Anyone Else Worried About The New Nfl Helmet Rule? | Page 4 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Anyone Else Worried About The New Nfl Helmet Rule?

I agree with the lipstick on a pig sentiment. They need to slow the game down both by softening up the turf and taking a harder stance against PEDs.
 
Fin Thirteen said:
Thank you.

It's true that the study shows a 20% reduction in concussions among helmet wearers, but the study doesn't address how drastically the number of head to head or head to bone collisions would reduce without helmets.

So, the small benefit of wearing a helmet is massively eradicated by the much higher volume of head collisions when everyone wears one.

Long story short, remove helmets and science (plus common sense) says football injuries will fall and not rise.

I'm nit suggesting that's an easy pill for the average fan to swallow. But I think everyone on here knows that hard helmets were never part of the early football culture.
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Saying that there would be less head to head collisions is not even close to "massively eradicating" the need for a helmet... First of all you dont know how many less there would be, compared to a proven percentage reduction by the helmet. Secondly how many knees, elbows, fists and other body parts would instead be striking the players naked head instead of the helmet?? Haven't you seen plays where a RB at the bottom of a pile takes some knees or elbows to the head area? I definitely have, hell I've seen players trying to step on each other, poking each other in the eyes, slamming their forearm against a player well after the whistle....just to name a few..... Do you really think that removing the helmets would all of a sudden stop 100 percent of these incidents from happening?

So you have literally no way to factor any of that into your equation, but you just arbitrarily deem the need for helmets "eradicated".... Not sure how you can come to that conclusion so easily, actually im positive that you can't.
 
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Think the game is long now? Get ready for three and a half to four hour long games.
 
dolpns13 said:
Think the game is long now? Get ready for three and a half to four hour long games.
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As a once a week sport with the shortest playing season and longest off-season, I don't think anyone is saying the games are too long....if anything I would actually prefer a longer game as I usually plan my entire Sundays around the Fins game during football season, and love every minute of it.

If you added up how many hours of Marlins games there are a year, how many hours of Heat games there are per year compared to how many hours of Dolphins football you get per year the numbers would be staggering....Just some quick rough calculations but youre looking at around 20% of dolphins time compared to Heat time, and less than 9% of Dolphins time compared to the Marlins.... NFL games could go 5 hours and nobody would stop watching, NBA and MLB are the ones trying to shorten.
 
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I will come at this from the perspective of an official. I officiate high school and semi-pro football and we have had these discussions in the officiating community for a few years. The first thing I said when Shazier went down was "what a dumbass" because it was obvious that he was leading with his helmet. All of the networks highlight the "big hits" but you will never see the good technique highlights because the fans (and players) thrive on the big hits. The NFL players have a responsibility to use the proper technique because players all the way down to pee wee football imitate their actions. The NFL has been using a program called Heads Up Football for a few years and every youth coach should be required to complete this program prior to stepping on the field with the players. When a youth coach allows this behavior to be repeated and not corrected, it will become habit and it will continue to get more aggressive as the player progresses to high school, college and the NFL. But I digress. Proper technique needs to be taught, repeated and encouraged to prevent players from injuring themselves or their opponents. Players need to be on board with it and it should be part of the collective bargaining agreement how the penalties, enforcement and training will be done. The players already have limitation on contact practices, why won't they take the next step and protect themselves on Sunday? Is it because they have to protect their brand and they know that the big hits sell? I don't know the answer to that but I know that it starts on the practice field and needs to be on the playing field. If a construction worker continues to take hits to the head because of careless co-workers, will he consider it a risk of the job or will he do something to correct it and protect himself and his ability to provide for his family.
 
Take away the facemask, and eject any dumbarse who leads with the crown of the helmet.
Problem solved
 
its getting closer and closer to flag football or 2 hand touch
 
McMichael said:
Saying that there would be less head to head collisions is not even close to "massively eradicating" the need for a helmet... First of all you dont know how many less there would be, compared to a proven percentage reduction by the helmet. Secondly how many knees, elbows, fists and other body parts would instead be striking the players naked head instead of the helmet?? Haven't you seen plays where a RB at the bottom of a pile takes some knees or elbows to the head area? I definitely have, hell I've seen players trying to step on each other, poking each other in the eyes, slamming their forearm against a player well after the whistle....just to name a few..... Do you really think that removing the helmets would all of a sudden stop 100 percent of these incidents from happening?

So you have literally no way to factor any of that into your equation, but you just arbitrarily deem the need for helmets "eradicated".... Not sure how you can come to that conclusion so easily, actually im positive that you can't.
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I doubt if anyone else is, but I know I'm certainly not saying that removal of helmets would reduce anything by 100%. An NFL with no hard helmets would have its own health and safety issues for sure. All I'm positing is that those issues would be - on the whole and over time - less serious than those currently experienced.
 
Sherif said:
agreed, so many missed tackles from trying to "shoulder" tackle. This may help improve the Dolphins D.
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Some players are trying to shoulder tackle because they are trying to take the head/helmet out of the tackle. Unfortunately, as was shown in the video, it is almost impossible to take the head/helmet out of the tackle when the ball carrier lowers his head in an attempt to get lower than the tackler.

