NFL - NEWS & NOTES

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/kellen-winslow-jr-stand-trial-2003-rape-010826143.html

Kellen Winslow Jr. stands trial for 2003 rape case. wow. what the hell happened to him ?

 

Neither can the pass rush. The roughing the passer rules are entirely too restrictive, and because contact from DB's has been so limited, offenses have more and more room to get rid of the ball quickly, while still picking up enough yards to move the chains consistently. The league, in every way, is favoring offense and moving more towards offensive proliferation.

 

Yeah, and I can understand the league, for purposes of safety, wanting to move away from some of those more old-school tendencies. But as you said, the very nature of what we're watching has changed, and not for the better. There is no doubt that it will always be about the cash register. It's a safe bet that the next major QB injury spurs another rule change (Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, etc).

 

Want a good look at how the rules are crippling the defense just watch the end of the Patriots Chiefs game. Breeland Speaks had Brady and let him go because he feared getting a penalty. Now one play does not make a game IMHO but the fact that you have guys giving up on a tackle because of the rules mean things have gone to far the other way.

BTW pinball scoring IMHO is not a good thing.

 

I don't go back as far as you Lyman but the league doesn't feel the same anymore. They are tailoring the game to casual fans, gamblers & fantasy football players. They want points and "entertainment" not football. I'd love if we could go back to the days when a DE was allowed to touch a QB a DB was allowed to play a guy tight and incidental contact with someone's helmet didn't net a personal foul. There has to be some sort of solution in between what we are seeing and what constitute rules that actually promote safety. (I won't get into whether or not the league cares about safety or just the perception of it...)

Add this on top of basically removing contact from practice and the quality of games has been diminished on top of the rules changing to favor offenses. Lineman don't see to have a clue what they are doing and there are not enough contact reps to actually teach them. Sound tackling is either something a guy comes into the league with, or not. These guys need to be able to hit each other to be able to develop actual pro football techniques and since they couldn't get more money out of the owners they decided to fight for easier practices.

 

well said Xinik ! it's going to shit fast.

 

So I sometimes wonder about this. Is it going to shit or is it just not the game I fell in love with? It's different but from a long term sustainability perspective is this better? It just feels more like college ball to me but that is wildly successful so is it an actual problem for the NFL?

 

They have ten billion reasons a year to believe it's not an actual problem.

 

but any sport can say that. fan money and tv deals will always win over fans who dislike certain aspects of the sport now. that doesn't take away from the issue itself - has football changed for the worse with their constant changing of the rules and protection of QBs?

 

The NFL isn't in danger of losing money. However, they are in danger of changing the game to the point where it's unrecognizable, and it'll be by their own doing. Every year we see more and more changes in the name of player safety (as was said above, we won't get into actual intent). This year, when the helmet contact rule was introduced, the league had to specifically say that it won't be applied to offensive and defensive linemen. Why? Because that would be the fundamental shift to go from football to flag football. That would be the change.

However, offensive and defensive linemen experience the most head contact of any players on the field. So, while the big hits are getting litigated in order to address perception, the trenches are going to have to be addressed at some point. And that's where we'll find out what the game will turn into.

 

Too many defensive penalties give automatic first downs. Why can’t they just march off the yardage and see where it lies with the sticks. I’m sick and tired of watching my defense get a team in third and 15 and a five yard penalty gets an automatic first.

 

agreed there. i hate that. automatic first downs should be for serious infractions. if not. give them 5 yards from the spot of the foul.

 

Maybe they should have 2 types of defensive holding. A 10-yard penalty for anything in the trenches but keep the 5-yard automatic 1st down on interfering with a receiver.

 

I keep seeing people throw Fantasy Football in there but honestly doubt it has as much to with it as people think. The reason I say that is you can pretty much go all the way back to the start of football and watch as 90% of the rule changes were to benefit the offense many coming long before the days of fantasy football.

The rules have been geared to help the team behind catch up and keep the score close because if the score is 36 to 7 in the 4th quarter lots of people are no longer watching.

 

Well, obviously the invention of the forward pass wasn't aimed at pleasing the fantasy football audience, but we're talking about different things here. There's a difference between adding to the game, and amending it to make it more competitive / etc. and limiting the defense to give the offense more room to work with.

 

Its amazing how all of a sudden the game/injuries/QB's and head trauma is getting all this attention. Its also happening under Goodell's watch... which, in my opinion, is where the blame can be placed.

The NFL thrived, grew and developed with a dichotomy of teams with great defenses and some with great offenses. The adage, "defense wins championships", must have bored the higher-ups, who have nothing other than dollar signs in their eye's and that's a shame.

 

I respectfully disagree with laying the blame at the feet of Roger Goodell. The NFL (including the owners) had no choice but to water down the game in order to fend off potential litigation issues stemming from injuries to former players sustained while playing in the NFL. They had to do something in order to show due diligence in protecting the player's safety. It can and will be argued ad infinitum whether the steps they took actually improved player safety but, had they done nothing and let the game continue without an effort to improve player safety, the lawyers would have had a field day extracting every penny from the league.

 

You make a valid point, but why cant Goodell and the owners counter the litigation threats with actually contract language. Players know full well the risk's they are taking and their getting paid millions to do so. I just feel that Goodell and the owners could get a bit more ballzy and at least slow this evolution down if not change it completely.

You wanna play football, eh? You just might get hurt/banged up/concussed and broken, but i'll pay you $6M/year to do so... wanna play?... sign here.

 

Why have people been able to win law suits vs tobacco companies even when they started smoking after the risks were known?
Why was a woman able to win $161,000 after she walked into a ladder while being to busy looking at her cell phone to see the ladder?

Also did players in the 70's, 80's and even 90's really know the risk? Did they know the complications that could result from concussions? If the NFL gets ballzy they are likely to loose. After the famous McDonalds coffee law suit one of the things mentioned was that the Lawyers for McDonalds came in cocky and it didnt sit well with the jury.