NFL

[DMac]

ManningCast is the best football broadcast on TV. With about 2 hrs and 45 minutes of downtime in a 3 hr game (at least) they fill in that time better than anyone in the business. Highly entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xFVSEHLoLM

[Brooklyn]

Here in Lake Wobegone there has been much recent talk about concussions in NFL football. This in particular re QB Tua Tagovailoa who has been plastered in two consecutive weeks. So much talk about the game needs to be changed but nobody is offering any meaningful solution or preventive to avert serious head injuries. I suggest that there are several ways to lessen the possibility of such injuries:

1) soften the surface of the helmets by making it into a sponge/cloth surface

2) use natural grass instead of artificial turf and let it grow a couple of inches to lessen impact when tackling

3) eliminate the shoulder charge tackle as they did in NRL (Australian league rugby)

4) make the permissible tackling zone below the shoulders



These changes should be tried at amateur levels. In fact, I would eliminate the blitz in amateur ball [this would help bring back the 4 point drop goal which, after all these years, is still legal in the game]. Please recall that Coach Vince Lombardi did not believe in the blitz as your four down linemen should provide an adequate rush against the QB.

We will never be able to fully eliminate all injuries from our cherished game of football. But we can significantly reduce them. That would make for a better game.

[Brooklyn]

bill belichick - man in black:




https://patriotswire.usatoday.com/wp-co ... 600&crop=1



https://kubrick.htvapps.com/htv-prod-me ... resize=660:*



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUvbZj7W4AE ... me=900x900

[44WeWantMore]

Not a Pats fan, but an old guy with a net worth of $60M, carrying his own bags?

[Brooklyn]

Not a Pats fan, but an old guy with a net worth of $60M, carrying his own bags?

Mebbe he's packing heat:



https://imgs.classicfm.com/images/81970 ... XGP0cLDro=

[Farfromgeneva]

Here in Lake Wobegone there has been much recent talk about concussions in NFL football. This in particular re QB Tua Tagovailoa who has been plastered in two consecutive weeks. So much talk about the game needs to be changed but nobody is offering any meaningful solution or preventive to avert serious head injuries. I suggest that there are several ways to lessen the possibility of such injuries:

1) soften the surface of the helmets by making it into a sponge/cloth surface

2) use natural grass instead of artificial turf and let it grow a couple of inches to lessen impact when tackling

3) eliminate the shoulder charge tackle as they did in NRL (Australian league rugby)

4) make the permissible tackling zone below the shoulders



These changes should be tried at amateur levels. In fact, I would eliminate the blitz in amateur ball [this would help bring back the 4 point drop goal which, after all these years, is still legal in the game]. Please recall that Coach Vince Lombardi did not believe in the blitz as your four down linemen should provide an adequate rush against the QB.

We will never be able to fully eliminate all injuries from our cherished game of football. But we can significantly reduce them. That would make for a better game.

Lombardi didn’t blitz because QBs threw 6-7x per game. So much is different from prior generations it’s not possible to compare. Heck a lot of defenses don’t even bother with 4 down lineman anymore they use some variation of a 3-3-5

Natural grass will increase leg injuries absolutely. Better than CTE but your reading one set of injuries for other potentially debilitating ones so that doesn’t work. Looking into it after having a friend (former Brown Lax player) die from a CTE related fall down stairs in his 30s my understanding is the impact of the lineman in a 3/4 pt stance engaging opposite lineman and blockers repeatedly alone is enough and the helmet technology simply cannot mitigate that.

[DMac]

You absolutely can cut down on head injuries with helmet technology.
Take people's heads out of the game with this technology.

[Brooklyn]

Lombardi didn’t blitz because QBs threw 6-7x per game. So much is different from prior generations it’s not possible to compare. Heck a lot of defenses don’t even bother with 4 down lineman anymore they use some variation of a 3-3-5

Natural grass will increase leg injuries absolutely. Better than CTE but your reading one set of injuries for other potentially debilitating ones so that doesn’t work. Looking into it after having a friend (former Brown Lax player) die from a CTE related fall down stairs in his 30s my understanding is the impact of the lineman in a 3/4 pt stance engaging opposite lineman and blockers repeatedly alone is enough and the helmet technology simply cannot mitigate that.

There seems to be some confusion about passes per game. You say 6-7X. The following shows team stats:


https://www.footballdb.com/statistics/n ... lar-season



John Brodie had 391 passes that year - 14 games for an average of 28 per game.
Frank Ryan had league low 243 in 14 games for an average of 17+ per game.

