Two Rule Changes Make No Sense
With league meetings ongoing in California several rules were passed, and some actually made sense. However, two of them absolutely doesn’t
The two that I am talking about are The Tom Brady rule, which prevents defensive players on the ground cannot lunge at a quarterback. Secondly, the Hines Ward rule, which prevent contact to the head on blindside blocks.
The Tom Brady incident was purely a freak accident. Of course the National Football League had its usual, “Oh crap a superstar quarterback went down. We have to make sure that doesn’t ever happen again,” moment.
As Si.com’s Ross Tucker said of the rule, “The Ward and Brady rules represent a type of re-engineering that won’t easily happen overnight.”
The fact of the matter is that defensive players are taught no matter what the situation you fight through it to make a play.
Now, players are going to have to be taught no matter what you make a play, but if you wind up on the ground you have to make sure you get up completely first.
The bigger problem is the Hines Ward rule. The reason being is that it is going to even have effects on the running game.
The effect it is going to have is that it is going to completely eliminate the art of trapping in running games.
A trap block is an offensive lineman vacates his spot on the offensive line to come down the line to block a defensive lineman who is let go to surprise him from the sides, thus making it easier to open a hole for the running back.
The problem is that there is usually helmet contact in the collision, because the instantaneous reaction from the defender to brace for the impact.
Defenders are taught all the way in high school that when you come through a line of scrimmage untouched you are going to get trapped.
Coaches then teach defensive lineman that you immediately respond by turning to meet the offensive lineman. Then you crouch down and throw your shoulder and arm into the blocker to nullify his block.
I can tell you from my own personal experience of being a defender on the Cheektowaga Warriors highschool football team that heads collide in this instance everytime.
The elimination of the trap block would make it even more harder for teams to run the ball. That would lower scoring, which would make the games boring.
If the league doesn’t respond to this, then fans will turn away from boredom and go find something else to do with their money. That means the loss of sales revenue.
If referees start calling penalties on trap blocks, like I expect, head coaches and offensive coordinators will stop calling this type of play. Thus, an art form that has been in the NFL for decades will be lost forever.