Feature Story

Over the years football safety has been becoming more of an issue with players’ condition and being able to play, between late hits, helmet to helmet tackles and everything in between. After the 2011 season the NFL put the sport on lockout, one of the reasons was for the safety of the game the other was to discuss player salary. No player was allowed to play or step foot into their stadium or they would be fined. Doing this allowed the NFL to come up with new rules so the safety of the sport would increase. It took up all of the summer and training camp on its way to postponing the season. The college players that were going to be in the NFL draft had to wait for the lockout to end; they could not run their drills to be tested for other teams to scout and then pick. As for the players already being in the NFL for a while, they missed out on their warm ups and training camp to reduce injuries. A lot of players went out in preseason due to injuries because of the lack of training. ACLs were torn, a few players snapped their Achilles, and still this late in the season the injuries are stacking up more and more.     
One of the rookies would have been Ryan Williams, a running back for the Arizona Cardinals. Williams suffered a right knee injury early in the season and will miss the whole season, mostly because of the lockout and not being able to train, http://search.espn.go.com/ryan-williams/.       

Rodney Harrison is a secondary player for the New England Patriots. He suffered a broken right scapula a few seasons back putting his career to a possible end, http://search.espn.go.com/harrison-s-injury/. It is football, people are going to get hurt, but with the lockout happening players are recovering from injures longer than normal because they could not train. The point is without being able to prepare a month before preseason by training and stretching, the safety of the sport goes down cause of injuries and the recovery times will be longer.

            The owners and players did a pretty good job on coming up with agreements for this upcoming season. The NFL did this by improving the safety of the sport by only hitting players that can defend themselves to reduce injuries. Any player that abuses the rules and continues to play dirty will be fined.                    
 A defensive tackle for the Lions, Ndamukong Suh was fined two times in the 2011 season for playing dirty. This year he has been fined once with the stomp on the Packers player on thanksgiving. Suh is also facing a two game suspension because it is his third time being fined in his two year career, but he also spoke with Rodger Goodell, one of the commissioners of the NFL before that. The refs have also had a few new rules for themselves, for instance, any hit that is not clean, such as anything out of the “strike zone” gets a flag. This year there were a few perfect hits in the “strike zone”, which is located in the middle of your chest that were called flags, for unnecessary roughness or a personal foul. Journalists for espn had asked the refs what they thought about having to call those plays penalties. The refs replied, “We hate it because some are clean hits that we are calling fouls, but with the new rules from upstairs we have no choice.”

The game goes both ways, people want contact that is what football is made of and mostly why we watch. In a way the NFL is taking the best part of the game away and that is the contact just to protect players. Is it something fans are going to make a big deal about, no, because they are happy to have football this season. It is something for the owners of the league to look into by letting these hits be allowed, along with keeping the other rules they came up with during the lockout.

            With all the changes to the NFL what is going on with college and high school football? Are they changing their rules also to protect players as well? A High School in southern Arizona did take action to protect their students. Any injury that a player suffers has to sit out until it heals or be cleared by a doctor with a doctor’s note. They also have to take it easy with their tackles not hitting in places that could cause serious injuries. The school felt that these are student joining a school activity; the students are not professionals or college players going on to become professionals so there is no reason for them to play like that.            

With that said I interviewed the head coach to get his thoughts about the NFL changing their rules, and if it has impacted the way he coaches with the high school’s rules. Jonathon Steelflex is the name I have applied to avoid using his real name for personal reasons. Jonathon Steelflex, is a former NFL player; he played for the Huston Oilers who are now the Tennessee Titans. He is about six feet tall and weighs about two-hundred and eighty pounds. At practice while we are stretching, taking water breaks or on a knee in a circle about to go home he will joke around with his players making them feel as comfortable as possible, but letting them know they could win games if they play as a team. By doing this he allows his players to understand it is a learning process to become better and to have fun, not just going out there and playing. His career ended with a knee injury after taking too many tackles to the legs. Since retiring he became a weight training and P.E teacher as well as a football coach. The team’s winning percentage is not good because the school does not have any good players. Having played for him you see that he does not care about winning or losing.

