FOOTBALL’S FUTURE
FOOTBALL HAS CHANGED AND IT'S NEVER GOING BACK. WITH CONCUSSION AND CTE FEARS TAKING HOLD, THE NFL IS TRYING TO TRANSFORM THE GAME'S VIOLENT NATURE. OTHER LEVELS ARE THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX, AND SOME AREN'T CHANGING THEIR WAYS AT ALL.
From youth football leagues to flag football leagues to the NFL, concerns about concussions and violence in the sport are making an impact. As changes are made, will the game still resemble the football we love?
O DESSA, Texas — Down in the shadows of Ratliff Stadium, home of the Permian High Panthers, Saturday morning picks up right where “Friday Night Lights” leaves off. Across the parking lot, on a pair of 100-yard fields, the Permian Basin Youth Football League pits child against child, ages 4 to 12 years old, in a slate of contests that stretches from 9 a.m. until evening. A game of flag football starts the action; full contact follows. Crystal Wilson, the mother of two players, stands with her husband, Jay. She details how their son, Dominic, 10, prepares for games these days.
“He was in the shower last night talking to himself, and I was in the bedroom, but he didn’t know I was in there,” she says. “I could hear him say, ‘So what you gonna do? You’re gonna tackle someone. You’re gonna beast on him!’ I was like, ‘Oh myyyyy loooooord.”
Dominic considers each blitz a blessing. He wears a helmet with “BEAST” scratched on the front of it, and embraces old-school brutality in the era of increased safety concerns. The game is ripe for review at all levels, from the youths to the 40-somethings like Tom Brady, as it reaches a crossroads at the start of a new season. Many still answer the call to wrap up each week. Twenty years ago, collisions inspired cheers. Now limits are en vogue in order to ensure the game will still be played two decades on. Mettle tests are being conducted in the middle ground.
“I tell him, ‘Man, if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it,’ ” Jay Wilson says. “He says, ‘I’ll keep doing it.’ He don’t start or get a bunch of playing time but he comes out here and never misses practice. Good discipline. Good outlet for the kids.”
In oil country, the American football machine motors on. There are 1,500 kids in the PBYFL, and they come from all over West Texas to affix pads to their bodies, slip on helmets and engage. They carry on the tradition of physicality and adjust to the current landscape that seeks to rein in the game’s violence. In an era of concussion concerns, CTE diagnoses and continuous tinkering with the rule books at all levels — from kickoffs to helmet placement to chop blocks and crackback hits — the pipeline remains fresh among the derricks as participation numbers fall nationally.
“You wont believe the biggest hitter on our team, man,” Jay says. “Where is he? Members of the Permian Basin Youth Football League take the field in Odessa, Texas, where 1,500 kids ages 4 to 12 par ticipate in a sport that has seen decreased par ticipation nationwide amid concussion and CTE concerns. There he is. The littlest guy out there is the biggest hitter. Oh, golly. God he brings it, man.”
Cheers and ringing cowbells drown out any noise unrelated to play calls. A Panther defender pounces on an opponent and wrestles him to the ground.
“There we go! Crunch ’em!” Jay says. “Don’t hurt ’em! just crunch ’em!”
IT IS a rite of autumn to take on all tacklers in Texas. Changes are underway elsewhere. Three Virginia high schools are canceling varsity football programs, citing a lack of interest. An annual survey from the National Federation of State High School Association shows the number of students playing 11-man football in the United States has declined 6.7 percent since its peak in 2009. Last year, 1,038,179 boys and girls took the field. Substitutions are being made. At Fordham University, Andrew Breiner, who served as the Rams’ head coach last season before moving on to Mississippi State as offensive coordinator in the offseason, employed a robot by remote control to reduce the number of humans being hit during practice last fall. The machines sped up and absorbed blows a few yards from the Seven Blocks of Granite monument that celebrates alumnus Vince Lombardi and his teammates.