These numbers do not include QBs who came off the bench in the second half. Can you show me proof that 6-7 ppg was correct?



"natural grass cause more injuries"

According to who? FIFA requires natural grass because it feels that this causes LESS leg injuries.



"helmet technology" cannot mitigate [or prevent] head CTE"


Proof please.


Rutgers university has demonstrated proof that padded helmets and safer tackling methods lessen injuries:

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/safe-tackl ... h-football



I suggest that adding soft cover could help even more. Let me explain: suppose your hand was on a table and you put a hard surface such as a wooden board on it - then, someone slams their fist on that board: you hand would hurt. Now suppose someone put a thick pillow on your hand and slammed his hand on it: your hand would not hurt as much or at all. Soft surfaces greatly reduce the impact of a punch or collision. The game of football has always led to injuries. In the old days they used leather helmets but they couldn't work as well as pillow like cover. Therefore, let's try that on helmets. Certainly can't hurt to try.

[Brooklyn]

You absolutely can cut down on head injuries with helmet technology.
Take people's heads out of the game with this technology.

Wow! What an awesome pic.

"there were no players wearing headgear when Princeton and Rutgers squared off for the first college football game in history in 1869 ... helmets were not a mandatory piece of equipment in college ball until 1939, so before that time looking across a field on game day you were likely to see a sampling of bare heads and a wide variety of “helmets.”


https://bleacherreport.com/articles/164 ... -equipment

[Farfromgeneva]

You absolutely can cut down on head injuries with helmet technology.
Take people's heads out of the game with this technology.

Actually MIke Ditka would tell you tackling is much safer in leather helmets and he was a guy who cared little for health.

More importantly the studies are based on these contemporary type 300lb OL and DL crashing into each other oaky after play you didn’t have that in the game in the 60s.

Seriously there’s research suggesting no existing technology can help folks avoid the damage to the brain. Not just my theory.

[Farfromgeneva]

Lombardi didn’t blitz because QBs threw 6-7x per game. So much is different from prior generations it’s not possible to compare. Heck a lot of defenses don’t even bother with 4 down lineman anymore they use some variation of a 3-3-5

Natural grass will increase leg injuries absolutely. Better than CTE but your reading one set of injuries for other potentially debilitating ones so that doesn’t work. Looking into it after having a friend (former Brown Lax player) die from a CTE related fall down stairs in his 30s my understanding is the impact of the lineman in a 3/4 pt stance engaging opposite lineman and blockers repeatedly alone is enough and the helmet technology simply cannot mitigate that.

There seems to be some confusion about passes per game. You say 6-7X. The following shows team stats:


https://www.footballdb.com/statistics/n ... lar-season



John Brodie had 391 passes that year - 14 games for an average of 28 per game.
Frank Ryan had league low 243 in 14 games for an average of 17+ per game.

These numbers do not include QBs who came off the bench in the second half. Can you show me proof that 6-7 ppg was correct?



"natural grass cause more injuries"

According to who? FIFA requires natural grass because it feels that this causes LESS leg injuries.



"helmet technology" cannot mitigate [or prevent] head CTE"


Proof please.


Rutgers university has demonstrated proof that padded helmets and safer tackling methods lessen injuries:

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/safe-tackl ... h-football



I suggest that adding soft cover could help even more. Let me explain: suppose your hand was on a table and you put a hard surface such as a wooden board on it - then, someone slams their fist on that board: you hand would hurt. Now suppose someone put a thick pillow on your hand and slammed his hand on it: your hand would not hurt as much or at all. Soft surfaces greatly reduce the impact of a punch or collision. The game of football has always led to injuries. In the old days they used leather helmets but they couldn't work as well as pillow like cover. Therefore, let's try that on helmets. Certainly can't hurt to try.

It’s not confusion you miss the essence of the point when defenses have dramaticly changed, approach of down lineman has changed and they’re throwing 35-50x/game now with far less rushes. What a joke.

Tell it to Ali Marpet who shared with me his retirement plans after his second concussion and consulting world class head experts on what he found.

[Farfromgeneva]

New football helmet 'could reduce head injuries' but top expert cautions it won't prevent CTE

By Alex Raskin Sports News Editor For Dailymail.com 18:17 27 Nov 2019, updated 21:03 27 Nov 2019

A newly invented elastic helmet padding could help football players and other athletes reduce their risk of brain injuries, although at least one expert remains skeptical about the material's ability to prevent the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Publishing in the medical journal, Matter, scientists from the University of California Santa Barbara, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and HRL Laboratories LLC revealed a new elastic microlattice padding, which is a porous, lightweight material that retains its effectiveness over time without deteriorating.

