Hard Hitting Players Hit Hard By Rule Enforcement

by Chris O'Toole

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — One of America’s favorite pastimes may have begun its decline and, surprisingly, it isn’t the lethargically-paced game of baseball.

Like Grand Theft Auto did for video games, brutality displayed by players like Steelers linebacker James Harrison is causing the American media to postulate that football has become too violent. Other sports writers, like ESPN's Rick Reilly, suggest that football has always been too violent and a shroud has just now been lifted, as though these concussing hits ironically led to clarity.

Harrison was fined $75,000 by the National Football League, specifically for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Cleveland Browns receiver, Mohamed Massaquoi. But he was just one of several players fined for dangerous hits that week; among others were Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson and Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather.

The next few weeks in the NFL were a receivers’ heyday as defensive players avoided harsh tackling and offensive weapons, like Kansas City’s Dwayne Bowe, were able to brush off the cautious wraparound arm tackles for easy touchdowns.

This issue was significant in the NFL, but it could have even more significance for college athletes. The violence could cause parents, like Eileen Sienkiewicz, to dissuade their children from entering the NFL and even collegiate sports if the trend of soft tackling does not persist.

“I worry about Michael’s safety a lot on the field," said Sienkiewicz, who is a CSU alumna and sees the danger firsthand at her 12-year-old son’s football games. “Those kids are huge.”

However, it's also possible that some athletes, like former CSU linebacker Rich Morean, would choose jobs over football if they can’t play the game with some degree of physicality.

“It’s brutal, but it’s part of the game,” said Morean. “You know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Although the NFL is making a valiant stride towards improving player safety, the specter of hypocrisy still looms over football. After all, the NFL and NCAA generate billions of dollars in revenue off of violence and the promotion of huge hits.

“These (players) have spent their entire careers being taught, ‘If anyone goes over the middle, you deck them’ and being glorified on segments like ‘Jacked Up’ -- in which multiple announcers cackled in delight during a weekly montage of players getting laid out with hard hits,” said ESPN columnist Bill Simmons.

Worsening the situation was the fact that NFL.com was selling a poster of Harrison’s hit on Massaquoi at the time of the announcement of his fine.

The hypocrisy of demanding change is not just the NFL’s, however. It’s football at every level, including Colorado State’s. Students don shirts with “RAM U” emblazoned across the front. Hulking linebackers flex their muscles behind posters with the words “Defend the Fort”. Crowds erupt after devastating tackles. Collegiate football may not be glorifying violence, but it accepts it for the very least.

Then again, perhaps it’s not hypocrisy for the culture of football to change. Malcolm Gladwell, a famed New Yorker columnist, believes that an issue must get really ugly before it gets exposure, like Michael Vick's dog fighting scandal.

Gladwell cited the example of Kyle Turley, former All-Pro offensive tackle, whose collapse in a bar was linked to football-related brain injuries.

“One wonders whether, had he (Commissioner Goodell) spent as much time talking to Kyle Turley as he did to Michael Vick, he’d start to have similar doubts about his own sport,” Gladwell said.

Time will tell if the precautions of the NFL seep down to the collegiate level, but it’s time that could cost student-athletes their post-football livelihoods.