Official NFL Video on Player Safety
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d81b80962/Player-safety?module=HP_headlines
The NFL has always been a violent sport. This violence in the sports we love help define our nation as a violent nation. Although on the field violence such as illegal hits, fights, and even offensive language are not the same as murder, rape, and burglary they both parallel America as a whole as a violent society.
Recently, the NFL and Roger Goodell have decided to take a firm stand against illegal hits in the NFL. Canadian sociologist Mike Smith identifies four categories of violence in sports and they are brutal body contact, borderline violence, quasi-criminal violence, and criminal violence. These illegal hits and illegal acts in the NFL fit all four of Smith's categories(Coakley, 2009).
NFL players such as James Harrison, Brandon Meriweather, and Dunta Robinson have all been fined thousands of dollars for these brutal illegal hits. These players along with other NFL players have been vocal about their displeasure with these insane fines. They state that now players are thinking about how to hit instead of just reacting which is changing the way that they have always played the game and in fact causing them to be slower. Fines that add up to 50,000-75,000 definitely have players second guessing their tackling styles because these fines are around 4 games checks. Another argument to these illegal hits is that now players will be tackling lower increasing the chances of knee and ankle injuries(Associated Press, 2010).
Nobody disagrees that player safety is a must in the NFL, just that the NFL is a little fine happy with certain hits. Almost any violent hit to the quarterback gets flagged and fined nowadays in the NFL. Helmet to helmet hits on a defenseless receiver should and are illegal and need to be taken out of the game, but solid tackles that just so happen to be on the quarterback should not be flagged and left as a legal part of the game. The same hit on a running back remains legal but if that hit was applied to a quarterback the chances of a flag go up drastically.
The fining and sending of the tape describing what is legal and what is not legal, definitely has left its mark because the week after the video was sent, there were no fines or illegal hits in all of the 13 games played(Associated Press, 2010). The question is, does this stricter calling on illegal hits make players change their style too much and leaving fans unhappy? Players may think twice about their attack, but the using of the helmet and launching of their bodies at opposing players heads does not need to be in the game of football. Safety is the most important part of the game and needs to continually be a striving point of the very physical and dangerous NFL. Fans of our violent country love seeing these enormous hits, but would not be happy if one of these hits led to their favorite players being concussed, paralyzed, or even worse killed.
Coakley, J. (2009). Sports in society. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
Anderson, R. (Producer). (2010). Nfl videos: player safety. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d81b80962/Player-safety?module=HP_headlines
Associated Press, Initials. (2010, October 24). Nfl players adjust to crackdown on illegal hits. Retrieved from http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d81b9666c/article/nfl-players-adjust-to-crackdown-on-illegal-hits
No comments:
Post a Comment