Talk about taking someone's head off. If you look close, you can see the mouth peice flying out as well. Gotta love it. [YOUTUBE]BAEiTD9TSqM[/YOUTUBE]
Man, I see that, and then I see a play where a defensive player is penalized and fined for a helmet-to-helmet hit, and I wonder how long it is until the NFL says RBs can't lower their heads like that anymore. Nice job on the run, don't get me wrong, but defenders are at such a major disadvantage these days. That guy got his clock cleaned.
In fairness, a defender can go helemt to helmet on a runner, just not a receiver or QB. Still, with the head injury problems, this is a solid point and will probly be aournd the corner in a few years. Sadly, human brains are just nto ment to support contact at this much speed with this much mass behind it.
Good point on the QB/WR thing, I hadn't really considered that. Don't know if you saw the Nate Washington hit yesterday... he didn't get hit in the head but he didn't get up for a few minutes. Looked kind of scary for a few minutes there.
Tedy Bruschi was pointing out earlier today that across the league the officials are letting defenders play more aggressively, at least through week 1. He saw the backup refs kind of revert the rules with DBs back about 5 years and was curious how long it would stay that way and how quickly coaches would catch on to it. It'd be nice to see defenses be allowed to play again, I don't know how much it'd effect todays top defenses, but it'd let some of the weaker D's mask some weaknesses with more physical play against the smaller, quicker, WRs who are afraid of contact.
The NFL only cares when the guys who play glamour positions get hurt. When an offensive player smacks someone in the head, it's still considered a good gritty play (see: every fawning report on Hines Ward ever.) And that's not even touching the lines, where head shots go uncalled almost 100% of the time (just ask Mario Williams!)
holy crap, that was amazing! thats what the guy gets for accepting a hit. on a side note, the nfl if they really gave a shit would look long and hard into 2 things. real honest testing for performance enhancing drugs and leather helmets. i guarantee you leather helmets would eliminate head injuries.
I tend to agree with leather helmets. Get rid of all hard plastic equipment. Sure, ther will be an uptick in brusing and broken bones, but once players adapt it would be far safer for their brains. Players are going to learn to wrap and tackle instead of launch themselves so often with less padding.
