Written by Brian McPeek

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It’s nice to see the suits at the NFL home office aren’t allowing a little thing like a complete work stoppage slow down their attempts to sissify a game that’s becoming increasingly bland. While the owners and players engage in the violent blood sport of splitting a $9billion pot, the league office passed a rule moving kick-offs up to the 35-yard line in what appears to be nothing more than an attempt to actually increase the amount of time during a 3-hour NFL game where nothing happens.

I’m at a loss to understand how a $9billion pot can’t be split equitably between two parties and I’m at a loss how the NFL could believe this new kick-off rule is either good for the game or will keep its players safer. I’m not going to get into the labor stoppage because, frankly, I don’t understand enough about it other than to say both sides are so greedy it makes my stomach turn. But I have said previously that the NFL needs to take care of their own in terms of safety and in terms of benefits available to retired players.

The kick-off rule helps neither cause.

Having the football placed at the 35 yard line will cause more touchbacks without a doubt. Which means when I’m sitting through yet another TV timeout in CBS, and I’m awaiting that kick-off, that I’ll have 3 minutes of nothing going on down on the field followed by 30 more seconds of nothing going on down on the field.

Nothing in terms of meaningful football action anyway. But aside from that annoyance I’m not sure the NFL thought this thing through at all.

The only guys not getting hit on a touchback are the kick returner and the kicker. The fact there will likely be an impending touchback doesn’t mean the special teams players on each side of the scrum aren’t going to bust their asses down the field and hit each other. They will and they will.

And the other part of the rule is just as ridiculous. By making the players on the kicking team start no further back than five yards from where the ball is placed the NFL is doing what exactly? Most players are up to full speed after 10 yards. So instead of those 225lb human missiles hitting full speed at their own 40 they’ll hit ramming speed at their own 45yd line and still have a little bit more gas left in the tank to do bodily damage to someone on the return team.

Where it really gets interesting is when the kick return man does bring the ball out of the end zone or receives it short of the goal line and is able to start up field. Because the NFL also completely outlawed the forming of wedges by the return team’s blockers.

So stay with me here: you have 225lb human missiles at full speed after ten yards and with some steam still left in their legs because they have five less yards to cover, converging on a return man who’s either chosen to or is forced to return the kick, and that return man is not able to look up and see at least a wedge formation in front of him that his best interests at heart?

Conceivably the return man will also have a full head of steam by the time he reaches his 10 or 15-yard line. If I have all that math and physics correct I truly believe you’re going to see some collisions that have all the charm and impact of a car accident somewhere near the 15 or 20 yard line on most kicks that are returned.

And that’s going to benefit who exactly other than orthopedic surgeons, neurologists and the manufacturer of smelling salts?

Making matters even worse is the fact that I can’t remember (and admittedly the memory just isn’t what it used to be after my own trips to the neurologist office) the last serious injury I saw on a kickoff return. Guys get banged around and dinged and I’m sure a few have been helped to the sidelines and given a standing eight count. But I honestly do not recall a kick return that led to paralysis, death or a Joe-Theismann-like flopping limb injury as its result.

For the most part guys aren’t getting hurt when they’re covering, blocking or returning kicks. Not seriously anyway. The action is all in front of them and it’s not simply a straight-line 70-yard sprint to the football where a collision then takes place. Guys are responsible for maintaining their lanes and for moving in a controlled manner to the ball. Likewise, the return man also has the entire defense in front of him, a sanctuary of sideline to his east or west and the ability that only gifted athletes have to turn what look to be big impacts into glancing blows.

Dennis Byrd, Mike Utley and Daryl Stingley weren’t returning kicks when they were paralyzed. They suffered catastrophic injuries that resulted in paralysis when they were rushing the quarterback (Byrd), pass-blocking (Utley) or catching a football (Stingley). In fact, on ‘Fuzzy Sunday’ (aka Week 6) this past year when numerous players including the Browns Mohamed Massaquoi and Josh Cribbs were taken off the field with concussions and when DeSean Jackson looked to have been killed by Dunta Robinson of the Falcons (both players suffered concussion on the play), none of those injuries came on a kickoff return. Those injuries all occurred on carries up the middle (Cribbs) or throws over the middle.

Kick-offs are nowhere near as dangerous as the quick slant or the deep cross so why is the NFL attempting to eliminate a part of the game that’s not as dangerous as others? Why not ban slant patterns and crosses? Why not ban a running back from leaving his feet at the goal line where he not only exposes his head to linebackers leaping head first over the line of scrimmage to stop him but also risks an awkward landing that can more easily lead to serious neck injuries, spinal contusions (or worse) and concussions?

While we’re at it, the quarterback sneak seems like a dangerous play as does the dive play. Guys are going through creases or small holes in the defense head first and surprisingly enough they are getting hit in the head. Should that be outlawed as well?

A bigger issue is that almost all NFL players have played a violent game since they were 7 or 8 years old. They were treated like kings in high school and they received four year educations at some of the nation’s finest schools because they could play the game better than most. And each and every one of those kids was on a field at some point when a teammate or opposing player was injured. The NFL players know better than anyone just how violent NFL football really is. When you take some of the world’s biggest and fastest men and give them 5 yards or so of space to rev the engines and hit each other it’s hard to expect anything other than violence.

The game is violence per se. And the guys playing it weigh the rewards that go with it against the risks that accompany it and they then assume those risks.

Each and every player to a man has the opportunity to walk away from the game and settle claims, paint houses or deliver babies if they so choose. But the ones that are out there choose to play a violent game and do so of their own free will knowing that each and every snap could be their last.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with this ridiculous kick off rule. If I had to bet I'd bet against kickers suddenly turning their legs into loft wedges and expertly trying to kick a ball with more hang time to the right hash mark and down to the two yard line. I don’t doubt it will happen occasionally but I have a hard time believing kickers who will be battling the elements, nerves and the limited capacity of the human body will ever become expert at it.

So what will happen is that those kickers will kick balls 75 yards down a 65-yard field and no one on either kick team will likely be maimed, mangled or killed. A ball boy will then hand a referee a new football as the previous one is tossed about the bleachers like a beach ball at a Buffet concert and the official will spot the football at the 20-yard line.

And then, after another TV timeout, the offense and defense will line up. A quarterback like Joe Theismann will step back to throw with a guy like Mike Utley in pass protection in front of him. A defensive lineman like Dennis Byrd will churn powerful legs in an attempt to knock the shit out of anyone in front of him while a receiver like Daryl Stingley shoulder feints to the right, chops his steps and begins his slant route back toward the middle where guys like James Harrison and Jack Tatum and Dunta Robinson start to converge on the spot 5 yards away where that slant or cross is inevitably thrown.

And at some spot on the field those guys are going to meet where violence happens.

Just like every one of those guys on the field knew it would.

The NFL can't protect these big, fast and violent men from themselves. The best they can do is to help take care of them after the damage is done.

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