'Our technology could revolutionize football, batting, bicycle, and motorcycle helmets, making them better at protecting the wearer and much easier to have on your head due to the increased airflow,' says Eric Clough, a researcher at HRL Laboratories and doctoral student at the University of California Santa Barbara.


Publishing in the medical journal, Matter, scientists from the University of California Santa Barbara, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and HRL Laboratories LLC revealed a new elastic microlattice padding, which is a porous, lightweight material that retains its effectiveness over time without deteriorating
According to Eric Clough, a researcher at HRL Laboratories and doctoral student at the University of California Santa Barbara, the technology 'could revolutionize football, batting, bicycle, and motorcycle helmets'
The material's photopolymer-based microlattice resembles the Eiffel Tower's wrought-iron design and helps to reduce temperature for its users with increased air flow
As explained in the press release, the material's photopolymer-based microlattice resembles the Eiffel Tower's wrought-iron design and helps to reduce temperature for its users with increased air flow.

It also helps to make the padding more adjustable, which means engineers can use it in ways that aren't possible with traditional foam padding.

Researchers tested three variations of the microlattice material against traditional foams by simulating several impacts with a double anvil fixture using to U.S. Army Advanced Combat Helmet test specifications.

The NFL has introduced a number of rule changes and procedures to address the concussions, but Dr. Lee Goldstein cautions the only way to eliminate CTE is to reduce one's exposure to repeated head trauma
Of the three, the best performing microlattice absorbed 27 percent more energy than the most effective polystyrene foam and up to 48 percent more than the leading nitrile foam.

That particular microlattice was also 14 percent more effective than the other top variations.

'A noticeable percentage of improvement in impact absorption was something we were hoping for, but the actual numbers were better than we expected,' Clough said. 'Our testing shows that the pads work better than anything on the current market.'

And the microlattice could be on the market in the near future.

VICIS, a sports technology company that is among football's largest helmet manufacturers, has already licensed the material, and future research on the microlattice will focus on its efficacy for combat soldiers.

It's not yet known how well the material can prevent concussions. But even if it can, the microlattice is not equipped to address CTE, which has become a debilitating problem for many former football players, some of whom committed suicide as a result.

Dr. Lee Goldstein is concerned that advancing helmet technology gives a false sense of safety to young football players, who could still be exposing themselves to long-term health risks
As Lee E. Goldstein, MD, PhD, an associate professor at Boston University School of Medicine and College of Engineering told DailyMail.com, the new material 'may have an effect on concussion based on our biomechanics.'

Dr. Lee Goldstein disproved the connection between concussions and CTE in a 2018 paper published in the medical journal, BRAIN , instead finding that the neurodegenerative disease is caused by cumulative exposure to head trauma
The problem, he says, is that 'says zero about long-term consequences.'

Goldstein disproved any connection between concussions and CTE in a 2018 paper published in the medical journal, BRAIN, instead finding that the neurodegenerative disease is caused by cumulative exposure to head trauma.

In one controlled experiment, his team studied that connection by using two groups of mice: one set with some degree of concussion from repeated closed-head impacts and another group that endured similar head movements through blast exposure without suffering a concussion. (Closed-head impacts are a type of traumatic brain injury that leaves the skull intact)

The tests showed that both groups are equally susceptible to suffering CTE even though only one set of mice had a concussion or concussion-like symptoms.

So even if a helmet can eliminate concussions, there is nothing it can do to prevent CTE.

This diagram from the Boston University study shows the tell-tale head movement that can cause CTE in the brains of tackled football players or soldiers exposed to a bomb blast. Goldstein's team found the correlation between repeated head trauma and CTE by conducting a controlled experiment on two groups of mice: one set had some degree of concussion from repeated closed-head impacts and another group was exposed to similar head movements through blast exposure, but without the direct impact. (Closed-head impacts are a type of traumatic brain injury that leaves the skull intact) What the experiment showed was that both groups were equally susceptible to suffering CTE even though only one set of mice had a concussion or concussion-like symptoms
Goldstein also points out that helmets limit players' field of vision, which can ultimately expose them to more hits. 'So you're doing blinded hits,' he said. 'People put their head down, they don't even know where they're hitting'
'The type of helmet does not influence whether or not you get CTE,' he said. 'It's cumulative exposure to hits to the head. This is incontrovertible at this point.

