Actions have consequences

I love football.

I've loved it for as long as I can remember. I played it in school and have watched it ever since. The best days of the year for me are football Saturdays when I watch college football from 11 a.m. til sometimes 1 a.m. the following day. I didn't used to be a big pro football fan until I started playing fantasy football 20 or so years ago and now I watch NFL football with the same intensity on Sunday that I watch college football on Saturday.

But something about the game has changed and that change is causing an inordinate number of serious injuries and deaths to current and former football players. That change has to do with football related concussions.

A concussion is defined as a disturbance in brain functions that sometimes occurs following a blow to the head. The NFL just settled a suit with its players, assuring them of long-term payments in the future for brain-related injuries. The big question is why we're seeing more concussions today, when the equipment is better than its ever been, than we were seeing when the helmets players were wearing offered little or no protection at all. Because of that, one third of American parents now say they're less likely to let their sons play football, according to a new Marist/HBO poll.

For those of us who played football, all you have to do is watch a football game today to see the difference on almost every play. When I was playing football as a defensive back and a quarterback on offense, the defense was taught to form tackle which meant wrapping up the ball carrier. Your eyes centered on his mid-section, you moved your head either to the right or left side of his waist, and you wrapped your arms around his back which would either stand him up or drive him back unless he was far stronger than you. In four years of playing defensive back, I only remember one player breaking a form tackle I had applied to him.

What we see today when we watch college football and especially pro football is almost a total lack of form tackling. These days players attempt to block the ball carrier down rather than tackling him. They do this by running into the player at full speed with the intent of accomplishing their task through brute strength. Sometimes this works but sometimes it doesn't. If a tackler doesn't hit the ball carrier solidly, the ball carrier simply bounces off and keeps running. One technique to improve the chances of this not happening is to hit the ball carrier high instead of low and that has led to a significant increase of helmet-to-helmet contacts which has conversely led to a significant increase in concussions.

I don't know if they're teaching this in junior and senior high schools across the country or not since I haven't been to a high school game since Ben Eisenhart graduated from Culbertson and went on to have a successful college career with the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Surely a good number of schools must be teaching it this way because a vast majority of college and pro players are now doing it.

Almost everybody loves a good, solid hit in football, whether you're watching or participating. That's one of the thrills that football gives that no other sport does. And it always produces an immediate crowd reaction, whether you're watching it live, at home, or at a sports bar with your friends and I like it as much as anyone else. But I don't like helmet-to-helmet hits because of the dangers they raise. We had plenty of knock-em-out hits when I played without ever coming close to the head of an opponent and there's no reason why it couldn't happen again.

Players will do what their coaches tell them to do. If coaches teach their players to tackle around the belly and wrap-up as they do, the players will do that. If the coaches teach them to be head-hunters, they'll do that too because we are what we learn.

I think any helmet-to-helmet contact should result in an immediate expulsion from the game and a second infraction an expulsion for the rest of the season. Severe and certain punishment for endangering the future health and life of another player is the only thing that will discourage this kind of behavior; behavior that if done off the field would result in an arrest and likely conviction of the offender.

Football is by far the most popular American sport. Last Monday night's pro football game, generally regarded as the worst Monday night game ever because the two teams playing had a combined 1-12 record, had a viewing audience twice the size of the baseball major league playoffs going on at the same time.

Let's not let it evolve into a blood sport.