Let me just tell you this from, from an
offensive guy's perspective from a guy that played in the
NFL, uh, the hip drop drop tackle,
I tore, I literally got injured all the time
. So I know about injuries and I, I
understand all this, but I, I just,
what do you want these guys to do is my
first reaction. Like, seriously, what do you
want these defenders to do? I mean, we're
just removing every chance from them to actually play football
. And, uh, what this is gonna lead
to is nothing, nothing, nothing pisses off guys
more than when your paychecks a little light. Ok
. So what happens is you're gonna get fined in
these games? And a nice little letter is gonna
show up in your locker on Monday and it's gonna
say fine for a hip drop tackle 7000 out of
your paycheck. And the guys are gonna sit here
and say, what do you want from us?
What do they want from us? Because we keep
talking about what they can't do and I've yet to
see a montage put together of what's expected when the
situa like sometimes football just happens and you can't do
anything. You wrap a guy up, you're,
he's a strong football player and you're trying to tackle
him and you might roll up on a little bit
and someone might get hurt. I don't, I
, I have an issue when you're making rules,
you're solving problems that didn't really need to be solved
because then there's, there's ripple effects, you know
, and you see the helmet to helmet and obviously
this is, this is all in an effort to
limit the injuries, right, to keep the guys
safer. But I never played football. But I
would imagine if you were running full speed at someone
, it's kind of hard to control the momentum as
you're trying to, you know, tackle somebody.
Could it create even different types of injuries or could
it still create injuries because you're trying to overcompensate and
, you know, make sure you're hitting a certain
target or, or something like that. That's a
great question. That is a phenomenal question and I
, I do think it will because it, we
, we, we, we watch this film in
a real, it's slowed down and it's from every
angle and that's not football. Like the average play
is three seconds. The average hit is a split
second. You don't have enough time to actually think
and process, you're just reacting off your training.
Um So what's gonna happen is, is when,
when guys it's so dangerous to be on the football
field and thinking about what you shouldn't do, you
just need to react and do what you think you
should do. So again, we're protecting offensive players
. But to your point, there's a risk to
the defensive guys too. Like what happens if,
if you don't hip drop? Like do you,
do you pull a, do you pull your core
because you're trying to avoid like, uh do,
do you, you know, dislocate your shoulder because
you're trying to avoid landing on top of them.
These are all things and also I get this because
, you know, let's use the Super Bowl,
for example, the first half of that Super Bowl
, you were thinking the same thing, right?
Like this is a boring game and the reason was
, is it was a defensive game, I as
a football fan appreciate it. But uh it was
boring. The best games we ever see when we
talk about the greatest games we see it's usually has
to do with how high scoring and back and forth
it is. So the NFL is sitting here saying
we gotta protect, you know, our offensive players
and I get that. I was watching, uh
batman begins this weekend. So, uh Bruce Wayne
has to make some tough decisions to protect the Wayne
enterprise, right? And all these people are involved
and like, they didn't understand it and they're pissed
off and you know, Alfred's giving him advice like
Mr Wayne, you gotta do this stuff and yet
Bruce Wayne had to do certain things that did anger
and frustrate other people for the betterment of the game
. So I can sympathize with the owners to say
they all know we all uh as NFL players,
you all get paid based on the revenue you can
bring in which is heavily dependent on the quarterbacks and
the star power on the offensive side of the ball
. So to that part, I get it,
but I, I just don't know, I,
at, at some point, we gotta lay this
out for the defenders on what their expectations are.
I just don't know what it is. Well,
and it's for the betterment of the game. And
you're looking in the long run, right? You're
looking at the future of that next generation of football
players here, but you know, you're getting on
social media and you're seeing the reaction from guys across
the league here. You know JJ Y, he
was very outspoken. You have DJ Reid from the
Lions. He said that they're, these roles are
getting crazy. You know, two hand tag is
better fit for this game. I mean, it's
like the, because this is a learning curve for
them, you know, their whole life, they've
been trained a certain way and then now suddenly you're
like, all right, you gotta, you gotta
change your technique here and if you don't, your
, your wallets are gonna be impacted by it.
So you can imagine there's some pushback from these players
because like you said before, what do you want
from us? Right? Like how, how do
we, how can you expect us to just change
in this way? But it is for the better
of the game and although they might not understand it
, the current players right now, it, it
is hopefully going to, you know, be that
next wave of football players and keep guys safer.
I don't know that I wanna watch it as a
fan though. I don't want with the pro bowl
is an atrocious, like it is an atrocious.
I like the big hits. I know that I
took some big shots in my career. I love
the feeling of taking a shot and standing back up
again, you know what I mean? But I
also know, look, I probably got concussed a
couple of times too.