Hardheaded

Ask any football fan what they thought about this past weekend’s games and you’ll get an earful about all the helmet-to-helmet hits that occurred.  While the brutality and aggressiveness of football players is understood and accepted to be just part of the game, critics are beginning to ask when more will be done to protect the league’s players from serious injury.  Injury has always been a risk to the game of football and the players know this, but after this weekend it appears that illegal helmet-to-helmet hits are becoming far too common and that the players delivering them may need harsher punishments if ever expected to back off.

The first blow that got viewers’ attention was delivered in the Eagles versus Falcons game that knocked both DeSean Jackson and Dunta Robinson out of the game.  Later, Steelers linebacker James Harrison sent Browns receiver Josh Cribbs to the sidelines with a concussion.  The worst of them all, however, for it appeared the most intentional, was when Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather launched himself helmet-first at Ravens Todd Heap.

Now, not all of the hits administered this weekend were illegal and some were even unavoidable, but I would have to argue that in Meriweather’s case it appeared to be a completely unnecessary cheap shot.

The NFL needs to deal with these types of cheap shots better if they want to protect its players.  While I believe that no player is out there with the sole intention to seriously injure an opposing player, an increasing number of players’ hits are in violation of the spirit of the game.  Something has to be done to change the mentality of some of these repeated hard-hitting players and to make them think the next time they want to lead a tackle with their head.

As I’ve previously stated, head/neck injuries in football aren’t new; it’s just that viewers are finally seeing them occur far too often and are sick of watching their favorite players getting hurt and sidelined for longer periods of time (much of this due to the newer, harder plastic helmets).  But now that everyone is good and pissed off about the illegal hits, how do we stop it from happening?

Rodney Harrison, a former NFL player, had the reputation of a hard-hitter back in his playing days.  Now he works as an ESPN analyst and when asked to address this issue, he said that no matter how many fines he got when he played, he kept hitting players as hard as he could even when they had no chance or time to protect themselves.  Harrison says, from experience, that the only way to get players to stop the unnecessary hard hits and to make them think first before leading with their helmet is to start handing out suspensions.  Only when players have to sit out of games, letting down their teammates, will the point get across.

The rate of NFL concussions was at 61 percent back in 1996, with an alarming 30 percent of those players having had three or more concussions in their career, according to a NFL Players Association poll.  Now, I couldn’t find a more recent statistic, but just guessing, I’d say this number has increased (even if it stayed the same that is an alarmingly high number).

So are viewers whining too much and trying to change the aggressive nature of football or have there been enough serious head/neck injuries now that the NFL should start taking more action to protect their players? 

More importantly, how long can the NFL wait to make this decision before more and more players are sidelined?