Football Losing It's Luster?

[Guest]

The issue with the "Safety" rule changes is "are they effective"?  Certainly the NFL penalizes some head hits and levies fines for them, but what has changed medically?  If you keep track of the number of "concussion protocol" cases, you might ask the same question.

 

You can't hit a quarterback in the pocket high and you can't hit him low. You can't "patty cake" a hand atop his helmet, but if he runs out of the pocket you can plaster him head on.  Hmmmmm.....What makes the head safer during the act of running?  Same for a receiver or running back.  What makes running post possession of a pass safer conduct than focusing upon the pass to catch it?  Is the brain in a different zone when the ball is clutched tight so that brain is safer?  Those are rhetorical questions.

 

Remember the hit when Pollard cracked Ridley. Man there were millions of brain cells destroyed on that play and Harbaugh came running up to Pollard and said, "BP!!!...BP!!!....THATS THE WAY YOU DO IT BP!!!!".  And then he waived him. That's football right?  Anyway, the concussions keep flowing despite "everything" the NFL has done to stop them. The dang things just won't go away.  How much more safe is it now than 10 years ago?....oh wait, no one can say for certain because the NFL denied a relationship between playing football and brain damage for decades and only now are "doing something about it".

 

I see a problem for the NFL. I believe any number of intentional, voluntary head to head collisions are unsafe and damaging. Brain damaging.  Until the NFL changes their rules to no head to head contact and/or issues helmets that are big and soft enough to actually cushion blows they are perpetrating a fraud.  They are not making the game safe!

 

I see a game with all the players running around with helmets as big as a house, kind of like those air inflated characters you see at a basketball game, trying to stay upright because the head of their costume weighs so much...and no head tackling.

 

It really is a canard.

 

 

 

 

Many of them, but not all of them. 

 

There is no doubt rules have been put in place for player safety. It doesn't matter if we liked the game that we used to watch. That game is not sustainable. It needed to change and may need to change further. I can't with a clear conscience say that I want it back, when I now better understand the damage it causes. 

 

However, some of the rules changes are in place to artificially generate offensive production. The league knows the casual fan isn't interested in a defensive struggle. The fantasy game has made this even more pronounced. The #1 offending rule is illegal contact ... and not only the rule - but the (ever fluctuating) threshold to the amount of contact allowed before flags fly. Too often a team is in 3rd and a mile and out comes the illegal contact foul (automatic ... clap, clap ... 1st DOWN!). Then the replay shows something that happens on virtually ever pass play ever. That contact isn't giving anyone brain damage ... it is all about keeping the offense (especially, high powered offenses) on the field. 

 

That, I could live without. 

Edited November 18, 2015 by Danny D

[Gordo52]

You're not alone. I blame Goodell & the PC movement for that.

[H8ME]

The lack of personality and the coaching deficiency on this team is whats killing it for me. I can't connect to these players because I don't know who half of them are. Just about every week we're releasing players and picking up other teams transients. Ex: the latest signee to the practice squad.

 

When we're watching the same mistakes week after week this is a coaching deficiency. I can't even get excited about Justin Forsett when he's not utilized. Timmy Jernigan (who could be a sack machine) also not used correctly. Arthur Brown's was high on alot of draft boards. Why can't this coaching staff get something out of him and stop worrying about his lack of special teams play. Utilize his strength which is speed at the LB position. Speaking of speed, where is Terrance Brooks? Can he really be worse than Kendrick Lewis? This team is full of special teamers and when called upon to play a position they're weak. What's exciting about Flacco keying on the same receiver every game and only completing 50% of the passes. I like Joe alot but that is a big weakness of his. Thank God for the kick butt TE's because right now they're the only thing giving me life.

Edited November 17, 2015 by H8ME

[Tru11]

yup all these changes favoring the offense where not my cup of tea.

 

however i still watch as many games as i can.

[52520Andrew]

Between the refs and the Ravens(and the lack of defense, especially from the Ravens), it kinda is not as fun this year. I have fantasy at least but it isn't the same.

[The Mom Gene]

The "safety changes" I get... kind of.  Your QB is protected as long as he's in the pocket.  It's kind of like a King being protected by his knights... but as soon as he leaves his castle, he becomes another knight...  I get that part.

 

Lots of the hit changes in the pocket you can blame on the likes of Brady.  He's the main culprit in many of the changes there...  His ACL (by Pollard, by the way), created the Brady rule.  The hits to the helmet and the concussions to QB's started seemingly after Trent Green and Kurt Warner.

 

It's the inability to play defense.  We all wonder why our team is changing and we don't have that "#1 Defense" anymore. Well, because we can't.  They have changed so many rules with regard to PI and Hits on receivers that you just can't hit that way anymore.  And if you do?  You get the penalties.

 

I think the lack of interest...  the lack of luster.... has to do more with our record this year than the game itself.

 

But the refs are indeed ruining it even more with all of the (dirty) laundry they are throwing all over the field.  THAT is more of the problem than the rules themselves.

[Tenacious Faulker]

The mission is money. They should ride the wave, because less kids are playing, and the wave will eventually die out on its own.

 

Game integrity is largely irrelevant, considering people only complain about it but never act upon their complaints. When that actually happens (and I doubt its even remotely close to happening), then something might be done.

That might be a "pragmatic" view, but a short-sighted one.  The NFL has been remarkably short-sighted on a great many issue, concussions being chief among them, but officiating is a big deal.  A bloated rule book that requires game refs and HQ to decipher it (and critically fail more times than is acceptable) is the opposite of game integrity.  This will ultimately errode fan confidence.  If you don't believe me just ask the MLB, when the NFL over took them in the 1990's. 

 

Eventually it WILL catch up to them.  They need some changes that streamline this game.  But don;t expect Goodell to figure it out.  That idiot sees dollar signs, not X & O's.   He'll overexpose the league, put a team in London and ignore cincussions even more until the is as league broken as last century's baseball.

[SomeCreepinaVan]

The ridiculous amount or commercials ruins football for me. Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer ads

[canuck2010]

People the ship has already sailed. I've been an NFL fan since the late 50's and I find that the product has become virtually unwatchable.  The product on the field has never been worse. Sub standard officials, rules that have destroyed the integrity of the game, it can't even be determined what a catch is anymore. You start at 1:00 finish at 4:15 and see 8 minutes of action in that time, far less than the amount of commercials that have been rammed down your throat and I just getting started.

 

The NFL is now only slightly more than professional wrestling.