New rule on hits can make football safer
PHILADELPHIA » With the money they make, and future earnings at stake, Eagles players ought to embrace the NFL’s 15-yard penalty for “lowering the head to initiate, and make contact, with the helmet.”
Except for an occasional Malcolm Jenkins shot on Brandin Cooks, which occurred in the Super Bowl, it won’t be an issue.
Instead many are complaining. Not so much about the actual rule, which has been on the books. They don’t like the ejection part of it, which has also been around, but until this season hasn’t been a point of emphasis.
What the players object to most is being at the mercy of a passive group of officials programmed to lean on instant replay. And instant replay is going to be used to determine or confirm objections, just as it is on the NCAA level when the officials decide if a hard tackle is targeting.
Players think about it this way: If the officials who visited Eagles training camp to show the league instructional video of hits meriting penalties and ejections couldn’t unanimously agree on whether Jenkins’ hit on Cooks in the Super Bowl would be a penalty or an ejection, what are they supposed to do?
Officials, even some of the good ones like Clete Blakeman and Billy Vinovich, generally are trained to use replay as a crutch.
You’re not paying attention if you fail to realize how borderline criminal some of the hits have been in this, the sanitized NFL.
The so-called new ejection standards for helmet hits are crystal clear and outlined in an instructional video that even the densest player, fan or sports reporter should understand.
To wit:
Ejections occur when: 1) A player lowers his head to establish a linear body posture prior to initiating and making contact, with the helmet; 2) the player delivering the blow had an unobstructed path to his opponent; and 3) the contact was clearly avoidable; the player delivering the blow had other options.
By those standards Steelers wide receiver JuJu SmithSchuster should have been ejected for a brutal blindside Monday night shot on Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict. When Smith-Schuster stood over the fallen Bufict in celebration, that should have been an ejection for unsportsmanlike conduct. Burfict was carted off with a head injury. It wasn’t until the football operations people saw the hit that the Schuster was suspended for one game.
Then there’s the thuggish shot Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan put on Packers receiver Davante Adams, whose forward progress was stopped and who was being held up by defenders. Adams got a running start and launched himself helmet-first into Adams — and wasn’t ejected.
Incredibly enough, Trevathan had a two-game suspension reduced to one game. He should have been banned for the rest of the season.
The helmet rule applies to every player on the field — offensive, defensive and injured.
The troubling example of an injured player meriting at least a penalty is Ryan Shazier. The Steelers linebacker launched himself head-first into the back of receiver Josh Malone of the Bengals on Monday Night Football last year. It left Shazier with a possible career-ending spinal injury.
The Jenkins hit on Cooks was blindside. Jenkins didn’t appear to intentionally use hit helmet to hit the receiver, but did. Jenkins said he was told what he did wouldn’t be an ejection under the new rules. Really? Depends on who you talk to.
“I’m going to make that play 10 times out of 10,” Jenkins said. “If it’s a flag, it’s a flag. You can’t slow yourself down thinking about rules in a split second. The game happens really, really fast — faster than the rules take account for. I won’t let it affect the way I play.”
Jenkins will change his game if he’s fined. That’s what players do.
We’re not shaming the Steelers or other teams for their physical style of play. There’s plenty of that to go around.
You don’t need to ace a Mensa test to realize most of the above hits don’t belong in football anymore than Jack Tatum’s paralyzing shot on Darryl Stingley. If you read a newspaper only occasionally you’ll understand the NFL paid out $2 billion in a concussion settlement. If it doesn’t want to double that, it had better legislate the viciousness out.
Like any rules adjustment, it’s going to take a few games, fines and possibly ejections for the players to understand how the officials will call it.
Confusing as it seems now, we’re confident there will be an understanding. There always is. It seems like a lifetime ago when the league was criticized for over-protecting quarterbacks. That worked out well. We all know what an illegal hit on the quarterback is.
Intimidation is a big part of football. That will never change despite the whining about rules changes and how they soften the game and, here’s one that should be an insult to every player with any morals - lengthen games.
There were 291 concussions last year, the most the NFL recorded, according to reports, despite the emphasis on head safety.
Ejections aren’t too big of a price to pay to reduce that number.