With the NFL consistently making the game safer (to the chagrin of plenty of fans) and with XFL founder Vince McMahon vowing to give the fans what they want, could the resurrected renegade league decide to turn the clock back to the 1980s and play old-school football?
Apparently not, based on recent comments from new XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck.
“I think health and safety for our players is paramount,” Luck said during a recent visit to #PFTPM/PFT Live. “That’s very important. I think . . . that the research that’s been done, the focus that’s placed on health and safety, particularly brain trauma . . . has been very impressive. Leagues, whether it’s the NFL or whether it’s college, and of course the college rules are used by most of the high schools, they’ve really taken that information, some of those early findings, and are changing the rules or changing the practice schedules, eliminating two-a-days, those sorts of things.
“I think by and large football fans support that. And we’re going to continue to act responsible in that manner. Football at the end of the day is still football. Obviously it’s a physical game. It’s a contact sport, collision sport. I think those fans that enjoy that contact and collision ,they’ll see that. But we are committed to making sure the game is as safe as it can be for our players.”
So if any football league will be saying, “Everyone knows the risks, the players accept the risks, let’s play football like it used to be played,” it apparently won’t be the XFL.
