Slapping a finger against a helmet is the paper cut of the football world. Of all the dangers in this world, it’s embarrassing to slice open your hand on a piece of paper. Likewise, in a sport where bodies are flying around at top speed on every play, it seems improbable for an injury to occur as a result of the helmet, something designed to eliminate injuries. This happened when Ryan Fitzpatrick, quarterback for the New York Jets, had to leave the game this weekend due to a hand injury caused by a helmet.
If you put more thought into it, though, it is not all that hard to believe. Helmets and facemasks are the hardest things in the field of play, harder than even J.J. Watt’s biceps, and much more so than a knee ligament or a neck bone, so why wouldn’t they be the source of some injuries?
Growing up playing football, the first thing I learned about tackling was to keep my head up. The second thing was to get my head across the chest of the person I was tackling. These two age-old maxims always seemed to conflict with one another to me. It is hard enough to bring down a running back, but now I have to keep my head up while also literally sticking my neck out between the guy running full speed at me and the end zone?
The very nature of tackling takes the helmet, a supposed safety measure, and turns it into a weapon for defensive players. Just ask Gamecock legend Marcus Lattimore, whose career-ending injury was caused by a defensive back diving helmet-first into Lattimore’s knee.
I have loved, played and followed football my whole life, but I can see the writing on the wall. Every week it seems like more college and professional stars are having their seasons or careers cut short by injuries. This week was particularly rough for the NFL as it lost several stars, and ended with an exclamation mark as Ricardo Lockette of the Seattle Seahawks had to be carted off the field with a neck injury while playing against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night.
That particular play was not illegal, although there was an illegal blindside hit penalty called, but replay showed that Lockette saw the hit coming and had time to prepare himself for the blow. Even after all the rule changes and safety measures implemented in recent years, legal hits are still causing players to have surgery on the vertebrae in their neck. Maybe it’s time to stop examining the rules and take a look at the equipment.
It’s not quite a “chicken or the egg” situation since concussions have been around since before the NFL began requiring helmets in 1943, but I do wonder how the number of concussions has grown since the debut of the hard, plastic helmet. Helmets of some kind are a necessity on the gridiron, but I am not sold on the style of helmets that are worn today.
While researchers develop new and improved helmets, there is one change I would make. Organized tackle football in full pads should be outlawed until players are in the sixth grade. This would help cut down on childhood concussions, which can make players more susceptible to concussions later in life, and allow them to learn proper techniques before they try to bring down an offensive player.
With the emphasis on safety increasing by the day, football as we know it could be on the way out. I hope that measures will be taken soon to protect the game so that I can spend my fall weekends being lazy and watching football for the rest of my life.