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Bad Tackling and the CBA
- Thread starter Vinny
- Start date
I don't buy that for a few reasons. With or without pads, unless you're strictly doing a walk through, it still gets physical at practice.
Also, who is being tackled in practice during the season? Even when you have pads on the coaches constantly tell players to stay off the ground.
Are we really going full bore, o vs d at a practice in the middle of October? This isn't a college team where you have so many players that your scout team has back ups.
Exactly which rb are we using as a tackling dummy? All but one are dealing with some injury issue. You don't tackle qb's in practice ever.
There mat be a bit more banging with pads on, but I just don't believe that there is anything that be done in an NFL practice that would simulate trying to tackle Arian foster on gameday. Or any other really elusive player.
Players just need to get back to fundamentals. Break down, focus on the hips, wrap up and tackle through the ball carrier.
The only ones doing serious banging when pads are worn are the o line, fb and front seven. And even those guys aren't trying to bury the guy they are going against.
Jmo.
Also, who is being tackled in practice during the season? Even when you have pads on the coaches constantly tell players to stay off the ground.
Are we really going full bore, o vs d at a practice in the middle of October? This isn't a college team where you have so many players that your scout team has back ups.
Exactly which rb are we using as a tackling dummy? All but one are dealing with some injury issue. You don't tackle qb's in practice ever.
There mat be a bit more banging with pads on, but I just don't believe that there is anything that be done in an NFL practice that would simulate trying to tackle Arian foster on gameday. Or any other really elusive player.
Players just need to get back to fundamentals. Break down, focus on the hips, wrap up and tackle through the ball carrier.
The only ones doing serious banging when pads are worn are the o line, fb and front seven. And even those guys aren't trying to bury the guy they are going against.
Jmo.
eriadoc
Texan-American
The pink this month really makes the towels that almost every player wears now look like flags.
Jason Taylor and Brian Dawkins were just on NFLN this evening talking about how the rules are all crap.
Scooter
Funky
and they are crap. it's all marketing, but instead of supporting the game, the league is promoting itsself. high scoring with a thin veil of "player protection". defense DOES sell though. the single biggest commercial in NFL history was by the largest beverege company in the world and included a DT named joe green ... a name mostly lost these days. forget lawrence taylor, today's fan can barely remember sean taylor. if ronnie lott played today, he would be forcibly removed from the league next week for doing his job ... not that the "i have frank gore" fans would notice.
eriadoc
Texan-American
Steve Atwater would just be expelled from the league, LOL. The safety position is done int he NFL. They aren't allowed to do their jobs. Teams are going to start trying to get four cornerbacks on the field instead of safeties. The cover skills will be necessary because you aren't allowed to knock the ball loose. Hell, the rule basically reads that you have to let them catch it and turn upfield. That's the end of the safety position right there.
This article is about fewer practices...Not the lockout itself...My post was about practices...not the lockout...Also, I haven't seen any stats on players being more or less injured this year...
They don't tackle much at NFL practices during the season...Hell, even in pre-season training and practice they don't take each other to the ground much..
Look at these pictures from last week's game. I'm not seeing the phantom flag football angle.
I think tackling fundamentals have been in decline for years. ESPN jacked up highlights have slowly created a situation where big hit highlights became more important than fundamentally sound football because this is the marketing generation of 'look at me' players.
I'm not buying this flag football whine. I can play flag football at 45 yo. I doubt many of us could withstand even one hit like Jason Allen laid on Hines Ward in the picture above.
Ultimately, coaches are going to have to go back to teaching strong fundamental technique, because the crappy launch tackles are going to be thing of the past.
I can see the argument both ways, but I don't necessarily see going back to basics as a bad thing. Defensive players will just need time to adjust.
Vinny
shiny happy fan
jgl35 and I are older guys and we talk pretty much all the time about football, our love for the game and more football to top it off. At the risk of stealing his thoughts, a lot of us old guys think it is foolish to believe that the defense doesn't need to work on tackling live, shedding real blocks and being physical with 340 lb linemen while the offense holding blocks and working up to level as a weight lifter would.