'What's leading to CTE is what we called shearing forces that are associated with motion of the head,' Goldstein continued. 'Unless the helmet is able to neutralize the person impacted so there's no contact and no subsequent motion - and I don't know of any helmet ever made that can do that - I don't understand how a better helmet is going to prevent the injuries we see in CTE.'

WHAT IS CTE?

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease that is caused by repeated hits to the head.

Over time, these hard impacts result in confusion, depression and eventually dementia.

There has been several retired football players who have come forward with brain diseases.

They are attributing their condition to playing football and the hits they absorbed.

More than 1,800 former athletes and military veterans have pledged to donate their brains to the Concussion Legacy Foundation for CTE research.

CTE was usually associated with boxing before former NFL players began revealing their conditions.

And although he applauds any 'effort to make the game safer,' Goldstein does worry that advancements in helmet technology sends the wrong message.

'What it says to kids - who I am most concerned about here - is that if you pay more money and get a better helmet, you're now protected,' he said. 'We have no evidence to support that. By focusing on a better helmet, there is potential for false re-assurance.'

Furthermore, Goldstein also points out that helmets limit players' field of vision, which can ultimately expose them to more hits.

'So you're doing blinded hits,' he said. 'People put their head down, they don't even know where they're hitting.'

For his part, Clough has not claimed the new padding could potentially eliminate CTE, and even concedes that microlattice is not a 'magic bullet.'

'Wearers of helmets with our padding can enjoy the benefits but should never assume they are completely protected from injury or look to test the limits of the product by possibly endangering themselves unnecessarily,' he said. 'Even a great helmet can't always protect you from every injury all the time.'

The Boston University CTE center famously found signs of the disease in 110 out of 111 deceased NFL players, and as Goldstein is quick to point out, many of the deceased athletes with CTE never reported a single concussion.

[Farfromgeneva]

New helmet design can deal with sports’ twists and turns

Robert Sanders
As a neurologist, Robert Knight has seen what happens when the brain crashes around violently inside the skull. And he’s aware of the often tragic consequences.

Throughout his 40 years as an academic researcher and medical doctor, the University of California, Berkeley, professor of psychology and neuroscience has known students and friends whose lives and careers were derailed by head injuries from bicycle and car crashes. He’s held in his hands brains destroyed by accidental blows to the head.

Not surprisingly, he cringes when he imagines his young grandchildren falling off a bike and hitting their heads.

So, Knight invented a better helmet — one with more effective padding to dampen the effects of a direct hit, but more importantly, an innovative outer shell that rotates to absorb twisting forces that today’s helmets don’t protect against.

His design is flexible enough to provide protection for football and hockey players — who receive the most severe and most frequent blows to the head — as well as police, soldiers, snowboarders and anyone who wears a helmet or hard hat. And yes, cyclists, too.

Most people think that a concussion — a bruise to the brain — is the most dangerous type of trauma, but a twisting motion is just as bad, because it can tear brain fibers. While beefy linemen develop strong necks that can withstand a limited amount of torque, children and adolescents — including most high school football players — do not.

“A direct linear impact to the head certainly is not good, but in addition, there are rotational forces that twist the brain. It’s like in boxing, where one roundhouse punch comes in, the head turns, and they are out,” Knight said. “That’s because the brain is just not designed to take rotation; you end up with damage to critical connecting fibers in the brain.”

BrainGuard

Helmet model head
BrainGuard’s line includes improved helmets for baseball, cycling and hockey in addition to football. The company is developing prototypes for all sports as well as military, firefighting and construction. All incorporate a rotational shock absorber to reduce damage from torques to the head.
Courtesy Robert Knight
Eight years ago, he founded a company, BrainGuard, to develop the new helmet design and attract interest from major helmet manufacturers. So far, he and his four-person team have produced prototype football, hockey, baseball, bike, motorcycle, sports utility and snow-sport helmets.

“Because I am a neurologist, I would like to see something out there that improves the quality of life of people by diminishing traumatic brain injury and its resultant effects on the brain and emotional and cognitive and behavioral function,” said Knight, former head of UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. “That is my hope.”

UC Berkeley’s head football equipment manager, Tim Feaster, first tried on the helmet a year ago, when he was assistant equipment manager with the Oakland Raiders, and subsequently helped Knight get it onto the heads of a couple of Cal players, who liked it, Feaster said.

“I think the technology is incredibly fascinating,” he said, adding that he would “absolutely” offer the football helmet to his team once it’s certified. “I have never seen anything like it: an outer shell that moves over the inner shell was intriguing to me. It was so inventive, it made sense the way it moved. I thought they might actually have something here.”

