I totally agree with Mark S Rant on this.....what do you dues think [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlLjPswUfRs]YouTube - Schlereth Rips NFL For Stance On Big Hits[/ame]
The NFL is being hypocritical by making money off these hits, but Harrison and Schlereth are being freaking drama queens. Nobody is eliminating contact from the NFL. Nobody is trying to take hits away from the NFL. They're trying to protect against head injuries. His knee may be too hecked up to sit it up on the stool. But if his head took the kind of punishment that his knee took he wouldn't be able to spew this bullcrap and get paid to do it.
I am all for eliminating helmet to helmet hits, infact, these defenders should learn to tackle properly rather than throwing their head at the player, but onto my point: The NFL is constantly changing the rules to benefit the QB & the WR, just looking back in 2005 (Tagliabue's final year as commish), only 8 QB's reached QB Ratings of 90 and above, with the average being in the low 80's. Now, we currently have 12 above 90 and the average is in the high 80's. This isn't because of great QB's or even good teams around them (Ryan Fitzpatrick & Kevin Kolb are examples of both), it's the fact that the game has now been tailored to put pass defenses to basically defend with their hands tied behind their backs. NFL can't continue to manipulate the sport like this.
thats true bc they want high scoring games..........it has become a pass happy league with the changing to get the most out of it....... i heard Ditka saying that back in the day almost no one ran slants up the middle bc they new they were gonna get hit and hit hard
Agree 100% especially with Merriweather being the only hit worth any discussion. The rest are just PC knee jerk BS. Story isn't as simple as just 'trying to protect the players'. I like how he put the NFL's feet to the fire on this one. Besides, trying to redefine the NFL, which is simply an inherently dangerous game, with fines/suspensions is like trying to legislate accidents from the roads. It's just gonna happen no matter what you do. Just more smoke & mirrors BS from Goodell/NFL. (obscure movie reference)
schlereth is probably one of the first in line trying to get more retirement benefits out of the league for health problems yet he sits there and bashes the league for trying to make the game safer. here's what i think should happen........... the only people that seem concerned with the player's safety are the coaches, front offices, league office, and some fans. I say we get rid of all of the rules that are in place to keep the game safer and let them injure each other and possibly paralyze or kill each other for our amusement. But, at the same time, the player's must sign a permanent, binding agreement that retired players will no longer get ANY benefits from the teams or league for persistent health problems and current players don't get ANY health insurance from the teams or league. They have to go buy their own. This solves the problem and the players and fans who just watch the game for the most violent hits (which are the same people that only watch hockey for the fights and nascar for the wrecks) will be happy and no one else will have to give a crap because they've signed their lives and health away with no repurcussions. It sounds like a fair agreement to me.
The problem here is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, Captain. The NFL was righteously called out for sub par medical foresight on concussions & now have gone on a campaign of trying to take violence out of a violent game. WTF The majority of fans don't want players hurt but the PC ridden way Goodell is approaching this is ridiculous. Merriweather was head hunting...nail him to the cross. Robinson was playing hard & fast & could be fined but not suspended IMO. Harrison was playing hard nosed LBer, the way teams want their LBers to be. So you have 1 stand out hit/s from Merriweather that can be used as a poster child for concussions & 1 for fining due to result, Robinson, as far as I'm concerned. The outcry & trying to put the brakes on hitting is overkill. Trying to legislate a sport built on reaction to a chess game of split second 'oops, I better slow down' is a fantasy. Besides, the NFL in it's pass happy mode of hands off the receivers has made this scenario. That approach has helped turn the game into a track meet at times with higher speed collisions increased. Don't mind weeding out the players who deserve it but this has already gone too far IMO. & I'm not buying that the league is all of a sudden so concerned for it's players. Are all these fines going directly to player benefits? Older vets included? I'll wait for the documents...
