Maybe I’m just insensitive to their needs, but new rules are making quarterbacks become more and more off-limits to the type of hits that help make football as popular as it is, and I don’t understand it. The point of this is not to call all quarterbacks princesses. Watching enough football to appreciate the ludicrous nature of these rules also exposes us to plenty of exceptions to the stereotype of pretty boy quarterbacks. Players like Russell Wilson risk their health weaving through defenses, Tim Tebow plows through middle linebackers like they’re not there and plenty of other quarterbacks make sure fans know they do indeed have the toughness the rules would indicate they lack.
But anyone who watches football regularly can also probably attest to the maddening abundance of 15-yard penalties assessed for hits on quarterbacks. These penalties keep crucial drives alive seemingly every weekend because a defensive end fails to come to a complete stop the millisecond a quarterback gets rid of the ball. Or a drive-sustaining flag is thrown after an incomplete pass to penalize a rushing safety for attempting to deflect a pass and inadvertently allowing its hand to contact a quarterback’s helmet. Or a blitzing linebacker buries his shoulder in a quarterback’s chin, gets up to celebrate a big play, and sees a yellow flag punishing him for a hit that would be considered textbook if delivered to any other player.
Not only do these rules infuriate fans like me, who, right or wrong, swear quarterbacks are playing the same game as everyone else on the field, they are unbelievably unfair to defensive players. Making matters worse, the rules seem to be trying to make it safe for 150 pound runts to play the position. Meanwhile, the quarterback position is becoming more and more populated with quarterbacks like Ben Roethlisberger who weigh 240 or more pounds and/or are adept runners when they choose to leave the pocket.
The rules, and no, this is not a joke, prohibit the following; hits below the knees, helmet-helmet shots, tackles that involve “picking up a quarterback and driving him into the ground,” hitting the quarterback in the helmet and late hits. Basically, the rules allow defenders to go to any lengths necessary to bring down a quarterback, so long as they come at him half-speed, avoid his upper or lower body and make sure they don’t drive him into the ground (or complete the tackle, depending on what you want to call it).
I must admit the banning of helmet-helmet hits makes perfect sense, as there is no question these types of hits ruin careers, and in some cases, change lives for the worst. But that’s about all one can say in defense of these rules.
Preventing defensive players from driving a quarterback into the ground makes slightly more sense than telling corners to make sure receivers have made a clean catch before attempting to break up a pass. The best example of the idiocy of the rule prohibiting driving quarterbacks into the ground came in the New York Giants loss to the Tennessee Titans back in December 2006. Giant defensive end, Mathias Kiwanuka, wrapped up Titan quarterback Vince Young on fourth down and 10 with three minutes left. The game was over if Kiwanuka drove him into the ground, but, fearing a penalty, he chose not to. Young got away, ran for a first down, and his Titans proceeded to drive down the field for a game-winning touchdown, all because a defender’s fear of a penalty stopped him from completing the play. But don’t take my word for it. “At that point, I thought it was going to be a 15-yard penalty for roughing the passer if I threw him to the ground,” Kiwanuka said later. Enough said.
Illegalizing any hit either below the knees or above the neck also means defenders need to slow down enough to make sure they hit quarterbacks in either the upper legs or middle torso.
The rules governing what is and is not acceptable for defenders to do to quarterbacks are not only absurd, they are, as this past weekend showed, still somewhat futile. This past weekend, Tebow dropped back to pass and was drilled by Kentucky defensive end Taylor Wyndham. Wyndham’s hit was vicious, but clean, and caused an ambulance to have to cart the quarterback off the field. The lesson we can learn from this hit is that no matter how many ridiculous rules football puts in place to protect them, quarterbacks, like anyone playing a sport predicated on collisions, will be in danger. The nature of the sport puts the health of everyone who chooses to play it past junior varsity in jeopardy, and as we saw with Tebow’s injury, no amount of rules will remove injuries from such a violent game.