Feaster admitted that a player’s choice of helmet — currently Cal football players can select from more than 15 styles from four manufacturers — is often more about esthetics than safety. And concussion is the main concern.

“But I am all for getting guys to at least try it, if I believe in it,” he said. “Any way that a new technology can at least limit the damage, I am all for it.”

TBI, world’s leading cause of death and disability

Helmet model head
Robert Knight, who normally studies basic brain functions like memory and treats patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, invented a new type of helmet in order to prevent brain injury from head trauma.
Credit: Stephen McNally/UC Berkeley
Knight quotes startling figures on the extent of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked 2.9 million Americans affected by TBI in 2014, primarily from falls and motor vehicle crashes. While most of the injuries were mild concussions, the total included 288,000 hospitalizations and 57,000 deaths. The World Health Organization estimates that TBI will be the leading cause of death and disability in the world this year.

Yet, these figures don’t account for many sports-related concussions that don’t result in an ER visit but force a player to sit out the rest of the game. The Brain Injury Research Institute estimates there were 135,000 sports-related concussions in individuals ages 5 to 18 between 2001 and 2005. While concussion symptoms — headache, nausea, fatigue, confusion or memory problems, sleep disturbances and mood changes — typically go away, the cumulative effect of repeated mild concussions could be grave.

“Most people think that the inside of the skull is a nice smooth container, like an eggshell, holding the precious brain,” he said. ”It’s not true. The inside of the skull is filled with all kinds of bony ridges that can be quite destructive, similar to if I hit you in the arm, and you get a bruise. But if you bruise the brain, the blood kicks off a cascade of reactions that actually kill brain cells.”

When bruising happens again and again, even without a concussion, a person can get chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition that has sparked controversy over the past decade and was the subject of the 2015 movie “Concussion”that starred Will Smith.

Especially in football linemen, CTE has led to an epidemic of early dementia, mood alterations and even suicide among retired professional players. In one study of 202 former football players whose brains were donated after death, 3 of 14, or 21 percent of those who had played only in high school, showed evidence of CTE. Of those who played football in college, 48 of 53, or 91 percent, had CTE. Of NFL (National Football League) players, 110 of 111 had CTE.

“That is the big gorilla in the room for the NFL and the NHL (National Hockey League),” Knight said.

photo of human brain with blood clots
The brain of a person who died from a brain hemorrhage after head trauma.
Courtesy Robert Knight
Yet, while contusions and blood clots in the brain are a big problem, equally damaging are the tears that occur when brain fibers are wrenched and twisted.

“The brain operates by one cell sending on its connecting fiber through an axon to signal another cell,” he said. “When you get these complex twisting and rotational forces, you get compression, tension and shearing, and you can actually mechanically damage and tear your connecting fibers.

The best helmets today, including those used by the NFL, include padding that does a decent job absorbing energy from a direct head collision and preventing the full force of the hit from reaching the brain. But they don’t account for hits that snap and rotate the head. The outer shell of Knight’s football helmet is able to rotate about an inch relative to the inside shell, which is strapped to the head; this absorbs the dangerous torque that can cause permanent brain damage. More spherical helmets, like those for bikes and snowboarders, could rotate about an inch and a half, absorbing even more rotational energy, he said.

To allow this helmet rotation, Knight places compact plastic struts between the inner and outer shell. The struts allow the outer shell to slide relative to the inner shell strapped to the head — essentially a rotational shock absorber.

Retrofitting today’s helmets

Knight and BrainGuard CTO Ram Gurumoorthy, who has a Berkeley Ph.D. in engineering, say that their design adds no extra weight or thickness to a football helmet, and that many helmet models today could be retrofitted by adding the new outer shell and struts. The design, which also includes a lighter, carbon-fiber face mask, can be adapted to any sport or recreation: climbing, off-road and all-terrain sports, as well as baseball, lacrosse, rugby and water polo, one of the most dangerous sports for concussions. The same inner shell with an interchangeable outer shell also works for industrial helmets and for firefighter and military helmets.

“The beauty of the helmet is that it is a modular platform, which means the innards — the inside attached to the head — remain the same or quite similar, and the outside shell alone can change, depending on the sport,” Knight said.

BrainGuard’s football helmet passed the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment certification process in November, which now means that Knight’s company can offer it to high school, college and professional teams once a manufacturing system is set up. It’s setting up a small manufacturing line to produce about 1,000 football helmets — enough to test the design with a few high school and college teams — and looking for investor money to pay for injection molds and manufacturing lines for bicycle, motorcycle and snow-sport helmets.

