|
|
Post by dubber on Dec 16, 2015 9:35:06 GMT -6
Concussion thread got me thinking......
Would football still be fun/impactful in young people's lives/teach toughness and perseverance/etc. if we didn't have helmets or hard plastic shoulder pads?
Basically if we looked more like this:
I'm try to think of the various techniques we employ and how this would change things.
For us, we are an IZ team, and we use our shoulders primarily to post (covered) and our aiming point for the uncovered man ends with the shoulder into the defender as well.
One area that may be waaaaay different is on the DL. We are a get hands and extension team up front on D, and I bet that is a lot easier when you have a hard plastic breastplate and shoulder pad to grasp.
Regardless, I think the game would still be great.
I'm interested in how you all think this would change the way to play the game.......I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DEBATING THE ONGOING CONCUSSION DISCOURSE.
Thanks for staying on point. |
|
|
|
Post by Chris Clement on Dec 16, 2015 9:52:48 GMT -6
The game might be different, but the game is arbitrary, so what does it matter? They had plenty of fun back then.
|
|
|
|
Post by hsrose on Dec 16, 2015 10:16:49 GMT -6
A pretty woman is at the dentist office, all set for a procedure. The dentist walks in and gets ready to start. She reaches over, grabs his package very, very firmly and says "Now doctor, we're not going to hurt each other, now are we?"
That's what I think would happen, nobody has a helmet/facemask so punching me in the face will get you punched in the face. If I want to lose a tooth or get bloodied, I'll punch you in the face, knowing that you/your team, will do the same.
I've said for a long time, mostly from a $$ perspective, that the major sports will be all club before too much longer. All Pop Warner has to do is extend their age range to the HS ages and the infrastructure is pretty much in place.
|
|
|
|
Post by brophy on Dec 16, 2015 10:23:37 GMT -6
rec league flag football is fun enough and lets people use their athleticism and skill. If all you do is pass rush with a neutral zone, you can mitigate a lot of the problems with the head.
When I was 30, I played "tackle football" with some friends (19 - 26 year olds) and that was NOT fun. Lot s of guys got injured and most of them were because their heads were getting smashed in. It wasn't like that when I was doing it at 18
Open field tackling isn't that much of a problem, its the inside run game that will be the biggest problem. How fast was Red Grange, anyway?
|
|
|
|
Post by John Knight on Dec 16, 2015 11:11:09 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by wingtol on Dec 16, 2015 11:28:46 GMT -6
I highly doubt the game would look anything like it does today if that was still the equipment in use. Just the size of players today compared to that picture is night and day, that guy was probably the biggest dude on the field at that time. Can you imagine 350lb players with that gear on? Or could you imagine asking a wr to run across the middle vs Ray Lewis in that gear? I think the game would have stayed closer to the rugby type game it was back in the day.
|
|
|
|
Post by bigmoot on Dec 16, 2015 11:37:26 GMT -6
just a thought...with players becoming so much bigger and faster, would it help to enlarge the playing field. I know that idea has been floated in basketball to help open the game up more.
also...habe helmets become too good, so that there is no fear of using it as a weapon. If you were forced to wear the older style helmets, youd think twice about sticking your head in there. but when you listen to the old nfl guys, they say it was brutal...
|
|
|
|
Post by blb on Dec 16, 2015 11:59:28 GMT -6
that guy was probably the biggest dude on the field at that time.
"that guy" in the picture is the immortal Red Grange, who at 6-0 180 was big for a HB in his day but not biggest on the field.
His Bear teammate FB Bronko Nagurski was 6-2 225.
|
|
|
|
Post by John Knight on Dec 16, 2015 12:05:17 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by olinedude on Dec 16, 2015 12:26:38 GMT -6
I disagree with a lot of you. I think the game may have progressed differently without helmet and shoulder pads, but if you took pads off right now I don't think much, if anything, would change. Maybe some technique would change, along with how we teach things would change. For instance, a lack of shoulder pads to grab would change pass pro a little and how DL played run blocks. You would probably see more of the "hawk tackle" rugby style tackling by the secondary. Scheme wise though, if you were an inside zone & outside zone spread team, why would you change?
