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Football Rules that Need to Change


OnWis97

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"...rugby doesn't have the same issues with head injuries football does because players can't use their helmet as a device to help them tackle."

American football is a much faster sport than rugby, from what I have seen. Rugby plays begin in a scrum where the players are touching each other, while football plays begin separated from each other by at least one yard, depending on the players' positions and whatever offensive, defensive, or special team formations they are using. That means American football players have more yards to run in order to collide with one another, and those distances run enable players to generate all the more power and force in their collisions. Also the sheer size, strength, and speed of football players all make protective equipment such as helmets, facemasks, mouthpieces, and various kinds of padding mandatory just for each player's own safety.

And I'm sure that if many of us wanted to watch rugby, we would. But we want to watch American or Canadian football instead.

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What I've seen of top tier rugby doesn't involve players sprinting across the field like missiles blindly targeting oncoming players. I would think that the melee aspect of rugby surely makes dangerous injury less common yes?

Though I'd bet rugby does see a greater share of minor injuries.

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Rugby has its share of injuries, to be sure. But it doesn't appear to have the kind of injuries that lurk under the surface for years and contribute to illness and early death after a player's career.

You take away the helmets, and linemen can still push back against each other. They just can't give each other CTE in the process.

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As I said, if we wanted rugby, we know how to find it on TV or the Internet and watch it. The equipment (especially the helmets) just need to be made safer, that's all. How? I honestly don't know. Engineers can figure that out.

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I read a piece on soccer concussions last week... how the sport could do amateurs a favour & outlaw headers.

I politely agree to disagree with changing that rule. Perhaps some type of optional safety bandanna could be more frequented...? I've often seen goalies wearing headgear to curb future injury.

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Many people feel the NFL has taken defenses out of the game and coddled the receivers. On a pass play, aside from the first five yards off the line of scrimmage, there's no need for contact by any receiver or defender. While the NFL has been calling some ticky-tack contact that in most cases is incidental, defenders still need to learn to play the ball, not the receiver, and the receivers need to stop setting picks against other defenders.

We've seen the result of players who played up high, and always attacked the ballcarriers' heads. The years of clotheslines and "lighting up" on tackles have brought about the epidemic of CTE. The highlight film hits have made their way down through college, high school, and youth football. Even with safer helmets, coaches are not properly instructing their players how to tackle with their heads up, wrapping up the torso and legs instead of going up at the head.

Will soft-sided rugby helmets help? Hard to say. Football is a different game. It's much faster and spread out. Players will still need face protection against errant (or intentional) arms, hands and legs. I think they would change a defender's approach. Maybe a soft-sided helmet with a hockey-type cage?

The whole "defenseless" player idea is to protect players from injury. It's not fun to watch players be injured or knocked out because they could not protect themselves from a hit, clean or otherwise. If it takes the flood of CTE diagnoses to realize things need to change, then at least something good will come out of it in the long run.

Another rule I've seen mentioned is an automatic penalty for a neutral zone infraction (NZI). That's already called at NFHS ("Federation") level football. That's one of the big differences between Federation and NCAA/NFL: if the defense sets up or steps into the NZ after the ball is made ready for play, it's an automatic 5-yard penalty. Rules were put into place in previous years to penalize the defense when mimicking offensive verbal signals to draw players offside, as well as crossing in the neutral zone to cause a false start.

Many of the rules put in place were due to prevent needless injuries. People don't like the QB protection rules, like lunging at or below the knees. What purpose is there to go after the QB's knees except to injure? Many scream "Tom Brady", but that was put into place after Kimo von Oelhoffen took out Carson Palmer's knees.

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You're right, and the game will have to continue changing to survive.

There's already evidence that youth participation is down. Presumably but not conclusively because of increased awareness of head trauma. Enough so that the NFL is worried. Will the pro game go away in five years? No. But fifteen or twenty? With whole generations of athletes steered by their parents away from football into baseball/basketball/soccer? That scares Goodell and his bosses, as well it should.

The game has been deliberately and continually changed to be safer for players. In almost every case, I think changed for the better. We're just talking about the next steps.

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I've thought about it before, and I think if we're working to eliminate the air of invulnerability modern helmets and shoulder pads give players, as mentioned before, softer/no helmets and softer/no shoulder pads go hand in hand. Defenders wouldn't be able to either launch themselves like torpedoes or shoulder charge with relative impunity like they can now, and we'd see actual tackling return to the game gradually.

Far as youth participation, I know one thing, I'm not 100% sure on what age is too young for tackle football, but I figure if a kid's small enough that shoulder pads render him unable to really lift his arms above chest level, he's too young for tackle. I hear flag football's a fine alternative, though.

Far as the extra point, I dread having to explain that one to anybody. Though it'll probably wind up being simpler to explain than the needlessly convoluted overtime rules.

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I read a piece on soccer concussions last week...how the sport could do amateurs a favor and outlaw headers.

