Kansas City Chiefs’ Steve Breaston speaks about aggressive nature of the sport – NFL News
Since the revelation of an illegal bounty programme being run by the New Orleans Saints, the already violent and aggressive nature of the game has remained a topic of debate among many commentators, players and officials.
The recent player to speak on the issue is Kansas City Chiefs’ wide receiver, Steve Breaston, who thinks that there is nothing new in knowing that defenders want to knock their opponents out.
In an interview, he admitted that the nature of this sport is aggressive and claimed that every player is well aware of this fact.
He said:
“I feel like defensive players are trying to, not trying to injure you in a way, but inflict pain. … If I go across the middle, in order for that defender to jar the ball out of my hands, he’s going to have to hit me hard. Or it wouldn’t be the game of football.
That’s just part of the culture. That’s just football. It’s been like that since we started playing when we were younger.”
Breaston’s remarks clearly suggest that the members of different offensive units are well aware of the fact that their opponents are going to come hard at them.
However, that still does not justify the bounty programme, which encouraged Saints’ defensemen to deliberately hit their opponents and earn monetary rewards from their coach in return.
When asked about how he feels about the bounty programme, Breaston refrained from commenting on the matter, which is still under consideration of the National Football League (NFL) office that has issued severe punishments for those who were involved in
running the bounty programme.
However, Breaston did add that:
“I just know that, as of now, football’s a violent game. It is what it is. It’s a contact sport.”
Breaston was also of the view that by changing some rules the league cannot transform the game into a safe sport overnight.
He asserted that the game has been played like the way it is since a long time and even if some rules are changed, it will take a rather longer period of time for everyone to adapt to the changes and put safety of the players above everything on the field.
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