Dear NFL . . . Learn to Tackle

I was reading about yesterday's latest NFL injury, wherein Brown's safety T.J. Ward hit Patriot's tight end Rob Gronkowski in the knee, ending his season with ACL and MCL tears. A brutal hit, and one you hate to see no matter if you are a fan of that particular player/team or not. (Ed. note: I'm not.) Afterwards, Ward explained that he was aiming low because of the new rules against hitting players in the head. And, of course, this riled up those NFL fans out there who are looking for a good excuse to dust off their favorite "slippery slope" gripe about the new player safety measures: that, by outlawing hits to the head, we are on a short path to the NFL becoming a flag football league.

(Note to Chicken Little: The sky is not falling.)

I don't know that Ward is a dirty player. (I don't think his hit was intended to harm Gronkowski, any more than I think his comments afterwards were intentionally antagonistic. He seemed sorry and also frustrated.) Regardless, his actions and words stoke a fire that's already burning in regards to the opposition of defensive players to the new rules--most notably, Washington Redskins safety Brandon Meriweather's recent comments that he would begin to "take people's knees out" instead.

As a long-time NFL football fan, I'm growing a little sick of this either-or argument from NFL defenders (domes or knees, take your pick). Here's a novel idea: start using your heads for something other than a kill shot.

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Like most football fans, I grew up appreciating those big, bone-jarring hits that sent a message to offensive players: This is my turf, and if you step on it, prepare to get rocked. In fact, I still love those hits. I grew up a big fan of Brian Dawkins, and loved the intimidating enforcer role he played on the field. But the idea that players cannot (and are not currently) playing those roles without targeting receivers heads or knees is beyond stupid, its grimy.

The problem starts with the fact that we're a football culture that privileges hits over tackles. And, honestly, it's making the game worse at all levels. How many times must we see defenders bouncing off larger ball-carriers like Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, or Antonio Gates, because instead of performing a solid tackle (or, heaven forbid, locking the player up for a group tackle), they threw themselves carelessly at the ball-carrier in some sort of ill-considered body-check? If we compiled all the missed tackles in both college and the NFL on any given weekend, this epidemic would be stark. There's a lot of bad tackling going on, and more often than not, these "kill shot" attempts are ending in a whiff (or a penalty). That's not doing much to establish the "enforcer street cred" defenders are going for.

The second issue is the notion that a form tackle cannot also be a big hit. Consider the images of Brian Dawkins planting former-Falcons tight end Alge Crumpler (who outweighs Dawkins by 60 pounds). Or former-Eagles cornerback Sheldon Brown's famous hit on Reggie Bush.

Picture perfect tackles, each of them. Eyes up. Head to the side. Planting the receiver right in the numbers. And where are their hands? Around the ball-carrier, wrapping up. Just the way you're taught to tackle back in Pee Wee football (though much more violently).

Now contrast it to some of Meriweather's recent hits:

Almost the exact same body position, only in Meriweather's case, his eyes are down and his head is centered (rather than off to the side). He's leading with the crown of the helmet (which is a good way to end up paralyzed, FYI). And where are those hands? Tucked in front, pushing/guarding, instead of out to wrap up.

Sure, Eddie Lacy and James Starks are lowering their heads in the images above, but if Meriweather "opens" to the tackle on either of those hits, then he probably doesn't dip his head, and he doesn't get penalized. (See the Lambert video below. Eyes always up.) That's not how Meriweather, and many other defenders, are currently playing the game, though. There are a number of reasons for why that is. For one thing, it often hurts to tackle that way and bad habits die hard. Moreover, fundamental tackling doesn't get you much recognition. For the latter, the NFL bears at least part of the blame.

I don't necessarily vilify the league for not taking action sooner in regards to outlawing helmet-to-helmet hits. We know more about brain injuries now than we used to. I do blame the league for emphasizing style over substance for so many years in regards to tackling, and in the process advocating for poor defensive play. By indiscriminately and disproportionately glorifying big hits ("jacked up!") instead of those big hits that are also great hits (and, for that matter, those tackles that may not look great on a poster but win you football games), the league created a monster that it is only now dealing with in the form of concussion lawsuits filed by former players who suffer from the lasting effects of head trauma. The league also created a perception that, compared to break-down form tackling, big hits are somehow more valuable and a more effective approach to defending, suitable for any and all situations. Its an illusion they marketed to to every young linebacker and defensive back in the country who dreamed of one day playing professional ball--after all ESPN rarely shows highlights of all the big hit attempts that result in a missed tackle, those frequent and frustrating moments that leave us screaming at the television, "wrap up!"

As many defenders have said, the game moves faster than ever today, and it's easy to miscalculate--a receiver ducks his head or changes direction, and suddenly, without time to pull up, you are hitting his helmet instead of his chest. This is a valid point, and I agree that post-game fines and suspensions should focus more on maliciousness and negligence, and not incidental contact or the "defenselessness" of the receiver. But, as elite athletes, players still need to get better at adjusting their game on the fly--making better reads, better decisions, and better hits. And they need to own that responsibility.

Is that an unreasonable expectation? Perhaps. But consider this: it's unreasonable to expect that any player be perfect 100% of the time (to avoid holding, or incidentally contacting an opponent's face mask, or blocking a player in the back), and yet we still hold players to those standards without much controversy, penalizing them for the mistakes they make. That's how the game works. And, for their part, players do a remarkable job of regularly avoiding these fouls. Why should helmet-to-helmet and helmet-to-knee hits be any different?

The Monday Morning Quarterbacks out there also need to recognize that the hysteria and hyperbole over these rules and their impact on the future of the game is growing old, as well. We get it--back when you played fullback for the North Central High Fighting Nobodies, they made you walk all the way to the stadium, through two feet of snow, without shoes, uphill both ways, and afterwards they made you walk all the way back--since then, football has become nothing but a game for wusses. Great. Now shut up.

For the NFL's part, if they really wanted to encourage proper tackling, they'd take the fine money they gather for illegal hits each week, and they'd award a portion of it to a player who makes the kind of smart, sound, fundamental plays the league is looking to encourage. (My guess is, given a monetary incentive, we'd hear players singing a different tune about the "impossibility" of hitting ball-carriers in the legal strike zone.)

Regardless of how the rules are enforced, it's true that football is a dangerous sport, and that injuries will happen (including concussions resulting from helmet-to-helmet hits). It's also arguably true that NFL players understand these risks and choose to accept them. That doesn't mean we should glorify poor play (especially as its influences trickle down to lower levels of the sport). And it doesn't mean we should buy into the boneheaded argument that tackling choices are somehow limited to a high dirty hit (knock a guy's head off) or a low dirty hit (shred a guy's knees). There's about three feet of real estate in between--we call these areas the thigh, stomach, and chest, and they make up the largest target area on the human body. Great players have been aiming for that area and landing teeth-jarring tackles for close to a hundred years.  Today's defenders should aim to be part of that great tradition.

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Don't believe me? Check out the videos below.

Not counting the "suplex" at 2:40 (which was flagged for unnecessary roughness) and the incidental arm to the receiver's helmet at 3:44 (which wouldn't have been considered a penalty at that time), it's a clean collection of hits by Dawk.

Not counting the hit at 0:34 (which would be considered helmet-to-helmet by today's standards) and throwing down Cliff Harris at 2:00 (let's face it, Harris deserved it for acting like a wank), Lambert puts together a clean--albeit nasty--highlight reel, as well. And that was back in the 70s when you could pretty much do anything you wanted short of eye-gouging your opponent and setting him on fire.