There were a number of sickening hits in NFL games this past weekend. Violent, full speed, stop you dead in your tracks type collisions. These hits aren't new. They happen every week, it just seemed like there were more of them this week. Brandon Merriweather's helmet to helmet shot on Todd Heap was the most flagrant. The ball was past Heap and he was already being tackled, yet Merriweather still stopped, changed direction, and contorted his body to hit Heap in the head. The Steelers' James Harrison concussed to Cleveland Browns. He stopped Mohammed Mossaquoi dead in his tracks after a catch and before Mossaquoi had a chance to gather and defend himself and he led with his head in making a tackle on Josh Cribbs. A collision between the Falcons' Dunta Robinson and the Eagles' Desean Jackson knocked both players out of the game and left Jackson with a serious concussion and memory loss. It was sickening to watch.
Stunningly, the NFL, which claims player safety as a top priority, handed out no suspensions. Merriweather and Robinson were fined $50,000 and Harrison, as a repeat offender, was fined $75,000. Proportionate to salary, the fines are minuscule and toothless. If Harrison was making $35,000 per year, his fine would be less than $200--similar to a hefty parking ticket. Rodney Harrison (himself once considered the NFL's preeminent head hunter) scoffed at players being punished with fines: "My mentality was if it costs me $30,000 $40,000 $50,000 to be an all pro, than that's the price I have to pay...But when I got suspended, it was, 'Uh-oh.' That was a different mentality now. I'm hurting my team, I'm losing a game check. Let's try to change things up."
The fines would be laughable if so much wasn't at stake. Rutgers player Eric LeGrand was paralyzed this past weekend after a violent collision on a kickoff. Football is a violent sport. Players complain about being policed by people who don't know what it's like to play the game. They complain, and they're right, that there's no way to make it safe. But there are ways to make it safer. If the NFL is serious about protecting its players it needs to make changes. Any helmet to helmet hit should be a mandatory one game suspension for the player who initiated it. The same goes for hitting a defenseless player as Robinson hit Jackson and Harrison hit Mossaquoi. These aren't new rules. They are already on the books, the NFL just needs to give some teeth to its enforcement.
Players will complain that they were taught to tackle one way and now they have to change. So be it. People may complain that the sport is less fun to watch. (This won't be true. Fans may watch football in part for the neck-craning-can't-look-away-collisions, but they don't like them. The Jackson-Robinson collision was like a car crash. Yes, you had to watch, but it was also cringe-inducing, horrifying, and voyeuristic. And as both players lay on the ground, I felt nothing but dread and an uneasy feeling that I really shouldn't be watching this, that these men should not be doing these things to each other for my entertainment.) Again, so be it.
There's no indication that the NFL is taking player safety as seriously as it claims. If it was, it would be suspending players for hits. It wouldn't be quibbling with the player's union over who qualifies for post-career health insurance. And it certainly wouldn't be pushing for two extra games per season. These men put their bodies, livelihoods, and even their lives at risk every time they play. To ask them to do it more often while failing to institute policies that would slightly lessen the risks they face is more than hypocritical, it borders on the criminal.
No comments:
Post a Comment