Wait, wait, start this conversation over.
This conversation is about safety and the future it creates. The NFL has decided to regulate the way you tackle another NFL player. This conversation is about how the rules will affect the overall product we call a game. Imagine if you had to wear helmets to play golf, just in case I am on the course.
In eighteen eighty eight a college player wore ear protectors with a leather overlay for the first time, does this root have current day repercussions? The athletes are much bigger and faster than the nineteenth century dodger, that is obvious. However the sport of American football has never been a "nice" or "safe" sport to play either. Imagine the conversations a player would have in the fifties and sixties when the microphones could only pick up the crowds roar. I can assure you it was not kiddy talk, nor would it be a friendly game of golf talk. This is a contest, this game is designed to pit on team against another with aggressive mindsets and the goal of overpowering the opponent in-order to win the game.
This leads me to the meat of it all. Defensive NFL athletes are taught to tackle and in that process attempt to dislodge the ball and "put the hurt on" another player. This requires a great deal of concentration, timing and fitness. The dedication it takes to fine tune this talent is full of focus and intent. All these players lives, dad has been explaining how to show "no weakness" and consume your opponent. In the late eighties and early nineties players were running around growling "Get Mean!!". This is not tennis, this is not baseball this is not European football, this is a tough, grueling and hazardous profession to choose.
Recently the shut down of "targeting" or "taunting" a player, which is the mental part of the game, is just the beginning and this season we will see even tighter intolerance for blatant violations. The players, coaches and franchises have too look at the sport in a different light in the twenty-first century. The New Orleans Saints are the current day example of shutting down an old part of the game. This is leading the league down an uncharted road with game changing results. Imagine telling NASCAR racer they can no longer rub, bump or box another driver on the track, the sport would be like watching a constipated go-cart race, ouch.
The idealism is setting in and I don't like it. Certain entities in life should remain raw and dangerous. This sport is one of those entities. These modern day gladiators clash every late summer to early winter and Julius Caesar himself would give most of them a thumbs up. The game is on so let them play. No need for deliberation, only ultimate professionalism will win.
So in closing I say...Let them play!
S.T.P.
This leads me to the meat of it all. Defensive NFL athletes are taught to tackle and in that process attempt to dislodge the ball and "put the hurt on" another player. This requires a great deal of concentration, timing and fitness. The dedication it takes to fine tune this talent is full of focus and intent. All these players lives, dad has been explaining how to show "no weakness" and consume your opponent. In the late eighties and early nineties players were running around growling "Get Mean!!". This is not tennis, this is not baseball this is not European football, this is a tough, grueling and hazardous profession to choose.
Recently the shut down of "targeting" or "taunting" a player, which is the mental part of the game, is just the beginning and this season we will see even tighter intolerance for blatant violations. The players, coaches and franchises have too look at the sport in a different light in the twenty-first century. The New Orleans Saints are the current day example of shutting down an old part of the game. This is leading the league down an uncharted road with game changing results. Imagine telling NASCAR racer they can no longer rub, bump or box another driver on the track, the sport would be like watching a constipated go-cart race, ouch.
The idealism is setting in and I don't like it. Certain entities in life should remain raw and dangerous. This sport is one of those entities. These modern day gladiators clash every late summer to early winter and Julius Caesar himself would give most of them a thumbs up. The game is on so let them play. No need for deliberation, only ultimate professionalism will win.
So in closing I say...Let them play!
S.T.P.
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