After years of simply trying to reduce the number of kickoffs, changes finally are being made to the kickoff play in an effort to make it safer. So how safe does the “most dangerous play in the game” have to become before the NFL will choose permanently to keep it?
In a new online question-and-answer session with fans, Packers CEO Mark Murphy offers a summary regarding the current status of the kickoff.
“As we’ve discussed here before, the kickoff is by far the most dangerous play in the game,” Murphy writes. “You are five times more likely to suffer a concussion on a kickoff than a play from scrimmage. The kickoff is so dangerous because the collisions are often at full speed. I was part of the meeting this week in New York. The discussions were very productive. The special teams coaches came forward with a number of recommendations that should make the play safer. The recommendations included eliminating the two-man wedge, eliminating the running start for the kickoff coverage team, and requiring eight players on the return team to be within 15 yards of their restraining line. The changes should make the play more like the punt, where blockers are running alongside the players on the coverage unit. We’re very hopeful that these changes will result in fewer injuries on a kickoff, but we will continue to monitor this closely. We’re hopeful that these change will allow us to keep the kickoff in the game.”
Murphy, who previously has made it clear that the kickoff play remains on a “short leash” and that it could still go away, doesn’t elaborate on how safe the kickoff must become in order to save it. But if the concussion rate during kickoffs remains five times greater than in normal scrimmage plays, there’s surely an ideal ratio that the NFL hopes to achieve.
Is it 1:1? Or is 2:1 good enough? No one has provided that information, yet.
That said, there’s a good chance that this is less about reducing concussions and more about removing from the game a play that carries with it the greatest risk of a catastrophic -- and possibly fatal -- injury.
Nearly nine years ago, then-Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer created a stir with a matter-of-fact assessment of the risk of playing NFL football: “The truth of the matter is . . . somebody is going to die here in the NFL. It’s going to happen.” The “most dangerous play in the game” presents the greatest risk of that, since players who are moving in opposite directions at full speed and who dip their helmets at impact risk the kind of upper spinal cord injury that will induce paralysis and, even worse, end life.
Think of the consequences to the NFL if a player pays the ultimate price. Congress instantly would convene hearings and commence drafting legislation. Debates would emerge about the morality of watching football (those debates already have popped up from time to time regarding chronic the health risks of the game). Eventually, a federal commission with the power to oversee and regulate football could emerge, which likely is the we-know-what’s-best-for-us NFL’s worst-case business scenario.
So even if avoiding a fatality isn’t the impetus for the ongoing examination of the kickoff, it should be. And it’s no surprise that the NFL won’t say “we don’t want someone to die on the field” when addressing its concerns about the play. The fact that people in the league routinely call it “the most dangerous play in the game” has to give the league’s lawyers nearly as many chest pains as an FBI raid on their offices, apartments, and/or hotel rooms. If people like Murphy were to admit that the league fears a fatality -- and if a fatality were to happen -- it could be game over, literally.