What I'm hoping for is the NFL does a better job of officiating the helmet to helmet calls than the NCAA.

One example of a terrible helmet to helmet call in college.
 
outlawd2u said:
I have a question for everybody that wants to make the game safer... So if the game is made that much safer but implementing more rules, having better, or less equipment as some suggest etc. Then are players going = QUOTE]

It is unfortunate that players don’t get paid more. It’s terrible these guys get paid less than baseball or basketball players on average. This is a Violent sport and they should get paid more but there are only 8 home games so less money.




My reply....
I enjoy a good hard hit just as much as the next guy but I prefer the mental part of the game more. Leading with your helmet is just nonsense! It puts both the defender and the offensive player in danger of a higher risk injury. The game has been played for over 100 years with plenty of players that don’t tackle with the crown of their head or helmet. If anyone thinks taking away 10 dirty plays a game at the risk of serious injury and loves that play so much they’ve got to be rooting for injury. I will guarantee you 99.9% of the players In the league don’t want to injur another player. It’s one dirty cheap shot play taken away from the game that should be. Just like close lining being banned, the game will survive and played within the spirit of the rules.
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I enjoy a good hard hit just as much as the next guy but I prefer the mental part of the game more. Leading with your helmet is just nonsense! It puts both the defender and the offensive player in danger of a higher risk injury. The game has been played for over 100 years with plenty of players that don’t tackle with the crown of their head or helmet. If anyone thinks taking away 10 dirty plays a game at the risk of serious injury and loves that play so much they’ve got to be rooting for injury. I will guarantee you 99.9% of the players In the league don’t want to injur another player. It’s one dirty cheap shot play taken away from the game that should be. Just like close lining being banned, the game will survive and played within the spirit of the rules.
 
TarHeelFinFan said:
The game has to adjust or it will cease to exist. The NFL and NCAA will be sued out of existence if they don’t do everything possible to limit concussions. The refs will need to call it consistently to get the players to conform. Eventually though, the solution is to stop loading players up with 20 lbs of armor.
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The NFL as we know it will cease to exist long before CTE lawsuits become that prolific. The politicization of the league, player protests, infighting between ownership and players, player off the field behavior and the over-saturation of games and poor matchups have already damaged the league far more than CTE. Ratings have been in decline for the entire last year and started even earlier than that.

Thursday night football is often a poor matchup that is boring. Games played in London are a joke, and games available online only are a good way to anger the fan base. Sunday ticket prices rise seemingly every year. The NFL is starting to look like a league with favorites to many fans, and it totally botched the player protest issue. My evidence is only anecdotal, but the number of people I know that stopped watching with the kneeling issue is really high. Some of these people being hardcore fans that just stopped watching altogether. Whether you agree with the protests or not, the NFL certainly handled them poorly. Let’s not forget the rule changes that are basically eliminating defense and the ridiculous number of flags and stoppages during the average game, either.

The new rule change helps the offense yet again, will be impossible to call consistently and fairly, and it’s safety value is questionable at best. How long before whiplash and neck/spinal injuries increase from heads up football? Also, going low all the time is going to end plenty of careers early with tears, breaks and dislocations. The game is not going to be helped by turning it into a week by week version of the replacements.
 
Michigan Mike said:
I will come at this from the perspective of an official. I officiate high school and semi-pro football and we have had these discussions in the officiating community for a few years. The first thing I said when Shazier went down was "what a dumbass" because it was obvious that he was leading with his helmet. All of the networks highlight the "big hits" but you will never see the good technique highlights because the fans (and players) thrive on the big hits. The NFL players have a responsibility to use the proper technique because players all the way down to pee wee football imitate their actions. The NFL has been using a program called Heads Up Football for a few years and every youth coach should be required to complete this program prior to stepping on the field with the players. When a youth coach allows this behavior to be repeated and not corrected, it will become habit and it will continue to get more aggressive as the player progresses to high school, college and the NFL. But I digress. Proper technique needs to be taught, repeated and encouraged to prevent players from injuring themselves or their opponents. Players need to be on board with it and it should be part of the collective bargaining agreement how the penalties, enforcement and training will be done. The players already have limitation on contact practices, why won't they take the next step and protect themselves on Sunday? Is it because they have to protect their brand and they know that the big hits sell? I don't know the answer to that but I know that it starts on the practice field and needs to be on the playing field. If a construction worker continues to take hits to the head because of careless co-workers, will he consider it a risk of the job or will he do something to correct it and protect himself and his ability to provide for his family.
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Good post mike the only thing is. They practice heads up see what you hit. I only played 4 years at HS level and spent two years working with ecu as a trainer. But almost all drills I remember from kid to late 90s sere "see what you are hitting". Once in a blue moon I remember seeing someone get leveled in practices, but game time a different light flips on for the players, all coaching goes wayside, it's all about the big hit for either imitation or bragging purposes. My old HS coach will prob fo down as one of tops in NC and he preached during the game "GD wrap the MFer up!" That's not really good preaching. The same way he was anti taunting and cursed for stupid celebrations. Ultimately u can instill it in their heads as much as uh want and pound it in there, ultimately it's always gonna fall into what happens in that .2 seconds u have a decision to make
 
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