"Safety of the game" in football is an oxymoron

By my own admission, though I love football, I make little to no effort to watch NFL
exhibition games.

In a nutshell, if I am in front of the TV, I’ll flip the channels back and forth to
baseball games but I’m not making it appointment TV.

Granted, such games are important to rookies and fringe veterans because these
contests are their ticket to securing a spot on an NFL roster but it’s hard to get
excited about watching games where the starters receive limited playing time.

The 2018 version of NFL exhibition football, however, is something I initially made
more of an attempt than the past to watch because of the newly instituted helmet
rule in order to make the game safer, whatever that means (insert eyeroll). The
rule sounds well intentioned but is going to lead to unintended consequences.

Section 2, Article 8 reads:

“It is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet
against an opponent. Contact does not have to be to an opponent’s head or neck
area — lowering the head and initiating contact to an opponent’s torso, hips and
lower body is also a foul.’’

The helmet rule is intended to increase safety so as to reduce concussions but
is it practical? I would say no. For openers, referees are still in limbo about the rule
and like most rules, there is too much subjectivity. As a result, it is only going to lead
to more penalties, reviews, fines, appeals and consternation. It’s going to make the
game harder to play and officiate. Both jobs are performance based.

I needed only one game to ascertain that this is going to lead to the most
controversial season I can remember in my 46 years of living. Despite repeated
rules to make the game safer, concussions rose last season by 13.5 percent. You
would think the NFL would read into the idea that their rules to make the game
safer are not working. As Clint Eastwood once said, “Your mouthwash ain’t makin’
it.”

Correct use of the helmet as a protective device and not a weapon has always
been an element of the NFL rulebook. Therefore, adding to the rulebook only
muddies the water. When we think of head contact, we think of a defensive player
acting as a heat-seeking missile.

The rule, however, also applies to a running back lowering his head or a pulling
offensive lineman.

The first exhibit of the new helmet rule came in the Hall of Fame game in which
Baltimore defeated Chicago 17-16.

Two “use of helmet’’ penalties were called on Baltimore, each of them cases of a
linebacker lowering his head to initiate contact. The hits were in the open field
and while perhaps routine by past standards and hardly egregious, they were easy
to interpret under the new rule.

But there were also two “unnecessary roughness’’ flags, one on each team, that
were made with the helmet rule as a guide and were extremely questionable. In
one case, there was a launching motion during a tackle but the defender’s shoulder
appeared to make contact first. In the other case, a defender’s helmet grazed his
opponent’s chest.

Remember, any hit with the head lowered — be it the crown of the helmet or
merely the forehead — to any part of an opponent’s body will result in a flag. When
in doubt, officials have been instructed to call unnecessary roughness.

The problem is, it’s easier to flag players in open space than in the trenches.
Players, maybe star players, are going to be ejected, perhaps at pivotal moments
of games, altering outcomes.

In addition, NFL officials can’t agree on what’s a penalty under the new rule and
what’s not. While everybody wants a safer game, this ambiguity is a legitimate
concern.

From youth football on, players are taught leverage: The lower your pad level, the
better chance you have to gain an advantage on your opponent. I’m no master of
physics, I just play one on the internet, but if you lower your shoulders, your head
goes with it.

The biggest takeaway for me is that “safety of the game” in football is an oxymoron.
The game was meant to be violent. It’s one of the many reasons people watch. One
of the first football videos I ever received was titled “NFL Crunch Course” on VHS
which featured the game’s biggest hits and biggest hitters including but not limited
to Ronnie Lott, Lawrence Taylor, Jim Taylor, Sam Huff, Dick Butkus, Deacon Jones
and John Henry Johnson.

That video would get me jacked up when I was a high school football player.

Be it as a fan or freelance writer, between high school football on Friday, college
football on Saturday and NFL on Sunday, I cannot get enough.

Not even the National Anthem protests killed my love for the game. I stand for my
own reasons and I don’t give a rat’s ass what others think but that’s a talking point I
have already addressed. However, the more the game turns into basketball in pads,
it’s not a two-inch putt that I’ll love watching football ten years from now.