Clay Mathews has a legit beef

[Budsman]

[Budsman]

[MakoShark]

.

I'm right there with you. Fantasy Football is helping to keep me interested, but between the convoluted rules, Kneelers and all the whining I've had about enough of the NFL. The collage game is no better. The lack of parity, graduate transfers jumping around like Free Agents and a crappy "playoff" that still isn't determined by the play on the field, but driven by the dollar.

Its all gone to hell in a hand basket.

[Heatmiser]

I was thinking that, Hey, the Chargers have done a great job coaching this because there has not been one call against them for doing this under the new rules. Then I remembered, you have to actually hit the QB first.

TG

[Budsman]

I'm right there with you. Fantasy Football is helping to keep me interested, but between the convoluted rules, Kneelers and all the whining I've had about enough of the NFL. The collage game is no better. The lack of parity, graduate transfers jumping around like Free Agents and a crappy "playoff" that still isn't determined by the play on the field, but driven by the dollar.

Its all gone to hell in a hand basket.

[Guest]

I'm not usually a fan of Richard Sherman, but the guy made a point I actually agree with, in that the NFL wants to protect its QBs but doesn't appear to give a damn about non-QBs. What will be interesting is the NFLs reaction if these rule changes result in more defensive player injuries. Will they amend the rule to help out non-QBs? Or will they ignore them because it's job done in protecting the QB?

At the rate they are going the NFL is going to have to be careful with regards to how far they go with rule changes. Even someone like me at 29 years old that never watched in the 90s or earlier is beginning to look upon the product and think it's not what is was. If I'm doing that, God knows what people 10, 20 etc years older than me think. If they make this game go soft it will stagnate and be hard to recover. They can still right the ship but it's starting to sail into dangerous territory.

[Budsman]

I propose all players wear smart shirts and we just make it two hand touch. No need for all those pads so they can go faster and score more point! Yay...

[JOJAX85]

I'm not usually a fan of Richard Sherman, but the guy made a point I actually agree with, in that the NFL wants to protect its QBs but doesn't appear to give a damn about non-QBs. What will be interesting is the NFLs reaction if these rule changes result in more defensive player injuries. Will they amend the rule to help out non-QBs? Or will they ignore them because it's job done in protecting the QB?

At the rate they are going the NFL is going to have to be careful with regards to how far they go with rule changes. Even someone like me at 29 years old that never watched in the 90s or earlier is beginning to look upon the product and think it's not what is was. If I'm doing that, God knows what people 10, 20 etc years older than me think. If they make this game go soft it will stagnate and be hard to recover. They can still right the ship but it's starting to sail into dangerous territory.

I'm 48 & from my perspective, it's getting pretty hard to watch. None of the players that I grew up watching could even play in this era. Seau would be suspended an entire season. It's to the point where if a hit is in any way violent, expect a flag. Brett Favre once said, "This ain't the Ice Capades." But honestly, it's getting close to that.

[like54ninjas]

I'm 48 & from my perspective, it's getting pretty hard to watch. None of the players that I grew up watching could even play in this era. Seau would be suspended an entire season. It's to the point where if a hit is in any way violent, expect a flag. Brett Favre once said, "This ain't the Ice Capades." But honestly, it's getting close to that.

While I do agree mostly, you listed Seay (my favorite all time Bolt), who killed himself because of CTE. The NFL needs to be employing all efforts to reduce the long time risk so those techniques and advanced technologies can get down to the college, high school, & Pop Warner to reduce the risk to youth or football is doomed in the future. Kids are playing at a far reduced rate already.

[Chargerville]

While I do agree mostly, you listed Seay (my favorite all time Bolt), who killed himself because of CTE. The NFL needs to be employing all efforts to reduce the long time risk so those techniques and advanced technologies can get down to the college, high school, & Pop Warner to reduce the risk to youth or football is doomed in the future. Kids are playing at a far reduced rate already.

I agree.

Some experts say that playing in a football game (collision wise), is almost the equivalent of being in a small car crash. The average NFL career is 3-6 years. But if a person, for most of their life has been involved in collisions... collisions at the pop warner level, collisions at the high school level, collisions at the college level... potentially 15 years of collisions prior to even making the NFL, then there's no telling (without the proper testing) what state he was already in by the time his NFL career actually began, a career that's going to consist of more big hits & collisions. Some of these players (especially the ones who play a long time) have endured 25-30 years of collisions, from pop warner to the pros.

I'm just not sure exactly how you'd make this safe. A tackle, even a legal proper form tackle, is still a collision. Things like weight (the size differences of the players on the field) and speed (how fast the players are moving when the collision occurs) makes this a difficult problem to address.

[Budsman]

While I do agree mostly, you listed Seay (my favorite all time Bolt), who killed himself because of CTE. The NFL needs to be employing all efforts to reduce the long time risk so those techniques and advanced technologies can get down to the college, high school, & Pop Warner to reduce the risk to youth or football is doomed in the future. Kids are playing at a far reduced rate already.

[like54ninjas]

I agree.

Some experts say that playing in a football game (collision wise), is almost the equivalent of being in a small car crash. The average NFL career is 3-6 years. But if a person, for most of their life has been involved in collisions... collisions at the Pop Warner level, collisions at the high school level, collisions at the college level... potentially 15 years of collisions prior to even making the NFL, then there's no telling (without the proper testing) what state he was already in by the time his NFL career actually starts, which is going to consist of more big hits & collisions.

There is no doubt. I had 7 documented concussions playing through a couple years of college and probably double that in reality. It is a serious issue. In a sports medicine class I took, it was presented that LB/S/RB in a college game avg 12-20 car crash equivalents of 20-25 MPH. Oline/Dline much more of lower impact but potentially even more devastating by volume.