Much has been said about the NFL’s new rule against lowering the helmet to initiate contact. But less has been said about what will happen when two players both lower their helmets and run head-first into each other.
What will happen on those plays? It appears that the league is planning to call offsetting penalties on both players, if they both lower their heads and make contact with each other.
The league asked Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn to narrate a video explaining the new helmet rule. In that video, Lynn shows a play on which a ball carrier and a tackler ran into each other with both of their helmets lowered, and Lynn says he thinks that will be an offsetting penalty.
“Here’s a play with two guys,” Lynn says. “The offensive player and the defensive player. Two wrongs do not make a right. . . . This is probably offsetting, I’m not sure how they will call this to be honest with you, but it’s probably offsetting. Two guys both using the wrong technique.”
It doesn’t speak well for the NFL’s ability to explain this new rule that even the head coach whom the league asked to narrate a video about the new rule admits he isn’t sure how a play in that video will be called by the officials. But an offsetting penalty has always been the call when two players on opposing teams both commit the same foul on the same play. There’s no reason this new rule wouldn’t lead to offsetting penalties.
But it’s going to sound strange the first time it’s called: What used to be a good, hard football collision will now be a penalty on both players.