The Wussification of NFL Football

[kjbugman]

I can't be the only one thinking about this. http://literallysports.blogspot.com/2013/01/hitler-mussolini-castrogoodell.html

Goodell is making the league softer with the penalties, alot of these unsportsmanlike conduct & roughing the passer penalties are for good hits.

[Morgan]

[dbucfan]

Are you trying to make a point using this video?  If so, what is it? 

[TBayXXXVII]

I can't be the only one thinking about this. http://literallysports.blogspot.com/2013/01/hitler-mussolini-castrogoodell.html

Goodell is making the league softer with the penalties, alot of these unsportsmanlike conduct & roughing the passer penalties are for good hits.

Yeah, that's what it is.  It can't be that he doesn't want owners getting sued billions of dollars from older players causing owners to recoup money from fans, right?  Or it couldn't be that he's trying to make sure expenses are down so that the owners don't have to recoup the money from fans, right?

[Morgan]

[kjbugman]

Obviously brain trauma is a serious issue, but any football player will tell you that's the way the game is played.

[Morgan]

Teams pay millions of dollars in salary for star athlete (WRs, RBs, QBs) and don't want these players knocked out for the entire season.  A team losing its QB is pretty much destined to losing for that season. Not good for the owners, for the season ticket holders, for the networks, and of course the team - so pretty much all parties nvolved. You can call is "wussification" but the league (not just the Commish) has made a decision to protect the players from defenseless hits that were once the norm decades ago.

NFL: take it or leave it. That's the way the league has decided to go.

[caradoc]

One of the big problems I have with the rules is that they are really almost impossible to follow without almost completely abandoning the idea of a big hit.  As a defender, you don't always have complete or sole control of where you hit a guy.  I see over and over, defenders launching at the chest, but then the natural instinct of the receiver is to "scrunch" and tuck their head and the a hit that would have hit the ribs/shoulder ends up in the head.  The only way for a defender to avoid that is by really really backing off of any kind of hit.

[bucinnj]

As a defender, you don't always have complete or sole control of where you hit a guy.  I see over and over, defenders launching at the chest, but then the natural instinct of the receiver is to "scrunch" and tuck their head and the a hit that would have hit the ribs/shoulder ends up in the head.  The only way for a defender to avoid that is by really really backing off of any kind of hit.

Very true.  It seems as if the defender has to really think things through as they approach the ball carrier which does not allow them to play their positions naturally.
Blatant helmet to helmet hits were/are definitely a problem but the new emphasis has put defenders at an extreme disadvantage.

[Morgan]

The Wussification of NFL Football

Yet the sport is more popular than ever before.....

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We have another data point indicating that the NFL is more popular than ever.

A Harris Poll of the American public, conducted September 25-27, found that 59 percent of Americans follow pro football, the highest level of interest in the NFL that Harris has ever found in its regular studies of the U.S. population.

“Football remains popular and even shows a rise in interest since last year,” the Harris Poll said in a release. “In 2011, over half of Americans (55 percent) said they followed professional football – a slight increase from 2010, when 53 percent said so. This year, that number rises further, with 59 percent of Americans saying they follow professional football; this is the highest percentage to indicate this since The Harris Poll first started asking the question in 1992.”

It’s been remarkable in recent years that nothing — not an offseason lockout of players, not increasing emphasis in the media on the long-term health risks of concussions suffered while playing football, not the NFL’s at times heavy-handed actions to try to curb concussions, not replacement refs, nothing — can slow the growing popularity of the NFL. It’s not just America’s most popular sport, it may be America’s most popular cultural institution of any kind. And there’s no reason to think the NFL has stopped growing.


http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/06/poll-finds-nfl-more-popular-than-ever/

[BucNY]

I love these posts, really shows how stupid people are. The sport is more popular than ever thanks to Goodell. The players are bigger and stronger than ever and people are getting concussed or at a minimum knocked for a loop in almost every game in every week. There is a huge pending lawsuit that is going to cost the NFL millions or billions to settle. I could care less about big hits, I don't want the penalties but that is something guys are going to have to learn. We saw it in our bucs game on Sunday. VJ got blown up on a legal hit and he was able to spring up and continue to play. Do you really want to see a helmet to helmet hit where VJ or the defender lays unconscious on the ground?

If you do, you're a bigger idiot than you appear. I don't want to see my favorite players hurt and I'm sure MOST people don't either.

[BucfanNC12]

I can't be the only one thinking about this. http://literallysports.blogspot.com/2013/01/hitler-mussolini-castrogoodell.html

Goodell is making the league softer with the penalties, alot of these unsportsmanlike conduct & roughing the passer penalties are for good hits.

You need to broaden your horizons. Do you really believe teams want to invest millions to a player only to have them hurt?

[Morgan]

Do you really want to see a helmet to helmet hit where VJ or the defender lays unconscious on the ground?

I really think many lowbrows do. $13 mil salary down the drain if Vjax or another top player gets knocked out for the season.

[The Anomaly]

IMHO, the rules have been implemented to help with two things:

1. Short term - keep your star players on the field...in fact, keep most players on the field

2. Long term - reduce impact of injuries(not just concussions but all injuries) thus reducing health costs(short and long)

Both reasons all come back to money.  And I hate the scumbags that only watch nascar to see a crash...same scumbags that like the big hit.  Yes, you are a scumbag,

[acacius]

I think with the long term goals, it's not just a matter of the health costs themselves.  I think there's a certain amount of wanting to be proactive about player health in an effort to avoid the fate of heavyweight boxing.