HITTING WITH HEAD NO LONGER ALLOWED

ORLANDO, Fla. — In a landmark rule change aimed to protect NFL players as much from themselves as from others, owners on Tuesday afternoon unexpectedly banned all players from lowering their helmet to initiate contact with another anywhere on the body, from head to toe.

Tacklers can no longer do it. Nor blockers, ball carriers, pass rushers, gunners — no one.

The rule reads simply: “Lowering the head to initiate contact with the helmet is a foul.”

Penalty for the foul? Fifteen yards, with the possibility of disqualification. If committed by a defender, it’s 15 yards plus an automatic first down.

At a late afternoon news conference Tuesday on the second last day of the league’s annual meeting, NFL competition committee chair Rich McKay told a news conference that coaches endorsed the new rule as actively as the league’s health and safety principals.

“The coaches were most vociferous about, ‘Hey listen, this needs to change. The tactic needs to change, and we’re ready for change,’” McKay said.

“So we decided that we would rewrite that point of emphasis and rewrite that clarification into a playing rule.”

It replaces the short-lived rule that banned contact led by the crown of the helmet, a foul seldom called since its implementation a few years ago.

“For us, this is a pretty significant change,” McKay said. “This is not situational protection.”

Indeed, lowering the helmet before hitting an opponent “is dangerous for both the player doing it, and the player that’s getting hit — both.”

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior VP of health and safety policy, told the news conference that about one-third (specifically, 38%, the NFL says) of all concussions in 2015 were caused

by helmet-to-helmet hits, but that number shot up last season to nearly one-half (46%).

“I think this is a very proud day for the NFL,” Miller said.

The league’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, had said in January with the release of 2017 season concussion numbers that the record high number — 190 — was unacceptable, and the league had to, and would, act fast on making the game safer.

“This is part of that response,” Sills said. “This is a very key component of that injury-reduction strategy.”