Can we really prevent helmet-to-helmet contact?

[ZebraDan]

I know this topic is a hot one lately. More flags -- harsher penalties? Will it even matter since it's after the fact?

My new blog post digs deeper: http://nicecallref.com/can-we-really-prevent-helmet-to-helmet-contac

Really want your comments on the specific "how" solutions.

[Osric Pureheart]

Take the helmets away.  Players would very quickly stop tackling with their heads if doing so knocked them silly every time.

Of course there's no way in hell that it'll never happen; but as long as players are able to hit with their heads and not feel pain, they'll keep hitting with their heads...

[lawdog]

its really a coaching and sports highlight show deal.  They need to coach form tackling rather than trying to blow up a guy and the ESPN's of the world need to drop "jacked up" from their highlights.  This garbage isn't football anyway.  You see very poor tackling at the major levels now because this has replaced it.  We can slow it down and limit it, but it has to be taught right from the start or it won't go away.

[Etref]

I agree that helmet contact is driven by television but it is taught by coaches. Always has been. I remember the drills I did in Junior High in the 60's. "Stick your head in his chest"

No wonder I have neck problems today................

[KB]

OTOH, I've seen some very good "dambuster" tackles this year, putting the shoulder right where it counts, decleating the runner, and both guys getting up without serious injury, although a little shaky

It IS possible to score a devastating (jarring the ball loose, knock the wind out) hit without going high.

And there is a difference between "put your head in his chest" and "put your facemask on the numbers".
The first breaks your neck, the second lets you see what you hit.

[LarryW60]

Putting your "facemask on the numbers" is face tackling and will garner some yellow laundry.  They need to use the shoulders, not the skull when tackling.

[AlUpstateNY]

When the penalties for Spearing, Face tackling and Butt Blocking were added to the list, the comentary at the time suggested that during the discussion and debate that produced those penalties, an alternate suggestion, that obviously was not accepted but was considered, was to simply remove facemasks from helmets.

Perhaps that approach should get additional consideration, as it would undoubtedly be persuasive in motivating players to avoid contact with the head.

[LarryW60]

That option was obviously dropped the first time someone brought up what someone's face looks like after they've taken a cleated shoe in the mouth.

[cincybearcat]

I can't believe that taking away helmets or face-masks really get brought up.  You are supposed to ADVANCE safety equipment...not regress.  Should they stop taking away batters helmets in baseball so pitchers stop pitching up and in?  Should the take away all of the safety advancements in auto racing so the NASCAR drivers stop bumping eachother?  I think the NFL is doing the right thing by trying to set an example and emphasize the hits to the head of defenseless players.  If they clean it up, hopfully that trickles down to our level.

[AlUpstateNY]

I can't believe that taking away helmets or face-masks really get brought up.  You are supposed to ADVANCE safety equipment...not regress. 

What you believe is totally immaterial.  At the time, that option was given serious consideration and if you pause to think about it, you might see the possibility where removing protection for the face might be a very persuasive tool in motivating players to revert to techniques that concentrated on using the head as little as possible, which was the case before facemasks.

[Osric Pureheart]

Should they stop taking away batters helmets in baseball so pitchers stop pitching up and in?

In this situation, the pitcher is the person in control of the contact; but he will never be hurt by his own mistake that results in the ball bouncing off someone else's head.

(He may of course be hurt by the batter and all his very good friends when they charge the mound, but that's a seperate kettle of fish...)

Should the take away all of the safety advancements in auto racing so the NASCAR drivers stop bumping eachother?

No racing driver can ever consider himself in complete control of a situation.  A driver can put in an hour of trouble-free racing and then, through no fault of his own, have a mechanical failure on his car, or get caught up in someone else's accident, and suffer fatal injury.

The football player making a tackle compares to neither of them; he should have complete control over his tackling form, and if he were to tackle head-first without a helmet, there would be immediate pain for him as a result of that mistake, which would provide a very pressing incentive not to tackle like that again.

[Diablo]

I agree that helmet contact is driven by television but it is taught by coaches. Always has been. I remember the drills I did in Junior High in the 60's. "Stick your head in his chest"

Perhaps there should be more money and time spent teaching Pee Wee and Pop Warner coaches safe tackling technique. 

I Imagine a significant amount college and NFL players may be instinctively using the "helmet down" technique.  Afterall, that was probably how they were taught from day one. It may be second nature to them now, which could explain why we are still seeing so much helment-first contact.

Most college and high school coaches may (?) be discouraging "helmet down" contact when they see it in their practices.  They have been the principle target of the recent blitz of condemnation.  But today's PW coaches are probably teaching what they were taught a generation ago.  Safe tackling should be taught before the players become ingrained with the unsafe technique.   

[Grant - AR]

Speaking of...

JoePa didn't wear a facemask. He doesn't think today's players should, either

By Matt Hinton

The NFL is upping the ante yet again on helmet-to-helmet hits and other vicious collisions, promising even more aggressive fines and suspensions in the wake of a particularly violent weekend. The NCAA has been concerned with the same problem lately, led by the Big Ten.

