The NFL believes it’s making strides towards making the sport safer for its gamers, however Andy Reid isn’t so certain it’s progress.
The 2-time Tremendous Bowl champion coach reacted to the league’s latest rule change permitting groups to fair-catch kickoffs and spot them on the 25-yard line. Reid believes, if unchecked, a majority of these rule modifications might flip the NFL right into a “flag football” league.
“My thing is, where does it stop, right?” Reid defined to NFL Community. “We start taking pieces and we’ll see how this goes. But you don’t want to take too many pieces away, or you’ll be playing flag football.”
The rule change stems from NFL analysis exhibiting that almost all concussions happen throughout kickoffs.
“We can’t stand by and do nothing,” NFL Government Vice President of Communications, Public Affairs and Coverage mentioned. “Sitting still and continuing to do nothing was unacceptable. And I think that’s where the membership came down on this.”
The rule change relating to fair-catch kickoffs is clearly supposed to encourage groups to fair-catch. This, after all, begs the query of why they might kick the ball off in any respect in the event that they’re merely going to let groups fair-catch and take the ball on the 25. Why not simply place the ball on the 25 and have groups begin from there?
It’s exactly that logic that has Reid nervous concerning the league’s trajectory. It’s additionally not reassuring to listen to executives say, “we can’t stand by and do nothing.” Executives who really feel they should do “something” sometimes find yourself doing loads of very unhealthy “somethings” that make no matter they’re making an attempt to repair immeasurably worse.
Reid is correct to be nervous. The NFL is on a path towards banning the kickoff. And as unhealthy as that may be, it could not finish there.
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