Rules that should be changed

Finally!

Can offense players just lower their heads to get draw penalties on the defense now? I think we will see a lot of this.

Originally posted by smithgdwg:

Can offense players just lower their heads to get draw penalties on the defense now? I think we will see a lot of this.

It's risky. If the offensive player initiates the contact, they can get flagged.

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:

There is no "make adjustment" to the way you tackle. Even in a perfect form tackle the body is led by the head. The rule is idiotic And should be dismissed immediately. When you watch rugby players tackle they are still lead by their head. Will be flag football soon.

— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) August 19, 2018

every year football is getting fun to watch anymore. he's right, it will be flag football soon, and NFL will keep acting like their product is so good. baseball is more physical than football now lol

Originally posted by TheGore49er:

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:

There is no "make adjustment" to the way you tackle. Even in a perfect form tackle the body is led by the head. The rule is idiotic And should be dismissed immediately. When you watch rugby players tackle they are still lead by their head. Will be flag football soon.

— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) August 19, 2018

every year football is getting fun to watch anymore. he's right, it will be flag football soon, and NFL will keep acting like their product is so good. baseball is more physical than football now lol

It's not the game I grew up with, the threat of lawsuits has the NFL running scared. They settled for a Billion with the last lawsuit, that's peanuts. A few more years and the golden goose will be a memory. I've stated many times on the Zone if the NFL is to survive it would be in the Arena Football format. If the product is substandard the American public won't watch. You can see how out of step the NFL is if they talk expansion anytime soon.

I agree with the new rule because of one main fact, nobody should be tackling in a way where there head, face, or skull is the first thing to make contact with the object they are tackling.

It is inconsistent with the way the refs are calling it with tacklers who are making an attempt to put their head to the side with their eyes up...but I think the refs will get better at it. Let's hope that they will call egregious ones and leave the ones where the player is making an attempt to follow the rule alone.

I have already seen some very positive things with the safety of the tackle by defenders. One instance was a ball carrier was being spun around and a second tackler came flying in but not with his helmet down. The ball carrier's head hit the tackler in the chest and it turned out to be a solid hit and stop upon contact. Last year, that ball carrier would have gotten ear-holded by the tacklers facemask or crown of his helmet resulting in a concussion.

Give it some time and you will see much better body tackles. Tackling with the head is just dumb and NFL should have never gone in that direction when hard helmets were introduced into the game.

It's funny how we are complaining that it will be flag football but some of the toughest players played when there were soft helmets and players were tackling the proper way...like Rugby.

Originally posted by Joecool:
I agree with the new rule because of one main fact, nobody should be tackling in a way where there head, face, or skull is the first thing to make contact with the object they are tackling.

It is inconsistent with the way the refs are calling it with tacklers who are making an attempt to put their head to the side with their eyes up...but I think the refs will get better at it. Let's hope that they will call egregious ones and leave the ones where the player is making an attempt to follow the rule alone.

I have already seen some very positive things with the safety of the tackle by defenders. One instance was a ball carrier was being spun around and a second tackler came flying in but not with his helmet down. The ball carrier's head hit the tackler in the chest and it turned out to be a solid hit and stop upon contact. Last year, that ball carrier would have gotten ear-holded by the tacklers facemask or crown of his helmet resulting in a concussion.

Give it some time and you will see much better body tackles. Tackling with the head is just dumb and NFL should have never gone in that direction when hard helmets were introduced into the game.

It's funny how we are complaining that it will be flag football but some of the toughest players played when there were soft helmets and players were tackling the proper way...like Rugby.

tacking with your face, is the proper way to tackle. it avoids neck / head injuries for the player getting hit and the player doing the tackling. the tackle that Morset made on ST, was the perfect tackle. and thats why this game is turning into a joke. a bunch of guys who never played the game making rules for it.

Originally posted by TheGore49er:

Originally posted by Joecool:
I agree with the new rule because of one main fact, nobody should be tackling in a way where there head, face, or skull is the first thing to make contact with the object they are tackling.

