Tackling One Thorny NFL Issue

Pun intended, folks.

I've been criticizing the NFL here for a host of different things lately.  Their commissioner is acting like a moron; he has far, far too much power and judge/jury/executioner authority.  The league has decided to give $100 million in "charity", much of which is going to end up in the hands of people who want to destroy America.  Their concussion-treatment history is appalling.  And they are driving fans away in droves by allowing their players to insult servicemen and women and veterans by failing to respect the American flag.

There is excessive violence on the field, as exemplified in Monday night's Steelers-Bengals game, which was so violent that it made the news -- not so much for a given dirty hit or injury, but that the game was practically non-stop injuries and dirty hits.  Rob Gronkowski of the Patriots is sitting out the team's next game, suspended for a clearly dirty hit in a different game, jumping on an opposing player who was already down -- and out of bounds.

People will be injured; that's football.  It's a violent sport to begin with, and we get that.  The players are huge people to begin with and getting bigger; there are offensive lines that average 300 pounds per lineman, which is literally twice my size.  When they run into each other at top speed, bones break.  And to get a ball carrier down, he has to be tackled, literally, such that a knee or elbow or butt touches the turf.

And that, friends, is the topic today.  Tackling.

Way back, once upon a time, I wrote a piece defending the NFL's salary cap.  My feeling was that, by capping the total salary a team could spend, it provided an equivalency of skill across the league (as measured by salary), or at least meant that the teams that were run the best, and coached the best, well, they would win more.  I thought, and still do of course, that any league wants the best-run and best-coached teams to rise to the top, rather than those with the biggest payroll.

What does that have to do with tackling, you might ask?  Well, tackling is a football fundamental.  The normal way to tackle an opposing ball-carrier is first to contain him so that he stops forward motion and cannot move forward unless he drags the tackler with him.  You do that with -- pay attention now -- your arms.

NFL players play the game for a living.  If they're lucky, they'll be in the league for three years and get out without permanent disabling injury.  So it behooves them to play the game the best way possible.

This is why I have to shake my head at the abysmal growth in what I can only call the "wrecking ball" technique used by defensive players to tackle opponents.  You watch football, so you know what I mean.  A defensive player simply runs into the ball carrier as hard as he can, trying to knock him down.  The arms are simply not part of the process; the player leads with his shoulder like a wrecking ball.

So here is my problem with that.  And let me point out that I have not played organized football at any level with the exception of the Phi Delt intramural "B" team about 45 years ago (for the record, I was a pretty good receiver then).  But I'm also not stupid, and certainly not blind, at least as long as my contact lenses are in.  So there are two things that bug me about that kind of tackling.

First, it doesn't work very well, unless the ball carrier is on the sideline and the "tackler" has an angle that forces the ball carrier out of bounds.  That's probably as reliable as good old arm tackling, I guess.  But on the rest of the field, as often as not, or at least really often, the ball carrier, who can typically see the defender coming, can position himself so that even though he gets hit hard, he maintains (or can retain) balance.

And if he does, he is likely to make some good yards thereafter, because the defender is now completely off balance and does not have a grip on the ball carrier.  Since that defender is the one who is supposed to tackle that ball carrier, his teammates simply are not there to help.  Big gain follows, friends, and that's not good, particularly at the professional level.

But the second thing that bugs me is different, and maybe more philosophical.  Tackling, good old two-handed tackling, grabbing the legs or less nether reasons, is intended to bring down the ball carrier by making it impossible for him to go forward.  Wrecking-ball tackling, on the other hand, is intended to hurt the player being tackled.  And that stinks.

As this week's violent games showed, breaking the bones of other players is not a really popular outcome.  So when an action, in this case a tackling technique, is intended to injure the ball carrier rather than bringing an appropriate body part to the turf (still attached to the ball carrier, we should add), well, that is an act of violence that should be inconsistent with the way football is played.

It's sort of like the whole "rip the ball from the running back's hands" thing we see all the time, which I'm not really a fan of either.  But as far as the wrecking-ball "technique", well, I don't want to see it banned by the league -- I want to see it stopped by coaches.  And I want to see the coaches stop it because it is particularly ineffective at actually bringing down the runner.

Remember what I said about the best-coached teams winning in a salary-capped league?  Well, check out the tackling technique of the teams that are consistent winners.  You find yourself repeatedly saying "good tackle" for those teams, because they coach their players to tackle effectively.  Yes, even they have players who do the wrecking ball thing, but hopefully they get it quietly pointed out to them in film review the next day.  And those teams win, and win a lot.

That will not change.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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