5 Years later…for better or for worse?

Posting because it’s bye week and why not.  

5 years ago the NFL settled a 750+ million dollar lawsuit with over 20,000 former players who alleged that the game was responsible for thier long term brain injuries.  A year later a judge dertimined that the settelment was invalid that the NFL would need to provide over 1 billion dollars to cover the damages.  At the time there was commentary that this was the kind of lawsuit that could kill the NFL and the football as a whole.  In your oppinion how has the settlement affected the game?  For the better..the worse?  

My thoughts: 

The hasty reaction by the NFL and NCAA to limit their liabilites moving forward has set the foundation for a game that will be unrecognizable as football 10 years from now.  They’ve underestimated the importance of the physical aspect of the game and will continue to work towards making football the NBA 2.0.  

We’ve seen that the NCAA will fall in line with whatever the NFL implements.  We’ve seen this with the kick off moving forward, followed by moving the ball to the 25 to eliminate incentive to return the kick. Prion to that we saw new roughting the passer rules and catch rules all implemented by the NFL and later picked up by the NCAA.  In 3 years the NFL will eliminate kick-offs all together.  The NCAA will follow. The only thing more watchable than this fair catch bull s**t would be not having a kick at all.  The QB proction rules have have made it nearly impossible to hit the QB in the NFL. This year the NFL implemented a new rule making it a personal foul to fall on top on the QB. Defenders are required to try and roll to the side.  This has been flagged 4 times in the first two weaks of the season including in the first quarter of the season opener.  That wasn’t by luck, they wanted everyone to see it. Watch for this lame penalty being called against your team soon!

NCAA football is the only sport in the world where a player can be kicked out of the game for single unintentional act. Furthermore, they used soccer as a model for the punishment making the player miss a potion of the following game. Now the outcome of a future game can be dertermined, in part, by a mistake (or bad call) in a previous game. A thought that is truley revolting to any old school football fan.  Soccer?…f**k me!  

The increase in lower body injuries is an undeniable side effect of the push to protect players heads. The NFL rules committee considered penalizing hits on recievers below the waste when in the act of a catch. This would be an extention of the ambiguous “defensless reciever” rule. The rule change was tabled for further consideration when more data was available after the season ends.  Once adopted the NCAA will likey piggy back on the rule and tack on the “targeting” designation to that one as well.  Are we ready to see defenders stop in their tracks and allow a 25 crossing route to avoid a potential suspention?  What happened to making the WR make a “business decision” about catching the ball or not?  That’s a perfect example of the game changing.  WR’s with no fear in crossing the middle? As someone who played football in the late 90s (even at a low level) this makes my skin crawl.  

When you consider that new research, albeit ignited by the NFL settelment, is pointing towards CTE as a genetic predisposition rather than purely a result of playing football it seems like the hasty reaction IS going to destroy the game as some predicted.  Earlier this year a seemingly normal Jr. high school player had sevier CTE indication on autopsy. After playing a single year of football, his family is sueing the school district.  Neurologists are disputing the possiblity of CTE from a single year of football.  

Could some sort of genetic testing alert players to their danger and allow players with resistant traits to continue to play the game the way it should be played?  It’s unlikely.  

It’s more likely that we continue towards a softer, safer, more “athletic” game with higher scoring and less hitting.  I, like Kyle Whittingham, am glad that I played and had the pleasure of being a football fan in a different erra. For the younger fans, enjoy this while you can because someday you’ll be a grouchy dude on a forum talking about the good old days.