Well, i understand what happened in the past and some of it was the league's fault in not acting quicker. however, where i'm having trouble with the player's stance is that they snitched for years that the league was ignoring safety issues and retirement benefit issues and then, when the league starts offering more retirement benefits while at the same time trying to keep players safe, the players start lining up to gripe that they don't want to be kept safer? Personally, I don't really care which way the players and league decide to go with the safety issues. however, I DO care that the players want their cake and want to eat it too. They want to dictate to the league what the rules will be but then they expect the owners and league to pay for the consequences. i AM buying that the league is all of the sudden concerned and a big part of the reason they ARE concerned is because the players are demanding top notch insurance for current players in addition to huge retirement benefits because of lingering health issues. At any given time, there are about 1600 players currently in the league. Retired players are in the tens of thousands. What the players have and are demanding in increases is enormous. If the league can cut down on the injuries and lifelong health issues, it will save them money.
But I don't think the outcry is about dictating, Captain I think it's more about the flood of fines that they've/we've seen since Goodell's come aboard with a ton of them ridiculous by nature & now they see the next wave of league sanctioned fines under the same revenue making process. Safety's one thing & the effort admirable in some ways but nonetheless impossible to apply at the level they want. Fine/suspend the guilty ones but not to the point of putting every hit under a microscope which they've already done. The % of guilty hits are still minute but the exorbitant fines are shapes of bad things to come & the players see it. The rules have been in place for those kind of hits but now it's PC headline news as though half the league are head hunters which isn't the case. Some of these fines are just another way for owners to use sleight of hand tactics to fine players to help pay benefits to injured players instead of out of their own pocket. But the hypocrisy is that while they make a mountain out of a molehill using H2H for concussions, the reality is that a lot of these concussions, not the horrific ones that put a player out from H2H, are a direct result from the concrete like artificial surfaces that the NFL has been saving money on for tons of years, not to mention the added speed to the game. Sounds like yet another aspect of this story is the old mis-direction play... Just like promoting the history of the game & continuing showing/selling the same viscous hits from yesteryear that are guaranteed concussion makers while proclaiming photos of the Harrison hit were illegal & wouldn't be for sale. Now that smacks of having your cake & eating it too... Not trying to be argumentative, Captain, cuz we agree with a lot of the same things but on some levels, I still feel the NFL is culpable in many different aspects of this injury issue.
It's "V" the original, I love that movie I agree, the changes since Goodell has come on board is ridiculous.
you make some fair points. some of the pushback from the players may be from feeling over-regulated already for their behavior off the field. i still feel if the players want the league to pay for all their injuries and lingering health issues, then they shouldn't get in the way of the league setting the rules the way they want them. and i've heard many argue that the 'league' is promoting the vicious hits but i don't see a vicious hits tab on their website or on their t.v. commercials and once they found out the 3rd party was selling pictures of them on their website, they had them pulled. I think people are confusing 3rd party t.v. networks, companies and websites as league-owned entities, but they are not. The league currently cannot control what FOX, CBS, ESPN, or all of the websites show if they have purchased rights to show NFL games/highlights. Maybe the league will change their contracts the next time they come up but right now the league has no control over what others show. The way it's set up right now, ESPN could run 24 hour programming of nothing but vicious hits, the nfl couldn't do anything about it, but everyone would say the nfl is promoting violent hits.
The Duke's solution: Each team gets to elect a representative that is on a review board. Whenever a questionable hit occurs in a week that board votes on whether they think it's a regular hit or whether or not a man was intending to seriously hurt the other individual or if it's a hit that is a little more dangerous than a "traditional" hit. Don't allow the 2 players reps from the teams involved but you can let the players judge the hits. They realize what is a fair hit and what isn't and I think they would also be honest and fair with their assessment. If it's found to be a "dirty" hit, they get fined a predetermined amount by the league. I don't think it's THAT unfair.
Greatest fight scene ever...... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsZpdUUdd3I]YouTube - They Live Fight Scene[/ame]
