NFL May Start Suspending Players For Helmet To Helmet Hits

The NFL could soon start suspending players for dangerous helmet-to-helment hits, vice president of football operations Ray Anderson told The Associated Press on Monday. A day after several scary collisions in Sunday's games, Anderson acknowledged the league might need to do more than fining players to prevent such hits. "There's strong testimonial for looking readily at evaluating discipline, especially in the areas of egregious and elevated dangerous hits," he said in a phone interview. "Going forward there are certain hits that occurred that will be more susceptible to suspension. There are some that could bring suspensions for what are flagrant and egregious situations." Anderson said the NFL could make changes in its approach immediately, with Commissioner Roger Goodell having the final say. League officials will consult with the union, but he didn't expect any opposition.

Source: Associated Press

 

if they're serious about them, then that's about the only thing they can do. however, where are they going to draw the line? because so many of them are bang-bang type plays, maybe the player didn't mean to do it.

and then, take someone like rodney harrison. you start out suspending him 1 game for the 1st infraction. 2 games for the 2nd and on and on. pretty soon, the guy is going to be suspended for an entire year................ does the league really want a large chunk of it's big defensive stars not playing week after week?

 

If they do this it should only be on the blatant H2H hits... all tackles do not go perfect. All H2H's are not intentional.

 

no but at the same time the league doesn't want a chunk it's offensive players out for weeks at a time either.

maybe the issue could be helped by widening the field ? no, that may result in some teams needing to eliminting some seats.

 

I'm not going to hold my breath on that happening any time soon.

 

If you have 16 H2H incidents then you should probably forfeit more than a season - I'd say make the suspensions grow exponentially to a point (ie.1 game, 2 game, 4 game, the season - or something like that).
But like SoDev says it'll be tough to tell what's intentional and what's unfortunate - that having been said it doesn't matter whether a face mask is intentional and the Brady rule is still in play even if the defender is blocked near the QBs knees....

 

there is really nothing the league can do in modifying equipment or the playing field, etc to fix this. the players that do this (on purpose) are simply doing it for intimidation purposes. They want to be known as a bad butt and instill fear in their current opponent and future opponents................. and it WORKS ............ receivers and running backs watch film. they know who will take their head off. and it helps create dropped passes and players dropping to the ground instead of trying to grind out some extra yards with the ball.

how many rings do rodney harrison, bill romanowski, Hines Ward, and Jack Tatum have?

 

widening the field would help quite a bit but it won't happen. it's a violent sport. flag the guys that do it and after review if it proves to be deliberate deal with it on a case by case basis and suspend the player.

 

GTFO with the widening the field BS. The offense has it easy enough already.

 

Didn't they say a couple maybe three years ago that any helmet-to helmet contact, intentional or otherwise, would result in immediate suspension? Whatever happened to that?

 

Widening the field?? Check out one of those" Mickey Mouse" CFL games. Yes something needs to be done, I would certainly think that helmet to helmet contact could be looked at as a case by case type of thing until some new rules/verbage can be introduced.

 

Don't eject the guy. Look at the replays after the game and then make a judgement.

 

Yea please don't do that. The refs sucks bad enough as it is. Don't need bad call ejections too.

 

so your counter to the field idea is to bring up a league that sucks because of the lack of talent ?

 

After seeing the hits, the only one who for sure should get suspended is Meriweather. Harrison's first hit was iffy, and his second one was on a defenseless reciever, he should be considered for a suspension.

 

I wouldn't mind players who purposely lead with the helmet getting suspended, but I think a lot of them aren't doing it on purpose. I would only want it if they can tell it was blatantly obvious.

 

And that's the big question. Can they tell?

 

The first one was on the ball carry, it's perfectly legal. A ball carrier is fair game, the 2nd one is bad because he launched himself at the "defenseless" receiver. I personally think it's a stupid rule because you're supposed to let the receiver catch the ball and get prepared for a hit? Cmon lol, that's the rule though. He won't be suspended.

 

1st hit was legal the way the rule is written, but he still led with his helmet. They are taught to tackle with their head up for a reason. The second one will draw a pretty big fine, but you're right, he won't be suspended. The only reason people are all upset this week is because there were a bunch of these hits spread over several different games yesterday. If anybody does get suspended, it would be Harrison because of 2 hits (both leading with the helmet) in the same game, plus the Vince Young tackle earlier this year, but I doubt it will happen.

 

I'd question they can in some incidents. It's a judgement call a lot of times, especially on ball carriers lowering their helmets, and not running straight up. A little easier on receivers, but even some of those are not intentional. Being the new NFL is trying to take violence out of the gamee, I'm sure this issue will be passed on the suspensions.