Stop Hurting Yourselves, You Idiots

I have found myself becoming increasingly annoyed over the past couple of days during this continued national debate about the safety of football, brought about by the NFL stating that it wants to crack down on the severe hits that happen during this weekend's slate of games and the subsequent announcement that since fines do not appear to be much of a deterrent, they will begin to suspend players if they are deemed to have committed a dangerous helmet-to-helmet penalty. Now, while the NFL's sudden stance on violence hits and concussions is mildly amusing when you stop and consider that they spent the last 40 years advertising their sport through images of those same violent collisions, the fact that they have at least acknowledged head injuries are a serious issue is a step in the right direction. (Also, the stance that you care about the long-term health of your players while simultaneously pushing for a longer regular season and thus more chances for those same players to get hurt is the height of hypocrisy.) Still, what is really bothering me are the people that are going the other way because, like every other debate in this country, they have taken a perfectly reasonable position and strung it out to the most extreme end of the argument to try and make their case for why it is wrong. The NFL isn't looking to ban all hitting and turn the game into a glorified pillow-fight, like these people are arguing. All they want to do is stop the onslaught of helmet-to-helmet hits that seem to happen more and more frequently.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the people complaining about the sudden emphasis on making sure the violent collisions are curbed are defensive players. Look, I get it: you play defense because you can't really catch or throw all that well. Frankly, if you are slow on top of that then being a big hitter is all you have left. Therefore, I understand why the defensive players are wary of this. But, the NFL isn't saying you can't tackle as hard, they simply want you to watch where you aim. The simple explanation behind all this is that somewhere in the last decade or so, players forgot how to tackle properly. In an attempt to get the big hit (which is the only way most guys playing defense are ever going to get noticed by the average fan), too many defensive backs are lowering their heads and running straight where their intended target should be instead of keeping their eyes up and watching what they are doing. More often than not this results in the defensive player whiffing on the guy completely, but if the player with the ball has his head down as well, that is when problems occur. Aiming for the hips instead of the chest is just as likely to bring a guy down and decreases the chance of a head-to-head contact. It won't make a highlight real, but at least you'll remember your kid's name when you are 50. Really, it is taught at the most basic level of football, so it is possible to be a good tackler without being a human missile.

I know you have to be a little nuts to play professional football, but I never thought it would get to the point where you had to persuade guys to the idea of not turning their own brains to mush. Concussions are, after all, a two-way street and the defender could just as easily wind up hurt. I'm particularly annoyed at one player: James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Harrison gets the biggest "Oh Please" award of the day for his stance that he needed a day off to contemplate retirement after being hit with nearly $75,000 in penalties for a couple of violent hits over the weekend. Harrison said he wasn't sure he could keep playing under these new rules. As a man who hates empty, theatrical gestures, I'm really not in the mood for this. James, you're not retiring and we both know it. You can't make this kind of money doing anything else in the world, so stop playing Hamlet. And if this was an attempt to make the league wring their hands at the thought all their defensive players could walk out on them, I got news for you: you play the wrong position in the wrong city. The Steelers can plug in another linebacker and in 3 months we'll all have forgotten your name. Don't forget, the NFL once replaced its entire workforce for a season: replacing one guy won't be an issue.

Also, to give up a lucrative career for what could very well be one big PR stunt is ludicrous. Because of the 24-hour news cycle, the NFL is worried that the parents of young kids are going to keep hearing about head injuries, decide not to let their kids play a game which could have such long-term side effects and that would essentially cut the league off from it's future work force and fans. But, if you just look at the raw numbers, in reality we're talking about maybe 50 hits throughout the course of the first quarter of the NFL season, during which there have been thousands and thousands of tackles. You clean up that small number and this isn't even an issue. (Ironically, if the league wasn't doing such a good job at marketing itself with things like DirectTV and The Red Zone then it this never would have become an issue in the first place.) Plus, with the low attention span of the average sports fan, there is an above-average chance that this whole thing will be forgotten by the eighth week of the season. Still, this is the best thing for everyone involved. A crackdown on concussion-inducing hits is the best possible thing for everyone involved and will ultimately remind everyone that football is safe to play as long as you play it the right way.