And if it's really serious about it, Joe Paterno has an idea from his own playing days at Brown, right after the war (Second World, that is, not Civil). If you want players to stop leading with their heads, Paterno told reporters during Tuesday's Big Ten conference call, lose the facemasks already:

    "I've been saying for years, we should get rid of the facemask. ... It's a weapon, guys are fearless."

Predictably, the whippersnappers in the ranks – namely 35-year-old Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who opted for maximum coverage as an All-American linebacker in the mid-'90s – aren't so enthusiastic about the idea. But more than a few people who actually study head injuries aren't so dismissive: As the Wall Street Journal reported last year, the growing research on the long-term effects of repeated head shots, even when helmets are involved, have led some experts to conclude that the protection does more harm than good by making head-cracking too routine. Troy Aikman is down with that, and he knows from head injuries.

Of course, helmets were introduced largely to combat the "boy-killing, man-mutilating" violence that nearly got the game banned outright at the turn of the 20th Century. The facemask wasn't standard until the mid-'50s, well after the end of JoePa's career at Brown and into his tenure as a young assistant at Penn State. You can play football without a facemask.

While we're at it, Paterno would also like to know whatever happened to those canary dishes, the Andrews Sisters? Used to be a Joe could always get togged to the bricks for a jolly up in this town, even if he was a cement mixer. But these days, every night's in the cave with a platter and a glass of dog soup, patting his alderman like some wheat lunger.

[cincybearcat]

We are talking basically about one play in football where the helmet is a problem (leading w/ helmet trying to punish), by saying remove the helmets and/or facemask, aren't we ignoring all the other plays in football where the helmet is a good thing?  What about on a kickoff where you've go a blocker and a kid trying to go after the ball carrier colliding at a very high rate of speed?  You think their helmets might collide?  What would that look like w/o a helmet or facemask?  How about a kid getting a cleat in the face or eye?  What about a kid hitting a player with his shoulder or forearm to the head?  Many of the illegal plays we are seeing now aren't even helmet to helmet (like all of the talking heads on ESPN are saying), they are shoulder to helmet (still illegal of course).

We need to legislate, officiate, and coach that one play out of the game.  Now...can someone smarter than me come up with a better/safer helmet?  One that is still protective to the wearer, but maybe has some soft foam on the outside that would make it less punishing to the hittee?  Maybe.

[fencewire]

Like this?

[Osric Pureheart]

I remember reading a rather good book a while ago by the guy who really gave this concussion bandwagon a good shove.

http://www.amazon.com/Head-Games-Footballs-Concussion-Leagues/dp/1597630136/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287697377&sr=8-2

Out of print, but not too difficult to find.  One of the chapters discussed the role of helmet manufacturers, and has a very interesting section on a two-part helmet prototype that came along in the early 90s.  There was a huge outer shell that looked like a plastic diving bell with a window in the front and everything, and then the player wore a soft skullcap inside that.  It looked like peripheral vision should disappear, but it worked despite looking completely counter-intuitive (and slightly ridiculous), and impact testing showed that it achieved its aim of keeping the head and neck extremely safe during heavy impacts.

Now, what then happened was that some people went away and realised "hang on a minute, we've effectively created a football player with a virtually indestructible top", and the concept was never taken any further due to fears about the level of force that a player wearing that helmet could deliver to less-protected parts of an opponent's body..

[LarryW60]

No matter HOW they build the helmet, damage to the brain is still being applied with every collision.  Dale Earnhardt Sr. died during the Daytona 500 of a brain injury and his head didn't hit ANYTHING... it just was stopped suddenly, causing his brain to slam into the inside-front of his skull.

Removing facemasks would be meaningless.  Players hit with the helmet, not the facemask.

[AlUpstateNY]

No matter HOW they build the helmet, damage to the brain is still being applied with every collision.  Dale Earnhardt Sr. died during the Daytona 500 of a brain injury and his head didn't hit ANYTHING... it just was stopped suddenly, causing his brain to slam into the inside-front of his skull.

Removing facemasks would be meaningless.  Players hit with the helmet, not the facemask.

Not that I believe for a moment that they will actually remove facemasks from helmets, but I can assure you that doing so would change the use of the head in tackling dramatically and instantaneously.

[Wettstein]

its really a coaching and sports highlight show deal.  They need to coach form tackling rather than trying to blow up a guy and the ESPN's of the world need to drop "jacked up" from their highlights.  This garbage isn't football anyway.  You see very poor tackling at the major levels now because this has replaced it.  We can slow it down and limit it, but it has to be taught right from the start or it won't go away.

Bingo!!!!  You are so right!  Tackling is what should be taught in football - not hitting.

[LarryW60]

Yeah, but if you try applying that kind of logic, no one will understand you.  Professional hockey recruits "enforcers" whose only "talent" is fighting on the ice.  Newspaper coverage of a recent game in Washington (D.C.) involved the new enforcer and guesstimates as to how many minutes into the game he would get before he threw his first punch. (It was around 5 minutes, IIRC.)

Fighting has zippy to do with the game of hockey, yet that is what gets emphasized and covered the most.  Hard hits are what get covered in the NFL because they feed the general public's "car wreck" fix.