The reason I say this is that I was at a school where we chose to bypass full pad spring ball and instead didn't use any pads in the spring doing spring drills. We did, however, still do some inside run, 7 on 7, and even 1's v. 1's full 11 on 11. We told the guys just to wrap up and don't go to the ground, but it was competitive and there was usually quite a few tackles being made. It made some things a little easier, some a little more difficult, but definitely not enough to think "if we didn't have pads we'd have to change our scheme."
Very interesting topic though.
|
|
|
|
Post by NC1974 on Dec 16, 2015 14:18:01 GMT -6
I think some schemes and techniques would become less common. For instance, the way many(not all) people teach IZ, is to cover up and drive down defenders i.e. put your face on his playside number, punch and drive. If you were to do that technique without a facemask I think you would see alot of incidental contact to the face - broken noes, stitches, lost teeth. Not that we all teach it that way, but the facemask is often part of the initial contact. So I would expect to see more angle and shoulder blocking which I think would be a drastic change for many that teach IZ.
And imagine you would see less north and south schemes such as ISO for the same reason. The ISO block and ISO block destruction would be tough to execute without a facemask.
|
|
|
|
Post by fantom on Dec 16, 2015 14:26:18 GMT -6
I think some schemes and techniques would become less common. For instance, the way many(not all) people teach IZ, is to cover up and drive down defenders i.e. put your face on his playside number, punch and drive. If you were to do that technique without a facemask I think you would see alot of incidental contact to the face - broken noes, stitches, lost teeth. Not that we all teach it that way, but the facemask is often part of the initial contact. So I would expect to see more angle and shoulder blocking which I think would be a drastic change for many that teach IZ. And imagine you would see less north and south schemes such as ISO for the same reason. The ISO block and ISO block destruction would be tough to execute without a facemask. Ever seen the kind of football that was played when they played without facemasks? |
|
|
|
Post by fantom on Dec 16, 2015 14:28:14 GMT -6
Concussion thread got me thinking......
Would football still be fun/impactful in young people's lives/teach toughness and perseverance/etc. if we didn't have helmets or hard plastic shoulder pads?
Basically if we looked more like this:
I'm try to think of the various techniques we employ and how this would change things.
For us, we are an IZ team, and we use our shoulders primarily to post (covered) and our aiming point for the uncovered man ends with the shoulder into the defender as well.
One area that may be waaaaay different is on the DL. We are a get hands and extension team up front on D, and I bet that is a lot easier when you have a hard plastic breastplate and shoulder pad to grasp.
Regardless, I think the game would still be great.
I'm interested in how you all think this would change the way to play the game.......I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DEBATING THE ONGOING CONCUSSION DISCOURSE.
Thanks for staying on point. Would it still be fun? Oh, hell yeah. Isn't that how most of us started playing the game? Pickup games in the back yard? |
|
|
|
Post by WingTheT on Dec 16, 2015 14:29:45 GMT -6
None of the kids (or at least ours) would buy in to that...you gotta have your Revo facemask or Justin Tuck face mask or have their clear nike visors and you gotta look pretty for the game....