“I want to emphasize that the football helmets on the market today are effective. What we are trying to do is make them more effective,” Knight said.

Helmet testing
One standard test of helmets it to drop a weight directly on the helmet to see how it absorbs the force of a direct impact.
Credit: Stephen McNally/UC Berkeley
At their company’s garage in an industrial park in Point Richmond, California, Knight and Gurumoorthy have built a state-of-the-art helmet testing machine to compare BrainGuard with commercial helmets. Knight says that the new design is 25 to 50 percent better than any on the market, in terms of damping rotational forces. Their design is particularly effective for frontal hits that contribute to CTE, which starts in the frontal lobe, Knight said.

“Our helmet can reduce the rotational force by up to a half, but you don’t eliminate it. This is not a panacea; we are reducing the influence of blows to the head,” he said.

More effective means of reducing traumatic head injuries would be to ban tackle football for kids under age 13 — many play in the Pop Warner Little Scholars Inc. leagues — and to change the way older players use their heads during practice and play. Unless contact sports are banned, which is unlikely, a better helmet will at least reduce the number of concussions, the damage from repeated subconcussions and the chances of developing CTE.

Knight’s greatest fear is that better helmets would encourage more violent and dangerous behavior.

“I am most worried that if you put out a better force-reduction helmet, people are not going to pay attention to other things they should be doing to reduce force to their heads, like reducing or eliminating helmet-to-helmet contact,” he said. “My dream is that someday, my 8-year-old granddaughter is going to be wearing a bike helmet that is well designed, so the one time she falls off her bike, she is going to get a dramatic decrease in the chance of her getting a serious brain injury.”

[Farfromgeneva]

But yeah get rid of the blitz. So dumb. End the game if you end the blitz because you CANNOT get pressure on a QB regularly in high level D1 or The NFL on a four down never blitz defense.

And it does nothing for the lie man crashing into each other every play which has far more to do with CTE than a blitzing LB occasionally blowing someone up high. Only someone who doesn’t understand would suggest this would help without just ending the game.

[Farfromgeneva]

Yeah passing is the same today as when Bart Starr was playing…if you are the bears.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/p ... s-per-game

[Brooklyn]

It’s not confusion you miss the essence of the point when defenses have dramaticly changed, approach of down lineman has changed and they’re throwing 35-50x/game now with far less rushes. What a joke.

Tell it to Ali Marpet who shared with me his retirement plans after his second concussion and consulting world class head experts on what he found.

But you are missing why are more passes being thrown today. Simple: DBs can no longer bump-and-run or hold the WRs, and DL cannot pound the QBs like they did in the old days. A slight adjustment made to the ball in 1988 further facilitated passing. Today, the solid blocking FB isn't used as in the past - more often than not the FB seems to receive more than run/block as he did in the past. In the old days they had 40 man lineups, today they have 53 man lineups. Salaries were so cheap shtttt compared to today that many quit rather than risk injury by signing on to a team. Specialization was unheard of back then. I well remember when some players did two way play such as playing on special teams as well as their regular position.

Heck, bring back bump-and-run, let the DL rub the QB's face on the ground like they did with JohnnyU, when a WR goes into the sidelines let some bench warmer like Erich Barnes kick the guy in the throat [Barnes got a piddling $500 fine for doing so]. Do all that shtttt and see if the amount of passing we see today doesn't go downward as in the old days.

[njbill]

Night Train Lane made a living out of clothes lining receivers. Jack Tatum would crush anybody who came over the middle. Butkus too. There was no such rule as defenseless receiver.

No rule about blows to the head.

And don’t get me started on quarterbacks. You couldn’t throw the ball away if you were outside the pocket. Quarterbacks couldn’t slide. While they had roughing the passer back then, it was interpreted much differently, much more in favor of the defense. Defensive linemen could head slap. Offensive lineman couldn’t extend their arms to block. When Reggie White sacked the quarterback, it was legal for him to land on the quarterback with his full body weight.

The rules on crack back blocking and other types of dangerous blocking were much different or nonexistent.

[Brooklyn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWP2g0sSaFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWqVij6tLz8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFIHg77I5E



you can't do any of that anymore ~ which explains why there is so much more passing today as compared to the past

[youthathletics]

Obama chatting with Mannings on the MNF show

[kramerica.inc]

Zap and Mac are more like current Brady than Patriots Brady.