The NFL Passes Safety Measures: No More Touching!
The NFL owners are meeting this week, at least I think that’s who it is, and they’re coming up with all kinds of fun new rules. After saying they wouldn’t be doing anything of value, like changing the overtime rules or allowing a box of props in the end zones for celebrations, they decided to embark on a path toward turning the NFL into a flag football league.
After passing the “Tom Brady Rule” the other day, which apparently has nothing to do with a ratio of Super Bowls to the hotness of your wife, the NFL passed another four rules involving unnecessary roughness yesterday. Let’s criticize them one by one shall we?
- The first is a ban on “wedge blocking” for kick returns. The powers that be decided to eliminate the wedge and limit the group blocking to two players at a time. This of course gets rid of the always intriguing battle of wedge vs. crazy wedge buster. So already this is bad. Seriously though, how many people really get injured in this situation? And won’t the increase in tiny kick returners getting killed by rabid roided gunners negate any benefit? Bad rule.
- Next we have the blindside block, which I guess is being called the Hines Ward Rule, prohibiting blocks to the head or neck. Well that sucks, because these are extremely fun to watch. I do understand that it only prohibits the hits to the neck or head, but there is no doubt in my mind that it will result in some very wussy fouls. Plus, no more “you got knocked out dance?” Boooooo.
- There is also a rule about onside kicks and from what I can gather it requires four players on each side of the kicker and then places more spacing restrictions on the kicking team. We’ll call this the “good luck recovering an onside kick, ever rule.” I think that’s catchy.
- Finally, the defenseless receiver rule will get a little more strict. Now forearm and shoulder hits to the neck or head of a receiver, instead of just head-to-head hits, will be 15 yard penalties. So basically, receivers will be getting the same protections as the quarterback demanding you don’t touch them above the shoulders. Well, the same protections quarterbacks used to have, because now you simply can’t touch them.
Listen, injuries in the NFL are horrible and they happen too often, but it is a violent game and trust me when I say the NFL likes it that way. Actually, I’m not that upset with the principle behind the rules protecting defenseless receivers and blindside hits, I just know that the way they are applied will piss me off this fall.
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