Hit Them low, because you don't want to get suspended.
The NFL has stepped up it’s enforcement of head to head tackles during games starting this week. This is a direct reaction to “Concussion Sunday” where several games had high speed collisions which knocked players out of the game, some for several weeks. The NFL handed out stiff fines to each of the players involved, Brandon Meriweather received a $50,000 fine, Dunta Robinson was fined $50,000, and James Harrision was fined the most at $75,000. The NFL also announced they would start suspending players beginning with this week’s games for helmet to helmet, and what they term “devastating” hits on players.
The problem with this step up in enforcement is that it introduces judgment by the officials on whether a hit was “devastating”. Helmet to helmet hits should be outlawed, and a step up in enforcement to prevent those is a welcome sight, but at the same time leaving an open ended term like “devastating” hits open for interpretation is a dangerous road to travel. Just because a player gets blown up on a play does not mean that the hit is illegal, its football a hard fought, violent game that is only survived by the strongest and the smartest.
There are a lot of motives behind this change; one is player safety which I don’t think anyone can argue with. But the other motive is one that a lot of people are not talking about, the NFL over the past few years have moved towards a model of benefitting the offense to increase scoring. This is done to appease the casual fans who like to see high scoring games and all of the star players intact when they buy their tickets. I can sympathize with this a bit because I purchased tickets to a game to watch my favorite team play for the first time in person, and the start quarterback was injured that game. I still enjoyed it, but it was a bit disappointing to watch the backup playing rather than the starter.
In all honesty though is that a reason to start modifying the game to appease the most casual and fair weather fan who will only buy tickets when his team is winning? Here is another thing the NFL is not considering, if players adjust how they hit to comply with the rule they will over compensate. Instead of having two guys slamming into each other at 
shoulder pad level, you will have defenders going low on offensive players and the results could be catastrophic. The number of torn ACL’s, broken legs, torn tendons, and fractures will rise, but the hit will be considered legal because it was not near the head.
What will the NFL do then? Most would agree that a broken leg, dislocated knee cap, and torn ACL’s all look more grotesque and stomach turning than guys knocking each other out from a pad level hit. Also leg injuries have the potential to end a player’s career almost instantly if the injury is serious enough, so once four or five players have their legs broken or worse a submarine hit and land on their neck then the NFL will just convert to flag football.
Any time humans are involved the letter of the law will not be followed especially when the law is not well defined. Being reactionary because of one Sunday of games is short sighted and shows that the league may not be on top of everything like many think. This is a league that has sold videos called the 100 greatest hits in NFL history, now they are all of a sudden concerned with players getting hit hard? The concussions can be diminished if the NFL put more research into helmet design and it’s easy to see from the start two hard objects hitting each other helps no one. There are materials now that are softer and provide the same level of protection as a helmet, but I have yet to see any real effort to develop an alternative piece of equipment.
Now look at the video below, it is from a game between the Ravens and Steelers in the 2009 playoffs, Willis McGahee catches the pass and goes to run the defender over. Ryan Clark leads with his shoulder, and because of McGahee ducking his head to get low a monstrous collision ensues. McGahee and Clark are both knocked out, and McGahee gets carted off. This is a devastating hit, probably one of the fiercest I have seen, but Clark led with his shoulder (which is how you are taught) and I am sure he was not trying to severely concuss himself and McGahee. But how could Clark have avoided that hit? They both were going full speed trying to make plays. That is the tough answer what does a defender do in that case, under this new emphasis Clark would have been fined $50k and suspended a game. This was last year, and was worse than any of those hits last Sunday, yet no increased emphasis was done then. So you have to wonder why all of a sudden this has become a hot button issue, when it has gone on for years.
