A majority of NFL homeowners, along with Giants co-owner John Mara, ignored the opposition of the league’s coaches and players on Tuesday and handed a controversial measure to limit kick returns.
The brand new rule will allow teams to mechanically get hold of a main down at their very personal 25-line within the occasion that they fair-catch a kickoff or free kick behind their 25.
Commissioner Roger Goodell and the home homeowners had the audacity to cite “participant security” as the reason for the model new rule after rising the frequent season these days to 17 video video games, voting in March to schedule teams as a lot as twice on Thursdays, and voting on Monday to allow Thursday Night time Soccer flexing between Weeks 13 and 17.
The hypocrisy is an extreme quantity of for the league’s many critics on this example.
“Extraordinarily disillusioned,” one coach instructed the Each day Information on Tuesday. “‘Participant security’ is what they need, and then you definitely flex Thursday evening video games late within the 12 months?!?! It doesn’t make sense to me. Participant security?!?!”
There’s a sliver of hope that the model new kickoff rule gained’t be eternal, as a result of it was solely handed on a one-year trial basis on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, optimism is low on account of this initiative is seen as a continuation of the NFL’s image-based response to concussions inside the wake of the mishandling of Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa early remaining season.
Competitors committee chairman Wealthy McKay’s use of faculty soccer information in assist of the rule change on Tuesday made coaches and players shake their heads.
As The Information reported Monday, the NFL’s medical docs cited one season’s value of Pac-12 information all through present conferences as proof of why this would possibly produce comparable ends within the professionals.
“We did this rule for one 12 months solely as a result of we actually do need to get extra to a long-term answer, and perhaps that long-term answer consists of having extra returns within the sport and simply attempting to make the play safer,” McKay said, in accordance with NFL Community. “The play has its challenges attributable to space and tempo, and we’ve merely acquired to look out strategies to mitigate that and try to get the play once more inside the sport.
“Nobody needs to do away with particular groups,” McKay added. “Particular groups is a vital a part of our sport. … We now must discover a solution to attempt to revolutionize the rule, if we are able to, in a solution to get the kick return again within the sport.”
That’s simple for McKay to say, nonetheless what’s going to this rule change indicate for players such as a result of the Giants’ Cam Brown, Carter Coughlin and Gary Brightwell — players whose value is tied partly or largely to their work on kickoffs?
That’s merely thought-about one in every of many unintended penalties coaches and players think about would possibly finish end result from this rule change.
Coaches and players utterly researched remaining season’s spike in concussions from 12 to 19 in kickoffs, and they also found only one was sustained by a returner, whereas plenty of the performs wouldn’t have been modified or impacted by this new rule.
The coaches and players prioritize safety, clearly. However they think about squibbed, knuckled or skied kicks to stay away from trustworthy catches and purchase a bonus on safety would possibly finish in way more chaotic collisions, as properly.
Tuesday’s exact vote wasn’t immediately acknowledged, nonetheless it was discouraging on account of coaches and players had approached some homeowners in present weeks to protest the rivals committee’s rule proposal.
A few of these homeowners then spoke up in Monday’s meeting, which delayed the vote into Tuesday. And stepping into Monday evening time, there was a notion that as a minimum 5 or 6 homeowners consider to vote in opposition to the rule due to the information they’d obtained.
However they needed 9 ‘no’ votes, and they also didn’t get them.
Gamers who consider to launch a public assertion denouncing the rule have been discouraged behind the scenes from doing so, and the priority of 1 coach bought right here true on Tuesday:
A major rule change handed with no consultants on the exact sport of soccer inside the room.
“For the primary time I can ever keep in mind, you might have coaches and gamers unanimously agreeing in opposition to a rule, and it’s being utterly ignored,” the coach said Monday. “And so they’re making a rule with nobody within the room to really converse for the sport: coaches, GMs. Anyone.”
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Originally posted 2023-05-23 19:56:35.