This article in SB Nation surprised me Eliminate Facemasks
While I have advocated this change for years among friends I have to admit one is usually fooling oneself when one thinks that only you have thought of something so obvious.
The NFL and football in general is dangerous and unnecessarily so. When I was young we were taught to lead with the head since it was well protected and because of the helmet and the face mask were the hardest part of the equipment. I understand that has changed, but even a casual observer will notice that players do it every game. Why? As the article says, to make a big hit or to separate the man from the ball. What the article doesn’t say, but if honest it would, players do it in order to hurt the other player. Football players want to hurt the opposition, not maim or seriously injure them, but take them out of the game because that increases the probability that your team will win. Kill the head and the body days. Hit the QB or RB or WR really hard and they slow down. If they can move at all.
Football is descended from rugby which like football is a violent, physical sport. However, only by accident does a rugby player lead with his head into a tackle. Why? Two reasons. The rules prohibit it and since the head is unprotected the tackler wants to protect himself. Let’s be blunt, you lead with your head and the best thing that happens is you break your nose. No one wants that and preventing breaking the nose was, I recall, the original reason Paul Brown added the face mask to the helmet.
Want to reduce head injuries? Remove the face mask. Want to reduce them further? Eliminate the plastic helmet and replace it with a padded leather helmet.
This won’t happen.
However, for me there are bigger problems with pro football. First I no longer understand pass interference. I am 100% certain that I understood it up to 1990 or so, but in the past few years, I don’t get it and what I get, I don’t like. It is part of the game to throw a back shoulder pass where the receiver must stop and go back through the defender to catch the ball. If the defender doesn’t turn his head, it is PI. Well since the defender is watching the receiver, they can’t turn their head except in a short field. Offensive holding, now that is rule. Called throughout the game on running plays and passing plays, until the last few minutes where it is only called when a blocker jumps on the back of a pass rusher.
No, the NFL isn’t for me anymore, too complicated, too long, and too predictable. It is becoming the NBA with pads.
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