Anyway, lack of camp, altered CBA, offensive coaches fully exploiting the protection rules and fining the defenders with massive fines has changed this game. Some of it is for the good, but there is a reason I love the NFL and really don't care for Arena league, or Canadian league football. The NFL has a physical dynamic and a role for larger players that those other leagues do not have. Widen the field and you make the space players more valuable. That's why you see teams rocking all over the field up there (and that's not a good thing to me - I like defense). Take those same players and plug them into the NFL and you see them on the waiver wire shortly afterwards. Arena? Great family fun I guess, but it's a bastardization of this game and it's like football for the ADD (no offense intended). Reminds me of rollerball. I think the tweaks and rule changes will eventually hurt the (NFL) game if they try too hard to micromanage everything.
jgl35 said:
Anyway, lack of camp, altered CBA, offensive coaches fully exploiting the protection rules and fining the defenders with massive fines has changed this game. Some of it is for the good, but there is a reason I love the NFL and really don't care for Arena league, or Canadian league football. The NFL has a physical dynamic and a role for larger players that those other leagues do not have. Widen the field and you make the space players more valuable. That's why you see teams rocking all over the field up there (and that's not a good thing to me - I like defense). Take those same players and plug them into the NFL and you see them on the waiver wire shortly afterwards. Arena? Great family fun I guess, but it's a bastardization of this game and it's like football for the ADD (no offense intended). Reminds me of rollerball. I think the tweaks and rule changes will eventually hurt the (NFL) game if they try too hard to micromanage everything.
Great post, Vinny. I told Jungle Bob a couple of weeks ago that I can see a trend in football that will eventually lose me as a fan. Project 20 years forward and how the league is being funneled by corporate execs, and it could reach a point where the physicality that we grew up loving as kids are no longer the reality.
I do not think the Steel Curtain, Doomsday Defense, 85 Bears, or a myriad other historic defenses would survive in today's league with the hyper-sensitive rule changes that are being implemented.
Michael Irving was talking about this on a recent round-table discussion. He resented the fact that future WRs will rack up yards without fearing the middle of the field. They will most likely surpass his numbers because they will be able to run free and never have that fear that he played with.
I do not think the Steel Curtain, Doomsday Defense, 85 Bears, or a myriad other historic defenses would survive in today's league with the hyper-sensitive rule changes that are being implemented.
Michael Irving was talking about this on a recent round-table discussion. He resented the fact that future WRs will rack up yards without fearing the middle of the field. They will most likely surpass his numbers because they will be able to run free and never have that fear that he played with.
Vinny
shiny happy fan
We currently in the era of Commissioner Micro-manager. Many of these changes have come on since Tags retired. I never got the feeling that Paul Tagliabue was micro-managing the league like this Commish does.
Football practices are physical even with no pads on. Limited roster space in the NFL, long seasons, injuries pile up...
I think it'd be hard to have too many live sessions during the course of the season...
This I agree with 100%. The game isn't soft, but they have changed some of the basic elements of the game.
Cannot disagree with any of that, but the bolded brought back memories...
Definitely remember a few times when coach was not happy with the effort of one or more units and decided to go live at practice...ah...good times...
I think much of the recent changes are the expected outcome of players becoming more concerned about their health and after football lives. Big government? How about big lawsuit, as in players will sue because repeated concussions and head injuries cause permanent brain damage?
I know the league has an interest in protecting the physical health of what it sees as highly marketable players and puts in room to protect them (like Brady), but it seems that recent advances in brain trauma research loomed large over the recent CBA negotiations and may be an issue the league needs to face in the future.
These dangers are part of the game, in my book. But if players start to push the envelope looking for a safer game, then the league has to respond somehow.
C
Ckw
Guest
It really is amazing just how pathetic all three of the commissioners in the Big 3 are. I mean honestly, has there ever been a worse commissioner in their respective sports than Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, and David Stern? They are absolutely destroying their sports.
Both Goodell and Stern are destroying the defensive game with the new rules, and Selig is just a moron. In fact with what Selig is doing with the Astros sale, and more specifically trying to force the Astros into moving to the AL West instead of his beloved Brewers who were originally in the AL, he has become my least favorite commissioner which really says something. Goodell is close behind him, and maybe overtake him if he continues with the rule changes, and Stern right after him (which REALLY says something because I DESPISE David Stern)
Both Goodell and Stern are destroying the defensive game with the new rules, and Selig is just a moron. In fact with what Selig is doing with the Astros sale, and more specifically trying to force the Astros into moving to the AL West instead of his beloved Brewers who were originally in the AL, he has become my least favorite commissioner which really says something. Goodell is close behind him, and maybe overtake him if he continues with the rule changes, and Stern right after him (which REALLY says something because I DESPISE David Stern)