In an effort to further educate anyone/everyone about the new helmet rules, the NFL has published a fact sheet. Apart from the fact that the fact sheet does nothing to eradicate fears of a flag- or fine-fest ("[v]iolations of the rule will be easier to see and officiate when they occur in open space – as opposed to close line play – but this rule applies anywhere on the field at any time”), the fact sheet says nothing about the other new helmet rule. You know, the new helmet rule no one ever talks about.
The other new helmet rule appears within the specific forms of unnecessary roughness, prohibiting ramming, spearing, or butting with any portion of the helmet. The 2018 rulebook removes the terms “violently and unnecessarily,” extending the ban to all ramming, spearing, or butting -- with the exception of incidental helmet contact that occurs during conventional blocking or tackling.
The fact sheet doesn’t address this rule at all, providing no guidance of any kind to players and coaches regarding a rule that presumably applies as written, but that will be enforced however the league decides to enforce it, possibly with a standard that shifts and changes from week to week, with no real certainty or predictability as to what the rule really is.
The full scope of the league’s handling of these issues during the 2018 offseason suggests that someone(s) within 345 Park Avenue has become determined to reconfigure the rules to allow the helmet to be removed from the game, in order to fend off the existential threat posed by parents not letting their children play football. If so, the new helmet rules eventually will be applied broadly toward the end of ensuring that any effort to use the helmet directly or indirectly as a weapon exits the game for good.
If that’s the objective, that’s fine. But the NFL should be honest and transparent about what these rules mean, and what they will do to the game.
For now, however, no one knows what will happen. No one knows how the rules will be applied. And once flags start flying for things that have been part of football for as long as football has been played, coaches will be forced to adapt to the new rules or face the periodic, random, and arbitrary loss of 15 yards of field position.
Whatever the final outcome, it shouldn’t be this way. Everyone should know not only what the new rules say but also how they’ll be enforced before they’re ever enforced. So either the NFL has concocted a system of rules that entails no one knowing what the really rules are (which is bad) or the NFL knows that these rules will be broadly and literally enforced and applied, but has decided to conceal that fact (which is worse).
Either way, this is no way for a multi-billion-dollar business to handle its business.
