New NFL Rule: No Lowering the Head

Should be interesting to see how the referees enforce this rule. Tacklers' helmets make contact with ball carriers all the time and I guarantee you most of that contact is unintentional from the tackler.

I personally don't like the rule. So many plays are bang-bang where all it takes is one subtle movement from the ball carrier and now the defensive player's in a spot where he's tackling illegally

OK so they got rid of the screwed up catch rule and replaced it with this ridiculous and impossible to officiate new rule.

I understand that the intent is to attempt to appear to be cutting down on head injuries, but really?
This will just lengthen the game more as they go to replay to check to see if the officials got it right (sell more beer).

And wait until star players get ejected for lowering the head while running the ball, as they duck to keep from getting decapitated......
Maybe try coming up with a safer helmet?

And they refuse to do anything about pass interference?
I hate having an official's judgement call making such a huge difference in the game: It's 3rd and 10 and we're behind by 5 points. Go out 30 yards and get interfered with seems to be a good huddle call!
I like the college rule better and change the catch requirement to only having one foot in bounds to balance this out.

At first I thought, like many, that this would be a rule that if enforced would lead to multiple ejections; I mean you can't tackle with your shoulder without lowering your helmet, runners lower their helmets all the time, and frankly helmets are so big that they will always end up making contact.

But then I re-evaluated it, "It is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet against an opponent."

So basically its just no leading with the helmet and initiating contact with it; which is somewhat better than the way I initially thought. I imagine in most cases the refs will use discretion and not default to ejection.

if it's any form of lowering your head is the deal, game over!

I'm not saying we're teaching the kids the wrong technique. I'm saying that no matter how much technique you teach, sometimes the head's gonna drop a little (NOT INTENTIONALLY, JUST INSTINCTIVELY). My point is that flagging that isn't going to be a good look. I'm all for flagging the intentional ones, but the rule doesn't seem like it allows for any judgment by the refs

That clears it up a little bit. I still think there's a lot of judgment that can go into that though. Interesting to see how the officials call it

Kids frequently do the wrong thing instinctively and we spend time coaching it out of them. Seems like the point of the rule is to create an incentive for us to all spend more time coaching this one out of them. I don't think that's too bad of a thing.

What the rules makers are trying to do is to make everyone play as if they weren't wearing helmets, even though the rules also require them to wear helmets.

Maybe they should mandate helmets w razor blades on the inside instead of padding.

They tried straps, and collars as a way of restraining helmet movement, but as I recall, the straps in particular, created more problems than they solved. In some cases the leverage actually increased the force on the neck.

Soft helmets wouldn't work either,  unless a way can be found to keep soft padding exteriors from tending to stick as they hit, causing torque on the neck, rather than sliding off one another as the hard shells do.  The bottom line is that nobody wants a helmet that makes them look like a bobble head.

I guess that as an "old fart" I think about ball carriers like Jim Brown, Larry Czonka, and John Riggins, runners  who would lower their helmet and drive thru defenders. This is now an illegal tactic, and I can't wait to hear the uproar when some of the power runners in the league getting kicked out for doing this.

The mental picture I get of Csonka, Pete Johnson, & other noted FBs always included a rotation of the shoulders so they'd wind up w one low shoulder hitting w a slight uppercut.  They may have contacted the opponent's head, but then it was that opponent's responsibility to get it out of the way of the runner's shoulder.  Use that form -- if you're great enough to develop it -- & you'll not only dish out more than you take, but you'll stay legal.  That is, unless they switch the responsibility to the runner to avoid hitting the opponent's head!

I'd love to be able to coach that form, but I don't know how I'd do it!  It always looked to me from that mental snapshot that the FB had to know just when to assume that posture.  Do it too early, you face plant.  Too late, you get popped in the chest by an opponent who gets that shoulder in 1st.  DumCoach has a "pinball" drill for kids to practice doing this, & maybe w enough reps they just get into that groove.  But if it were that easy, there'd've been a lot of other great FBs!

Pretty sure this is/was already a rule. You cannot spear an opponent. If the NFL had called this all along we'd be in a much better place now.