A game where defence rests
Maybe the only real defender left in the NFL is Vontaze Burfict. You may laugh, which is your choice, but know that if you do Vontaze Burfict may jump out from around a corner and club you with his elbow, or dive at your face. The last thing you’ll see is those Cincinnati Bengals helmet stripes.
Burfict got suspended four games for PEDs and came back and played last week against Pittsburgh in another one of their prison-yard football matchups, and it was the most predictable thing on earth. He delivered a flying elbow to the head of star receiver Antonio Brown; the Steelers claim he threatened receiver Juju Smith-Schuster by yelling, “You’re next!” Burfict led with his helmet a couple times, just for good measure.
It was brute blood sport, which is what Burfict — who has a long history of injuring Pittsburgh skill players, among others — does. He should get more than suspended; he should be turned into a historical exhibit, stuffed and painted with dabs of fake blood and maybe some teeth in his forearm. Burfict belongs in a museum.
Because not only are they trying to take big, predatory hits out of football — not the helmet-to-helmet collisions on the move, because that penalty has already been shipped to a curator somewhere — there isn’t much future left for defence, either.
In 2017 one team allowed more than 5.7 yards per play. This year, there are 14. Minnesota was tied for first in yards per play and first in yards allowed last season, and are now 26th, despite playing Buffalo and Arizona. Jacksonville gave up 40 points to Dallas last week, despite Dallas being one of those teams that more or less slept through the revolution. New England beating Kansas City on Sunday night was a great football game, because it was two teams with great offences whose defences stink. That’s great sports!
Why? Well, the lack of practice time thing again, implemented in 2011, is one: Jenny Ventras of Sports Illustrated’s MMQB reported some blame defensive co-ordinators trying to get too cute to match up with new offensive schemes, exacerbating a breakdown in fundamentals.
Add players afraid to hit the QB too hard, to the point of apologizing during the hit, or deciding against the hit or tackle or eye contact as it is occurring, and the best defences tend also to be the ones that played the offences that have been left behind.
Add a generation of quarterbacks and even offensive coordinators who have grown up playing 7-on-7 flag football or Madden for that matter, and have found all kinds of ways to use and manipulate the space on a football field. Now any QB can be good, even Brock Osweiler, unless they play for the Bills. It’s a rule.
Hidden in this chaotic TV rating accelerant style is the future of football. ESPN’s Mark Fainaru-Wada and Michele Steele recently reported on the battle to limit tackle football among kids in several states, which were pushed back by lobbyists with NFL support. About a million American kids between six and 12 play tackle football, in a world where hockey keeps raising the age for hitting, which is now at 13 more or less everywhere.
Maybe that’s it! Ban tackling until 13 or 14, and push flag football! Less cumulative trauma, fewer kids running headlong into each other, and as a bonus it could keep fuelling offensive geniuses who can pick out crossing patterns and hit players in space, or create it, while degrading the ability of defences to keep up.
Players will still get ground to powder, sure. The game will always do that, and as they say, if it was invented yesterday it would be banned tomorrow.
But the future of football has always been less football. This might be the best way.
Last week, after a nice little start to the season, this space went 4-10-1. As always, all lines could change.