It is inconsistent with the way the refs are calling it with tacklers who are making an attempt to put their head to the side with their eyes up...but I think the refs will get better at it. Let's hope that they will call egregious ones and leave the ones where the player is making an attempt to follow the rule alone.

I have already seen some very positive things with the safety of the tackle by defenders. One instance was a ball carrier was being spun around and a second tackler came flying in but not with his helmet down. The ball carrier's head hit the tackler in the chest and it turned out to be a solid hit and stop upon contact. Last year, that ball carrier would have gotten ear-holded by the tacklers facemask or crown of his helmet resulting in a concussion.

Give it some time and you will see much better body tackles. Tackling with the head is just dumb and NFL should have never gone in that direction when hard helmets were introduced into the game.

It's funny how we are complaining that it will be flag football but some of the toughest players played when there were soft helmets and players were tackling the proper way...like Rugby.

tacking with your face, is the proper way to tackle. it avoids neck / head injuries for the player getting hit and the player doing the tackling. the tackle that Morset made on ST, was the perfect tackle. and thats why this game is turning into a joke. a bunch of guys who never played the game making rules for it.

I don't know, I don't agree. Tackling with the face has only been made feasible because of the facemask. Since then, wrapping tackles have gotten worse because players started to strike with their facemask. Textbook tackle should be facemask vertical, you should lead with the facemask but as you are closing into the opponent's body, you should put your head to either side of the opponent and nail him with your chest/shoulder.

It's not very difficult: Rugby does it right. If you took away NFL players' facemasks, they would adjust easily with no issues. Problem is that the NFL players have the facemask to protect their face so they don't care of their face hits an object first...which is ridiculous.

They need to keep the ability to control the outcome of the games.

Originally posted by Joecool:

I don't know, I don't agree. Tackling with the face has only been made feasible because of the facemask. Since then, wrapping tackles have gotten worse because players started to strike with their facemask. Textbook tackle should be facemask vertical, you should lead with the facemask but as you are closing into the opponent's body, you should put your head to either side of the opponent and nail him with your chest/shoulder.

It's not very difficult: Rugby does it right. If you took away NFL players' facemasks, they would adjust easily with no issues. Problem is that the NFL players have the facemask to protect their face so they don't care of their face hits an object first...which is ridiculous.

If you look at the classic rugby tackle the head will be lowered (crown leading and face toward horizontal) especially if the tackle is below chest level. If you take a look at the video below, you'll see plenty of great examples. Even the thumbnail actually shows it perfectly. The problem lies in getting NFL referees to learn to know the difference between lowering the head to initiate contact with it and lowering the head as part of a correct tackling technique, something they aren't used to.

In my opinion, Mostert's tackle the other day was as perfect as it gets.

Originally posted by Zealot:

Originally posted by Joecool:

I don't know, I don't agree. Tackling with the face has only been made feasible because of the facemask. Since then, wrapping tackles have gotten worse because players started to strike with their facemask. Textbook tackle should be facemask vertical, you should lead with the facemask but as you are closing into the opponent's body, you should put your head to either side of the opponent and nail him with your chest/shoulder.

It's not very difficult: Rugby does it right. If you took away NFL players' facemasks, they would adjust easily with no issues. Problem is that the NFL players have the facemask to protect their face so they don't care of their face hits an object first...which is ridiculous.

If you look at the classic rugby tackle the head will be lowered (crown leading and face toward horizontal) especially if the tackle is below chest level. If you take a look at the video below, you'll see plenty of great examples. Even the thumbnail actually shows it perfectly. The problem lies in getting NFL referees to learn to know the difference between lowering the head to initiate contact with it and lowering the head as part of a correct tackling technique, something they aren't used to.

In my opinion, Mostert's tackle the other day was as perfect as it gets.

This is a big hit highlight video and most of the hits lead with the shoulder while the tackler turns his head to the side. Rarely do the rugby players lead with their face, even in this big hit highlight. NFL players are literally using the front of there faces as a battering ram. Mostert hit was clean but too many players are still doing it wrong.

I think it will be very good for the league. It will be more old school style where runners will be higher and using more stiff arms and shoulders.