He is out there to coach and have fun with us not to win or lose, but to teach and make players abilities improve. Will the players’ abilities improve a whole lot, no, but they will be better than before they started. “I do believe it did have an impact on the way I coach, it went from calling plays to watching how and where my players tackle.” I had followed that question up with another trying to figure out if the game is the same or if it has in fact become too careful. “Football will always be football no matter how careful we have to be, if we need to watch our tackles and other issues so be it.” My final question for Steelflex was how different is your life after having to retire from the NFL due to an injury? “It has not changed much I look at it as a step forward; I went from playing to getting to that point in my career where you need to call it quits and coach.” Steelflex enjoys his time coaching, but does he wish he could still play or played longer. “Yeah I do I am a football player, you can take the player out of the game, but you cannot take the game out of the player.” He is a coach that coaches with pride; football is his second home and his life.

            The NFL is an inspiration to young players giving them hope that they can be great or be like their idol. Every business has their ups and downs. The NFL’s downside is their new rules they could have improved the safety issues without changing everything else. They had changed the kickoff spot to be five yards closer this way players wouldn’t get hurt running into each other at a sprint from thirty yards. There was no need to change the spot of the kickoff because there will not be that many returns, mostly touchbacks. The NFL also has every scoring play be reviewed; this takes away from the red zone challenges, now coaches can only challenge turnovers nothing scoring. This takes away from the game America has loved over the years. It could be the reason why young players stop playing because it gets boring or the players lose their love for the game. I interviewed a few players from when I played and some that played after I graduated. I wanted to find out if they would still play after high school. “I will continue to play as long as I am in high school, I will not play after that” said Juan Cruz a sophomore at Rio Rico High School. I asked another player named Jose Fuentes if he feels safe playing. “I feel pretty safe playing at practice we take it easy so nobody gets injured, during games I am a little more nervous, but feel I will not get injured.” Another player that goes by the name Yepiz said “I will no longer play because of my injury.” When Yepiz was at practice he had recovered a fumble, instead of staying down he decided to get up and run. After Yepiz decided to do that he was hit by multiple people, which caused him to stretch his leg further away from his body tearing his ACL. I asked Jack McDonald if he will play college or if he will end his journey at high school. “I would like to play college, but there is a good chance I won’t. College is where I need to focus on school not sports because school is my future, sports would be too risky.”

            After getting the players views on the situation I decided to talk to some of the parents. Parents see things that their children and other players do not see, even though the players feel comfortable they might be missing something the parents see while they play. Some of the things are how player’s bodies are when they tackle, if their head is up, or if it’s to tell them what direction a player keeps running that the team doesn’t realize. I met with John Michaels to see if he feels comfortable enough to let his child play knowing the risks with the safety issues. “I will continue to let my kid play whether I feel comfortable or not, it is not fair to him that the game is not as safe as we would want it.” Michaels will let his child play, but what about Gina Macintyre a parent of another player on Michaels’s child’s team. “I feel that my child is not cautious enough he just plays without knowing how to avoid an injury” Macintyre replied. Her statement is another reason why football safety needs to be improved. These high school and college players do not have the trainers the NFL has. Every injury needs to be taken cared of which means hospital visits if necessary. The NFL has the ability to pay for their players’ injuries while college and high school players have to pay with their money or their parents’ money.

            I am not in favor with some of the new rules the NFL had come up with. Those being the kickoff spot because kickoffs will not be run out due to how far into the end zone the player will catch the ball. Another one is that every scoring play is reviewed because the coaches have challenge flags, if they want a score to be reviewed then they will challenge. That changes the outcome of games, because if coaches thought it was too close to challenge they would hold on to the flag now the new rule has it to where they can keep their flag and still get the call. The last rule I do not agree with his perfectly placed hits, meaning hits that land in the strike zone. Over the years these plays were not being called fouls because they were clean. The new rule has it that these hits are too rough, but there is nothing wrong with them. The players even hate this rule because it affects the way they play.

           

                                                                          
 In conclusion, the NFL has done a good job with improving the safety of the sport, there will be players and fans that do not agree, but we have football this season. As for high school players they look up to the NFL. With rules being changed or how the game is now being played could be the reason why students stop playing.