The NFL Wants to put The Training Wheels Back On

Has anyone noticed I can only write a post when I feel really passionate about something? I suppose since writing isn’t my full time job I can get away with this. This week, the NFL made a rule change I feel very passionate about and I wanted to share with you all why.

I’m not one who looks for cheap sympathy. Since I created a Facebook, I have lost 3 family members who were very close to me to cancer. Unless you are in my inner circle of close friends, you probably didn’t know this. I’m not one to post “RIP Aunt Booby” or whatever on Facebook/Twitter you name it. I’m not trying to knock down anyone who has, maybe that does truly help you cope with the pain. However,  I believe these things do not need to be shared over social media so I gain sympathy from people who I probably rarely talk to.

The past few years, the NFL has been dealing with countless lawsuits from former players claiming the league did not do enough for player safety and didn't make players aware of the dangers of football. But you know what? I kept my mouth shut on the issue. 

Let me make this clear, I’m not looking for your sympathy in this post. I merely want you to see this issue from a different light. The NFL voted that a player can be penalized if they initiate contact with another player, outside the tackle box or at least 3 yards down field, with the crown of his helmet. A rule that will affect all players, but will specifically have an impact on Running Backs.

My grandfather, Dominick DeFranco, grew up playing football as a RB in the leather-head era of the game. He held the record for rushing yards all-time, in a single season, and touchdowns at my Alma Mater Bangor High School. Out of high school he was recruited by Cincinnati and was the starter as freshman. He did not play for Cincy past his freshman year because the school’s doctors would not clear him to play. My grandfather had suffered too many concussions. Now, my grandfather came from a family of nine who couldn’t rub 2 nickels together to make a dime as the saying goes. Football was his only way to get a college education.

Ah, but my grandfather, he was a tricky one. He would return to PA and eventually convinced a small Division 3 school, East Stroudsburg University, to let him play football. He played four years at ESU; set numerous rushing records, graduated with a degree in Education, and went on to do amazing things. My grandfather died when he was 52 of a brain tumor, my mother’s freshmen year at Penn State University. I never got to meet him.

When my grandfather passed away no one assumed it was because of football that his disease developed. As a society, we did not have the technology or the insight to deduce that hypothesis. Looking back now, with all that has come to light with players suing the NFL. I feel it’s safe to say football was a main contributor. Can I prove it? No. Can any of these other players really prove it? No.

My grandfather knew he was taking his health into his own hands when he decided to continue playing football. I think it is ignorant to accept that players today are claiming that they had no idea the lasting effects football would have on their bodies and minds. With all this taken into consideration, now that you know where I am coming from emotionally, I still think this helmet contact rule is stupid and degrading to the game of football. 

Football has been a brutal, contact sport, since its inception. If you cannot accept this, then you should not be watching football. The RB position is especially brutal. You never see a 35 year old RB having a career season. Hell, at age 30, RBs are already considered over the hill. They experience so much damage to their bodies every carry they take. Now the league wants to penalize them for trying to not only gain additional yards or points for their team, but protecting themselves.

It’s obvious the league is trying to take away as much contact to the head of a player as possible. However, players are more protected than ever before. They have created Kevlar vest to protect their rib cages for crying out loud, ala Michael Vick. This rule change is doing nothing to protect the players. All it is doing is making the game seem less “vicious” so the mommy and daddies of the world will let their little tots play youth football. Your kid can get hurt riding horses just as easily as they can playing football. I mean come on horses are massive!

Further, it is completely ridiculous that the NFL expects grown men to adjust their playing style so they can give the impression, to children’s parents, to the lawyers suing them for money on behalf of retired players, that the game is safer.  No one has taken into consideration how these adjustments could affect the running game of football. Further, it could even jeopardize the health of the RBs more so. Now they could be reluctant to get low to protect themselves for fear of a 15 yard penalty. I do not even want to imagine how this is going to be officiated. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.

Football is not meant to be safe. If it was then everyone could play. Successful football players are not just athletic, they are fierce, violent even, and enjoy inflicting pain on others. Football players need to have a killer instinct. I feel the league wants to remove that quality, one bit at a time, and transform the game of football into something the whole family can enjoy.

I want the NFL to remain has it has for years. We have the technology to protect players if they get hurt more so then we ever had. Long-term side effects from playing football can be avoided or prolonged worse case. More so, the league can start at a youth level to educate young players on how to play safer, but still aggressively. My grandfather did not have this luxury. He knew his brain had been damaged by football and he still continued to play the game. He loved it. I love it and I do not blame the sport, nor does anyone in my family, for expediting his death. Because he knew, like I know, and I hope all you know, that football is a violent sport. A sport not everyone is cut out to play.

My life has been directly affected by the game of football. If anything my family and I should be all for the increased safety measures of the league, but we are not. We realize that football is a aggressive, competitive game that only the strong can play. While I know writing this will have no effect on the rule and it will still be implemented this season, I hope after reading this you can see the situation in a new light. 

Thank you for sticking through to the end and I promise more wrestling in my next post. Because apparently that's what I'm good at. Go figure!