. Our coaches had huge emphasis on that when I played HS football and that was almost 15 years ago.

while I agree that the wussification of the NFL is increasing, no matter what you say the head injuries in the NFL is very problematic and is not just from hitting practice. And RB's lowering their helmet seem to be happening more and more lately. Just like horse collar tackling, once one person does it, everyone does and it creates a problem.

Loved watching Australia rules Football in the early 80s when I lived in Colorado working
for a cable company. Saw one match when kicker was about to hit ball and someone rushed him
to stop the kick and his foot knocked half his teeth out. Just a bloody spout of teeth come
flying out. Missing the ball all together.

lawyers

Sad Rule for sure.
What happened to smash-mouth American football in the muck and harsh weather.
Loved football as a kid growing up here in Houston during the Love Ya Blue days with the Oilers and I like our new Texans team but it's not the way it used to be.
Earl Campbell punished all those who stood in the gap between him and the goal line.

I love football, but you really have to step back & look at it objectively. You could tone the violence down 4 or 5 notches via these new head/neck protection rules and still be watching the most violent game in the civilized world!

Football is a lot of fun, but for the long term health of the game, the new rules are an absolute must. These head injury issues are very serious from - most importantly - an individual player safety standpoint, but they are also potentially extremely dangerous from a possible litigation perspective. The league already has an enormous liability hanging out there - it could get very ugly & they absolutely need to show they are heading this off at the pass.

I for one am happy to see them making sensible rule changes that are going to keep the sport viable for my son to enjoy the way I have. You can still have big hits without players using their heads/necks as battering rams.

The "armour" is part of the problem in the modern game. People use it as a weapon, they just launch themselves into someone as hard as possible because the pads will absorb a good portion of the impact. If you didn't have the armour you wouldn't have the devastating hits. Look at Aussie Rules and rugby, both are rough sports but you don't get guys flying into each other like freight trains.

I'll agree it's kind of sad that the old smashmouth days are gone. Big hits are always fun to watch on TV. Can't fault them for wanting to cut down on serious neck and head injuries though. It's not like they're turning the NFL into powderpuff football.

I'm saying bye to the NFL more because I can no longer stand watching the games on TV. Too many ads for me. Even watching the Super Bowl feels more like a chore than entertainment. I used to eat, sleep and breathe the NFL, and now I barely have a passing interest in it. The rise of free agency also helped diminish my interest. It was harder to cheer for a specific team, when your favourite players would all be somewhere else the next season.

When I was a kid, I could name hundreds of NFL players and give you their jersey numbers too. Now I don't think I could even name the starting QBs for half of the teams.

I'm the same way HogDriver concerning the waning interest in the NFL and while I'm about as pro-business as you can possibly be, I also find it to be a total chore to sit through a Super Bowl game because of the sheer avalanche of commercial breaks.

The same thing happened with boxing. When gloves were introduced and bare knuckle was phased out, deaths went up because the boxers could hit each other as hard as possible and not have to worry about broken hands/fingers.

i agree the pads are the problem.

What might seem like a rule that causes less injury...might be a wash. It's not so much "leading with the head" as it is lowering the shoulders for the impact. Imagine a runner sprinting full speed but has to stay upright before a hit...a defensive guy with equal speed going the opposite direction puts a shoulder pad right in the chest. Whats going to happen? The runner will now be more or less "clotheslined" and have his legs kick out forward and the back of his head will hit the astroturf violently and hard. Then...they will have to make a rule that says you can't hit above the waist.

It's similar to when you tape an injury firmly...say an ankle...it's just going to transfer the force to the next vulnerable spot like the knee.

I am not a football fan, but something that always stood out from my light coverage of football history was the change in protective gear.

In the photos of decades past, there was nowhere near the armor, the massive helmet, the pads. What were games like back then? Were guys doing the full-on head rams back then? Or has football of today become something completely different from what it originally was? It seems as though the extra protection may have elevated the ferocity to unsustainable levels?

The "pussifciation" has really gotten out of hand. Can't touch the QB, can't hit the receivers and now they're telling the running backs they can't protect themselves? I agree they shouldn't lead with their heads like weapons, but they always teach you to get lower than your opponent when taking the hit.

Helmets have come a long way since the 70's-80's. If you watch the Super Bowl, they showed the difference of them from then and now and talked about the weight changes.

It's 1 step away from flag football and even Lingerie football....

The pussification has happened in other sports too like baseball. There's not a single baseball player now who runs the bases aggressively like Pete Rose did.