I politely agree to disagree with changing that rule. Perhaps some type of optional safety bandana could be more frequented.

Which, in your replies to my posts about American football, I find a bit ironic. But I guess it just shows how we sports fans will go to defend our favorite sports.

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I agree that youth-league football should be flag football or touch-only, and that between youth-league and high school proper tackling AND blocking techniques should be taught and emphasized over and over again. (And in the 1930s-60s, pro football players used proper tackling and blocking techniques with their shoulders, and still hit their opponents hard.) I look at the Canadian Football League and they seem to not have nearly the prevalence of CTE that the NFL is benighted with. Yet the CFL allows more hitting than the NFL does. Maybe Canadian high school, college, and pro teams do not hit in practices and training camp as much as their American counterparts do. I think limiting hitting in practice is a good idea.

I agree that player safety is important. But not at the cost of destroying the sport.

Also, a major problem I have with the NFL is that they will penalize hard shots on quarterbacks and receivers. But they will turn a blind eye to these mammoth offensive linemen blocking defensive players low and injuring their knees, which can potentially end their careers. I cannot take the NFL's "concern about player safety" seriously as long as they continue to practice this hypocrisy.

And yes, I DO think receivers (many of whom are troublemaking divas) are being unnecessarily coddled. So are quarterbacks. And that has led, yes, to greater offensive yardage and touchdown records, but it has done so by cheapening them. Part of what made quarterbacks and receivers of the past great was the fact that they had to EARN their statistics, just like everybody else on the field. Now any QB can pass for 5000 yards in a season and any receiver can catch 150 passes in a season. In the past only the great ones could do that, let alone do that consistently. Plus have you seen how big, muscular, and strong these receivers and quarterbacks are today? And we're talking about protecting THEM from defenders who are smaller in a lot of cases? (By the way, I also notice a lack of concern from the NFL about protecting running backs, who still take an awful lot of punishment and have the shortest career longevity.)

Like I said, get rid of the defenseless player rules, at least as they pertain to QBs and receivers, make helmet-to-helmet hits on the same reviewable and ONLY penalize the deliberate. flagrant helmet-to helmet shots. As long as defenders are taught to hit with their shoulders and perhaps their cocked forearms BELOW the neck, there should be no problem. And also, by the way, even with the coddlesome current NFL rules, there are STILL plenty of injuries, and as long as football is a sport, there will always be injuries. I wish it were possible to have hard-hitting football like that which existed until the early 2000s with NO injuries, but until that somehow becomes possible, there have to be some compromises.

As for the recent rules to keep injured players (especially those with possible concussions) out of action until they recover, I think that is a good rule.

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The jury is out on whether the CFL actually has less of a problem with CTE. If they do, it could be because the Canadian game actually has less hitting, not more. Larger fields, more open game, linemen who don't start off inches from each other.

I agree that player safety is important. But not at the cost of destroying the sport.

I commend you for your honesty, but this is exactly the problem. "Destroying the sport"? :rolleyes:

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Good point about the larger field in Canadian football. Maybe therein lies the solution.

But on the other hand, wouldn't a larger field mean greater distances for players to run and generate more speed and power?

Probably not enough to make a huge difference. I don't know the exact effect a bigger field has, if any, but the more compacted the game is, the more situations are going to arise where a RB has to truck a defender as opposed to going wide and trying to outrun them. So even if the hits were harder, which I'm not sure they would be, there would be a lot less of them.

Also, if you are trying to defend in space, going for a big hit is a much riskier option than wrapping the player up since, as I said, the player has the option to try and run past you instead of through.

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Actually, I agree with you, ICTknight. And we could still have hard hits. As much as I value being able to light-up an opponent (for psychological as well as physical reasons), I do not think it is a good idea for anyone to launch himself head-first into an opponent. Players who do that tend to do more damage to themselves than to their opponents. And spearing (using the crown of one's helmet to strike a blow) is illegal anyway and has been since 1979, for good reason.

It is better for blockers and defensive players to lead with their shoulders. As I've said, I would even bring back the old cocked-forearm (or forearm shiver) if I ran the league. Much better for players to deliver solid blows with their shoulders or arms than with their heads any day.

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Good point about the larger field in Canadian football. Maybe therein lies the solution.

But on the other hand, wouldn't a larger field mean greater distances for players to run and generate more speed and power?

Only if they make a direct line before the collision. If they stop to change direction, all that momentum is dispelled.

Another rule change I've been advocating for years is outlawing the 3-point stance. Linemen now can balance on the ground, use that leverage to launch themselves at their opposite number; we should prevent that.

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I feel like some of these problems in American football could be solved if players knew how to properly tackle.

This is the big issue! Teaching players and enforcing that coaches teach the proper art of tackling. It might be easier to throw your body at the other player to ensure that they don't score but it's more dangerous in the long term. I think we also have to look at a way of monitoring how coaches train players. Not just that they are teaching the forms properly, but that they are not teaching them to have no regard for their opponent or the officials.

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