“It is what we face in this game now,”
GOOD DISCIPLINE. GOOD OUTLET FOR THE KIDS.” — Jay Wilson, father of two players in the Permian Basin (Texas) Youth Football League
Breiner says. “It is, ‘How do we practice football, how do we prepare these guys for a game while player safety is a top priority?’ To stick your head in the sand and pretend like CTE numbers are fake or made-up is foolish if you’re not acknowledging and taking reasonable measures to prevent overuse injuries. I’m sure Vince is rolling over in his grave right now.”
University of North Carolina coach Larry Fedora insists football is “under attack.” Whistles are being blown all over, and there are cries from fans and defenders that leagues are trying to legislate defense out of football. The newest rule change to draw the wrath of traditionalists is the “helmet rule,” which says it is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet against an opponent. Contact is not restricted to an opponent’s head or neck area. Lowering the head to initiate contact to an opponent’s torso, hips and lower body is a foul.
Gene Steratore, a former NFL official for 15 years, considers the numbers as he transitions to television work. In the first two weeks of the preseason, 51 helmet fouls were called. As referees got more repetitions and starters played longer in games, only nine were called in Week 3. He likens the hysteria to the implementation of rules that protected defenseless receivers in recent seasons.
“It is a big change,” he says. “It will change a little of the culture, the way we’ve been watching it here in the last decade or so. It just happens so fast in real time.”
Steratore notes past adaptations that once inspired outrage already seem old, as if they were always a part of the game. Fewer coaches and players complain about penalties for striking defenseless receivers anymore because players altered hitting habits. He also says kickoffs now resemble punts as rules have slowed down the collisions. He maintains there is a balance to reach. He
calls it “saf- er play without becoming non-exciting.”
BETS are being placed on what the game will look like as it evolves. Phil Simms, the MVP of Super Bowl XXI, maintains that despite all the efforts to make the game safer it all looks awfully similar to the competition he partook in as a pro.
“In 20 years, if I’m sitting down watching it, I won’t notice a difference probably than what it was before,” he says. “So when I watch it now, I don’t go, ‘Oh my God, it’s so completely different than what it was 15 years ago.’ I know it is, but no matter what we do, it’s still going to be great athletes running around, hitting, tackling and great throwers. Am I worried about its demise? Absolutely not.”
Others eye the game from an entrepreneurial perspective. Jeff Lewis is the commissioner of the nascent American Flag Football League. He gets to make his own rules and oversees a 7-on-7 format — no linemen — that proved attractive enough to decision-makers that the NFL Network broadcast 11 games in July. There is no contact, just competitors pulling flags to stop a play. Former NFL players have bought in. Michael Vick, Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson and Terrell Owens, a new inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all played in the first AFFL contest ever held last summer, at a Major League Soccer stadium in Silicon Valley. Lewis, a former bond trader, knows adjustments can be made. He leans back in the AFFL office, which is high above Sixth Avenue and a short walk from the NFL headquarters on Park Avenue. He offers a vision for football’s future.
“At the end of the day, the best athletes in football are the linemen,” he says. “The fact that they have any agility, any acceleration at that size is shocking. Imagine letting them play. Imagine if you saw NFL offensive and defensive linemen playing against each other. You would be like, ‘Oh my God, it’s crazy!’ ”
Lewis brought his brand of football to the Jets training facility in May. NFL Network cameras gave flag football its first close-up, and former Ravens lineman Tony Siragusa offered color commentary. Jets offensive lineman Dakota Dozier, all 6-foot-4, 313 pounds of him, watched a former college teammate play for Mean Machine, a team from Tennessee. Afterward, Lewis was introduced to Dozier and requested his feedback.
“Will it ever be as big as NFL? I don’t know,” Dozier said. “Who is to say?”
IT IS A BIG CHANGE. IT WILL CHANGE A LITTLE OF THE CULTURE, THE WAY WE’ VE BEEN WATCHING IT HEREIN THE LAST DECADE OR SO. IT JUST HAPPENS SOFAS TIN REAL TIME .” — Former NFL official Gene Steratore on the league's new rule against lowering head on tackles