Huge Hits in the NFL: Are You Not Entertained?!?

After a weekend of football carnage and the response from 280 Park Avenue, a fairly intense debate has been stirred up once again about whether or not the NFL is too violent. Current players have weighed in on both sides of the fence. Commentators and former players have had their say. As none of the above and having no credibility in this issue whatsoever, I offer my take, as well.

When I was in sixth grade, I came down with a pretty bad flu and spent the week in bed reading Rise & Walk: The Trial and Triumph of Dennis Byrd. The story begins by describing Byrd’s final play as an NFL football player in 1992. In the course of the one play being illustrated, I was taken through the primal mind of an NFL defensive player attacking a quarterback and just as Byrd and teammate Scott Mersereau converge on the Chiefs’ quarterback at the time, Dave Krieg, things go dark for Byrd and thoughts immediately turn to his family and his future.

Fearing the worst, he asks the trainers, “Am I going to be paralyzed?” as he leaves the field on a stretcher. He was paralyzed from the neck down and never played again, but through extensive physical therapy and his own personal faith, Byrd did make an emotional appearance at the Jets’ 1993 home opener, walking unaided onto the field as an honorary captain.

It’s an inspirational story and a very revealing one for a person whose job is revered and envied by millions of Americans. Being a football player comes with inherent risks that are understood from high school on up. The thought that each play may be your last is tucked way back into the back of a player’s mind, only coming forward when someone like Byrd, Kevin Everett or DeSean Jackson is lying motionless on the field. Relative to the hits we saw this weekend, Byrd’s injury came on a fairly normal-looking hit, just underscoring that the risk is inherent and unlikely to be eliminated through legislation.

Is the NFL more violent now than it’s ever been? Probably not. Violence manifests itself in a myriad of ways, but the most visible is the hit/tackle. Big hits have always been a part of the game and have contributed to some of the most memorable moments in the game’s history and the clothesline hits and facemask rips of the past weren’t always as fundamentally sound as nostalgia might have us believe. Now, as I write this, I’ve read that NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson went on ESPN Radio this morning to clarify his earlier statement that both head shots and “devastating hits” may be met with heftier fines and/or suspensions to say that the rules aren’t being changed.

“We are just going to enforce the existing rules much more to the letter of the law so we can protect our players,” said Anderson.

Everyone wants to see the long-term injuries reduced, but not at the expense of the league’s gladiatorial nature. With a lockout on the horizon seeming more and more inevitable, if suspensions are levied against popular hard-hitters like Harrison, Troy Polamalu and Laron Landry for hits that are otherwise unpenalized and legal shots, the reputation of the league will likely a hard hit as well–particularly if there is no 2011 season.

I’ve read many of the opinions and solutions out there and believe there’s a two-pronged approach to addressing the issue without compromising the product that turns millions of HDTVs into shrines on Sunday.

1. Throw money at uniform technology and player education.
I know that there are always innovations being made in protective headgear, mouthpieces and even turf tape, but the advances are being outpaced by the physical advances of the players themselves. Riddell, the official helmet of the NFL, first released its flagship Revolution line of helmets in 2002. There are competitors out there like Schutt and Adams, but teams get a discount on Riddell helmets through 2013, when their licensing/sponsorship arrangement with the NFL expires. Individual players are free to wear whatever helmet they want, though.

An article posted 10 months ago on NFL.com quotes NFL spokesman Greg Aiello:

“The majority of players are still wearing helmets designed in the ’90s,” Aiello wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “That’s a key reason we wanted to initiate more research on helmets.”

The article is almost a year old, but, if this statement is even remotely true now, one would hope those players might second-guess their loyalty after seeing the hits of this past weekend. Despite whatever advancements might be made by the manufacturers, the players have the ability to choose whatever equipment they are most comfortable with. Whatever education of protection options is out there, it needs to be bolstered. Jarrett Bell of USAToday.com published a good article earlier this year covering the current initiatives of the league to educate players on safety and the skepticism that some players have about changing gear. Perhaps it’s tied in with the superstitious nature of many pro athletes.

Even Washington’s own Philip Daniels is wary:

“Are the new helmets really safe? Just seem like more concussions occur now than before. I kept my old school which I call old faithful and no issues.”

2. Reinforce proper tackling techniques.
Here are (admittedly poor) screenshots from the biggest hits of the weekend:

As I understand it, the number one rule of tackling is: “See what you hit”–for the safety of the hitter just as much as the guy being hit. This goes for ball carriers just as much as the defenders. (YouTube reference: National Athletic Trainers Association’s “Heads Up” videos on proper tackling technique) In each of the plays from this weekend and countless hits seen around the league each week, whether or not the player actually leads with the crown of his helmet or his shoulder, there is a tendency for the head to drop before contact. A bunch of guys got their bells rung this weekend, and hopefully they don’t suffer any real longterm damage, but you can’t help but think another Dennis Byrd injury is around the corner with hits like these.

I’ve read some posturing that all hits should be made “fundamentally”–heads up, arms wrapped. That’s unrealistic. As a defender, blasting a ball carrier with your shoulder is frequently a preferred method of tackling for two good reasons: to avoid injury to limbs that can get caught up and twisted in pile-ups and to deliver hits with maximum effectiveness. It’s basic physics to say that delivering the momentum of a hitter into a smaller surface area on the person being hit causes the guy getting hit to receive more force in a more concentrated area. Therefore, the hitter is hoping to increase the probability of the other guy’s momentum being negated or altered. Usually, this results in a trucked defender or jacked-up ball carrier and, hopefully, a dropped pass or turnover opportunity.

The main drawback with this approach is that conceptually, as a player tries to deliver maximum impact, guys will drop their head instinctively, attempting to tuck the body into its most compact form. As soon as that happens, a player is no longer looking to make the split-second adjustments that might be necessary to avoid injury or even deliver a more effective hit.

It’s my belief that most of these hits are accidental and have no malicious intent (unless your name is Brandon Meriweather). However, if a player drops his head and decides on the trajectory of  his hit just a moment sooner than he probably should, he has left himself no ability to adjust and may be rolling the dice on his career as well as the careers of any players around him. It’s preached from Pop Warner on to hit the “correct” way, but we all know which hits make the highlights on ESPN and NFL Network. It’s a way for a guy to make a name for himself in high school and college, while putting a lot of people’s dreams in jeopardy.

Can the culture change? I have faith that it can. Maybe larger fines and suspensions will work, as long as they’re not applied too liberally–but, as with most issues in this world, it starts at home. In this case, that’s on the practice field.