There is an increasingly long list of players who are unhappy with the League’s policies on Player Safety. The popular opinion is that the League’s actions are unfair and over the top. Defensive players have voiced concerns that
the League’s focus is primarily on protecting offensive players and the safety of defensive players is largely ignored because offensive players generally have star status among fans that defensive players rarely get. There are also concerns that the League’s
crackdowns handicap defensive players and puts unnecessary blame and burden on them.
James Harrison was the first to be put under the spot light by the League, first to be fined under the League’s stricter penalties for dangerous hits and was the first to speak out against them. Now his teammate Hines Ward is chiming
in, welcome to the club.
Ward has accused the league of not really caring about Player Safety. “They don't care about the safety of the game. If the league was so concerned about the safety, why are you adding two more games on?” Ward said the League’s
approach to safety was hypocritical. “You talk about you don't want players to drink ... and all you see is beer commercials,” Ward said. It doesn’t stop just at commercials. While on the one hand the League has taken a stand against drinking, on the other
it has gotten into a $1.2 billion, six year deal with Bud Light. Endorsing and not endorsing beer at the same time is confusing to say the least, if not hypocritical.
Ward insinuated that the primary reason why the league had taken a tougher stand on head injuries was because they want to make a push for the 18 games season. Even if the league’s plans work perfect in terms of guaranteeing the
safety of players from helmet to helmet hits, an 18 weeks season would take its toll on players. There is only so much punishment that a body can take week in and week out. The NFL is effectively trading player safety for increased revenue.
Hines was also unhappy with the effect the NFL’s crackdown on hits would have on the game. Ward is not the only one who feels that the League’s stand has put pressure on game officials to act more often. Many players feel that
the trend now is to throw the flag first and think later. “(The illegal-hit penalties are) going to change the outcome; somebody's going to lose a game because of it. ... It's going to be a huge play in a playoff game,” Ward said. He added that if during a
game a quarterback or someone on the primary was hit in a questionable play, a game official, who might not have otherwise thrown a flag, would call it nonetheless ‘to save his own tail.’ “He (the player) may not even get fined or not, but it will come down
to the outcome of a ballgame.”
Ward said that the League’s attitude towards fines is one of ‘guilty until proven innocent.’ He said that the appeals process was useless and the League would never go back on the fines regardless of the circumstances. Ward also
said that the League had made life difficult for defensive players and that he wasn’t sure what the League expects the defence to do. “If a quarterback gets hit within the play, you can't hit him in the helmet, you can't hit him in the knees. Where can you
hit a quarterback?”
Baltimore Ravens’ linebacker Terrell Suggs has also joined the chorus against the league. He accused the league of favouritism and of being primarily concerned with the safety on NFL stars instead of players in general. “Carson
Palmer (of Cincinnati) got his knee hurt in 2005, but there was no rule made. Then Tom Brady got hit in the knee and all of a sudden there is rule and possible suspensions, excessive fines. It's just getting ridiculous.”
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