ORLANDO, Fla. — One day after the NFL passed a rule to prevent players from leading with their helmets, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell explained the decision.
“Our focus is how to take the head out of the game and make sure that we’re using the helmet as protection, and it’s not being used as a weapon, and that’s the core of what we’re focused on, and I think we made a tremendous amount of progress in that this week,” Goodell said on the final day of the NFL meetings.
Many current and former players spoke out against the rule after it was announced on Tuesday. The rule will penalize a player for lowering his head and leading with the crown of his helmet to initiate any contact with an opponent. The offending player will be penalized 15 yards and could be ejected from the game. Officials can use replay to determine whether a player should be thrown out.
“Can’t believe how ridiculous this lowering of the head thing is,” former Seattle and Denver linebacker and current Seahawks analyst David Wyman told ESPN. “Go back and watch any game and you will see probably 30 to 50 examples of guys lowering their head on contact. A f––king mess. Why does the NFL want to self-destruct?”
The NFL ostensibly wants to make the game safer, for the players and the owners. But in doing so, some defensive players believe it’s losing the essence of the sport.
“I don’t know how you’re going to play the game,” Redskins cornerback Josh Norman told USA Today. “If your helmet comes in contact? How are you going to avoid that if you’re in the trenches and hit a running back, facemask to facemask and accidentally graze the helmet? It’s obviously going to happen. So, I don’t know even what that definition looks like.”
Whether a player led with his helmet likely will be included in replay reviews for officials, though that hasn’t been decided yet.
“It’s ridiculous,” 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman told USA Today. “Like telling a driver if you touch the lane lines, you’re getting a ticket. [It’s] gonna lead to more lower-extremity injuries.”
“Everyone’s enthusiastically behind this and in support of this,” Goodell said. “We understand that the players still are. … They haven’t yet seen all the data that we have and they haven’t seen exactly how we’re going to approach this. But I’m confident in the next few months, we’ll be able to do that. They’ll understand, and our game will be in a much better place for it.”
Goodell pointed out that coaches were involved in the passing of the rule.
“I think it was [Patriots] coach [Bill] Belichick who first raised it, but if we’re able to have replay to confirm when there’s one of these fouls that we think should be removed from the game and that also confirms whether someone should be ejected, I think there’s a great deal of more confidence among the coaches that it’ll be done consistently and fairly,” he said. “And I think it also gives the officials more confidence to be able to make those judgments because they know there will be some type of video input in that. I actually think that the coaches and the clubs and our officials all collectively feel that that is an appropriate thing to do. And it is the first time we’ve used replay for safety and I think that’s a positive thing. As [Competition Committee chairman] Rich [McKay] said, it’s the first time we’ve used replay in respect to any kind of a foul, but we think that’s warranted for safety-related issues.”
Goodell also was asked about what discussions owners had regarding players standing for the national anthem.
“The real focus of the meeting on the social justice was passing, which we did unanimously, the last piece of our program that we worked out with the Players’ Coalition, which was to create a platform to address the issues which the players had raised, that they’re passionate about. And the ownership wanted to support them,” Goodell said. “That was the vast majority of our conversation over the last couple days. There was some discussion on the anthem but only in the context of ‘Is this the platform in which to help the players address these issues in their communities and make sure we’re in a better place?’ ”