At least that's what it seems like from our guys. Bunch of pretty boy sissies!
|
|
|
|
Post by olinedude on Dec 16, 2015 17:55:28 GMT -6
None of the kids (or at least ours) would buy in to that...you gotta have your Revo facemask or Justin Tuck face mask or have their clear nike visors and you gotta look pretty for the game.... At least that's what it seems like from our guys. Bunch of pretty boy sissies! I think you'd get a lot of the guys out of the way that are annoying to deal with. That guy that "sprains" his ankle once a game, yeah, that guy aint gonna make it. |
|
|
|
Post by olinedude on Dec 16, 2015 18:00:09 GMT -6
I think some schemes and techniques would become less common. For instance, the way many(not all) people teach IZ, is to cover up and drive down defenders i.e. put your face on his playside number, punch and drive. If you were to do that technique without a facemask I think you would see alot of incidental contact to the face - broken noes, stitches, lost teeth. Not that we all teach it that way, but the facemask is often part of the initial contact. So I would expect to see more angle and shoulder blocking which I think would be a drastic change for many that teach IZ. And imagine you would see less north and south schemes such as ISO for the same reason. The ISO block and ISO block destruction would be tough to execute without a facemask. I agree with you on ISO. I think that you would see more IZ lock type iso's that aren't just downhill to allow LB's to trigger and blow it. I disagree about IZ. I've always coached it the way you described. Yeah, you'd have a lot of broken noses and stitches, but thats how it was back in the day before facemasks. My grandfather played at SMU with Doak Walker back in the day and his football pictures looked like he had just finished a boxing match. The more I think about it the more I would like to see it happen! |
|
|
|
Post by raymul313 on Dec 17, 2015 7:28:07 GMT -6
Concussion thread got me thinking......
Would football still be fun/impactful in young people's lives/teach toughness and perseverance/etc. if we didn't have helmets or hard plastic shoulder pads?
Basically if we looked more like this:
I'm try to think of the various techniques we employ and how this would change things.
For us, we are an IZ team, and we use our shoulders primarily to post (covered) and our aiming point for the uncovered man ends with the shoulder into the defender as well.
One area that may be waaaaay different is on the DL. We are a get hands and extension team up front on D, and I bet that is a lot easier when you have a hard plastic breastplate and shoulder pad to grasp.
Regardless, I think the game would still be great.
I'm interested in how you all think this would change the way to play the game.......I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DEBATING THE ONGOING CONCUSSION DISCOURSE.
Thanks for staying on point. Would it still be fun? Oh, hell yeah. Isn't that how most of us started playing the game? Pickup games in the back yard? Backyard style is the only way I ever played, me and the guys in my neighborhood may have only had one ever concussion while playing for 5-6 years |
|
|
|
Post by John Knight on Dec 17, 2015 9:12:28 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by dubber on Dec 17, 2015 9:48:02 GMT -6
Double teams are an interesting thought.......
I teach our IZ combos without pads. Kids knock their heads together some (same aiming point), but it works.
They way we fill on defense is an interesting point (one I had not considered). The shoulder pad is critical to the "fill and spill" philosophy as well as the wrong arm approach.
|
|
|
|
Post by olinedude on Dec 17, 2015 10:07:11 GMT -6
Thats another thing you'd see more of, tons of broken collar bones!
|
|
|
|
Post by larrymoe on Dec 17, 2015 11:56:32 GMT -6
Isn't that how most of us started playing the game? Pickup games in the back yard? Sadly, probably for a lot of the younger guys here, it isn't. Their only introduction to the game probably came from organized leagues with full pads and contact. Kids haven't played pickup games for about 15+ years. |
|
|
|
Post by John Knight on Dec 17, 2015 12:02:02 GMT -6
Banned on the school playgrounds even 40 years ago, we got out tails dusted more than once for playing Tackle at recess!
|
|
|
|
Post by fantom on Dec 17, 2015 12:39:29 GMT -6
Isn't that how most of us started playing the game? Pickup games in the back yard? Sadly, probably for a lot of the younger guys here, it isn't. Their only introduction to the game probably came from organized leagues with full pads and contact. Kids haven't played pickup games for about 15+ years. I wish there was "Dislike" button. |
|
|
|
Post by larrymoe on Dec 17, 2015 12:52:19 GMT -6
Sadly, probably for a lot of the younger guys here, it isn't. Their only introduction to the game probably came from organized leagues with full pads and contact. Kids haven't played pickup games for about 15+ years. I wish there was "Dislike" button. For the thought of that possibility, or for me saying it? |
|
|
|
Post by fantom on Dec 17, 2015 12:56:51 GMT -6
I wish there was "Dislike" button. For the thought of that possibility, or for me saying it? The fact that kids don't play backyyard games. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2015 13:01:44 GMT -6
How would the game be different without helmets?