I get sick and tired of these runners shooting so low that they fall down for five yards rather than trying to get big yards. They do this because of defensive players flying in head first like a spear.

We will start to see runners trying to keep runs alive more.

Originally posted by Joecool:

This is a big hit highlight video and most of the hits lead with the shoulder while the tackler turns his head to the side. Rarely do the rugby players lead with their face, even in this big hit highlight. NFL players are literally using the front of there faces as a battering ram. Mostert hit was clean but too many players are still doing it wrong.

I think it will be very good for the league. It will be more old school style where runners will be higher and using more stiff arms and shoulders.

I get sick and tired of these runners shooting so low that they fall down for five yards rather than trying to get big yards. They do this because of defensive players flying in head first like a spear.

We will start to see runners trying to keep runs alive more.

Is there some misunderstanding here?

I know rugby players don't contact with the face or head but instead use the shoulder. I'm talking about the attitude of the tacklers head at the point of contact. My understanding is that the NFL had a problem with tacklers lowering the head to use the crown of the helmet to initiate contact and that a more "rugby style" tackle would be preferred. Problem is, a textbook rugby tackle also involves lowering the head, but not to use as the point of initial contact. So, when an NFL player executes a perfect rugby style shoulder tackle, like Mostert did, he still gets penalised because the refs are told to look for tacklers lowering the helmet. They miss the fact that there was no helmet contact because the head was to the side, as in Mostert's case.

There's also nothing wrong with the choice of video. The title has no bearing on whether the contents provide examples of textbook rugby tackles, which in most cases it does and illustrate that in both forms of rugby, the crown of the tacklers head is facing horizontal at the point of contact much of the time.

Originally posted by Zealot:

Originally posted by Joecool:
This is a big hit highlight video and most of the hits lead with the shoulder while the tackler turns his head to the side. Rarely do the rugby players lead with their face, even in this big hit highlight. NFL players are literally using the front of there faces as a battering ram. Mostert hit was clean but too many players are still doing it wrong.

I think it will be very good for the league. It will be more old school style where runners will be higher and using more stiff arms and shoulders.

I get sick and tired of these runners shooting so low that they fall down for five yards rather than trying to get big yards. They do this because of defensive players flying in head first like a spear.

We will start to see runners trying to keep runs alive more.

Is there some misunderstanding here?

I know rugby players don't contact with the face or head but instead use the shoulder. I'm talking about the attitude of the tacklers head at the point of contact. My understanding is that the NFL had a problem with tacklers lowering the head to use the crown of the helmet to initiate contact and that a more "rugby style" tackle would be preferred. Problem is, a textbook rugby tackle also involves lowering the head, but not to use as the point of initial contact. So, when an NFL player executes a perfect rugby style shoulder tackle, like Mostert did, he still gets penalised because the refs are told to look for tacklers lowering the helmet. They miss the fact that there was no helmet contact because the head was to the side, as in Mostert's case.

There's also nothing wrong with the choice of video. The title has no bearing on whether the contents provide examples of textbook rugby tackles, which in most cases it does and illustrate that in both forms of rugby, the crown of the tacklers head is facing horizontal at the point of contact much of the time.

Oh no, I agree with you on that. Textbook is head down and to the side but NFL players are slowly figuring it out and refs haven't seen the textbook tackle enough to be able to differentiate using the face as a battering ram and slightly turning the head to the one side of the ball carrier.

But I am excited to see how things end up because I am a small minority who feels it will be good for the game. We will see bigger effort runs where the ball carrier isn't worried about getting a helmet to the ribs if he tries to gain those extra yards. I also think we will see more body collisions. Very similar to Rugby or old school park tackle football without pads.

I just feel the rushing plays on offense have resorted to all or nothing quick 2-4 yarders where the runner quickly goes down off balance trying to brace for collision or wide open 70 yard untouched TDs. With ball carriers not having to worry about a missle flying in at their ribs or knees, we should see more running highlights.

I have a feeling the running back is once again going to be a part of more highlight plays.