I wonder how much of the safety issue has to do with the size of the players today compared to yesteryear. This offseason as I've said before, I've been watching a lot of football from the various decades available on YouTube to see the differences in tackling, hitting, and blocking.
But tonight, watching a game from 1981, I noticed that the two teams in this game don't seem to have a guy over 200 pounds, whereas today it seems that even high school teams have offensive and defensive lines averaging over 300 pounds. Even the linemen in this matchup have skinny toothpick legs.
Force= mass X acceleration. I wonder how much has to do with the size of the players. Curious to hear your thoughts.