Tom Brady wouldn't be such a pretty boy at 38, that's for sure...
I don't think the schemes would be much different, but the rules might have to change to accommodate the lack of pads. Offensive players would probably have to go back to shoulder blocking everything, which would make it harder to pass protect. Defensive players would use more chest tackling. "Targeting" rules would make a lot more sense.
The game would still be fun and tough, though.
Watch some old single wing film from the leather helmet days. It's out there. And it's tough.
|
|
|
|
Post by larrymoe on Dec 17, 2015 13:22:36 GMT -6
For the thought of that possibility, or for me saying it? The fact that kids don't play backyyard games. Oh, agreed. I wasn't much of a backyard football guy, but dang I could play wiffle ball for hours on end. Oddly enough, I didn't really like watching football even until my freshman year of HS. |
|
|
|
Post by coachwoodall on Dec 17, 2015 18:04:12 GMT -6
Hades, this all we did growing up. I probably played no pad ball vs padded ball 5:1 up through 8th grade, and I started little league full tackle in the 1st grade. But we played tackle ball on the play ground every single day. The only reason the knock kneed kid was allowed to get in on the lunch room team selection was because his mom always packed his lunch stuff in aluminum foil and that made the perfect crumpled ball for our game of 'smear the queer' after lunch. In sixth grade Mrs. Cunningham's 2nd period social studies class was our game planning and Monday draft session for the 4th period PE football game. We even had post draft planning sessions for things like who would cover who, who made the best sense at QB, and who presented the biggest receiving threat for our selected team. A buddy and me even spent time after school designing route combinations so we could go no huddle; we had our own play book.
The worst accident we had was when Jimmy got flipped over soembody's back and landed flush on his butt bone and was yelling "I'm paralyzed! I'm paralyzed!" As he was was flopping around on the ground like a fish out of water. The hardest hit I ever got was when I missed an interception because Mark bumped into me on a lollipop pass and made me drop the ball and I shoved him in the back saying "You dumb arse, you made me drop the ball!" And he slugged me in the jaw. We used to go play at Todd's house and one out of bounds was the dirt road and the other was a barbed wire fence; the most dangerous thing was trying to throw a fade route into the end zone near a rusty combine machine.
Dame I'm old...
|
|
|
|
Post by fballcoachg on Dec 17, 2015 19:25:03 GMT -6
Concussion thread got me thinking......
Would football still be fun/impactful in young people's lives/teach toughness and perseverance/etc. if we didn't have helmets or hard plastic shoulder pads?
Basically if we looked more like this:
I'm try to think of the various techniques we employ and how this would change things.
For us, we are an IZ team, and we use our shoulders primarily to post (covered) and our aiming point for the uncovered man ends with the shoulder into the defender as well.
One area that may be waaaaay different is on the DL. We are a get hands and extension team up front on D, and I bet that is a lot easier when you have a hard plastic breastplate and shoulder pad to grasp.
Regardless, I think the game would still be great.
I'm interested in how you all think this would change the way to play the game.......I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DEBATING THE ONGOING CONCUSSION DISCOURSE.
Thanks for staying on point. I think the game would definitely still be fun. Things would change but we would adapt and I don't think we'd go rugby scrum, think it would be as solid as diverse as it is now...may not be a bad idea honestly |
|
|
|
Post by olinedude on Dec 18, 2015 11:12:48 GMT -6
I think you would have far more concussions than with pads. I'd be very interested to see concussions from nfl as compared to pro rugby.
|
|
