despite player safety successes, nfl rule changes damage integrity of the game

By: Thomas Seaman

Just two weeks into the NFL season, the league was marred by yet another brutal and potentially debilitating head injury. During the 3rd quarter of the Dolphins vs. Bills game, Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, hunting for a few additional yards, dove head first into safety Damar Hamlin and collapsed, going into a fencing response.

In lieu of other injuries during the 2024-25 season, the issue is as prevalent as ever. Year after year, the NFL comes up with new rule changes in an effort to better protect players. But short of the NFL switching to two hand touch, injuries will be an inherent risk of the game.

Despite this, the NFL has made a continuous effort to modify the way the game is played in an effort to reduce injuries. Throughout the 2010s and continuing to the present the NFL has taken a significantly deeper interest in player safety with the banning of certain methods for tackling and contact. 

Beginning in 2009, the NFL implemented a rule to protect “defenseless” receivers from contact to the head or neck. This rule was expanded in just the next season to protect “defenseless” players at all positions from hits. Only a few seasons later in 2015, the NFL prohibited the “peel-back block,” and finally in 2018 the league implemented a targeting rule similar to that of NCAA football banning players from initiating contact with the crown of their helmet.

One of the largest criticisms of the NFL’s new rules revolves around the way that they tend to favor offensive players. Many, including Hall-of-Fame quarterback Tom Brady, believe that rules protecting “defenseless” players on the field end up bailing out poor offensive decision making and force the defense to play softer. 

“I feel like we’re trying to protect people in a physical sport,” said Brady on a recent Deep Cut podcast. “We’ve created a game now where only the offense can really make an impact.”

Another major criticism found in the rules regarding “defenseless” players can be seen in QB slides. When a QB begins to slide feet first they instantly are considered defenseless and this forces an often costly indecisiveness amongst defenders. With the possibility of a late slide, defenders are forced to choose between a potentially penalized tackle or the possibility of being less able to stop a player from advancing.

Despite criticisms of the new rule changes between 2018 and 2022, following the implementation of the targeting there was a 38 percent decrease in the average of total concussions per season.

In another controversial move, the league decided to ban “hip drop” tackles that had been found to injure players at 20 to 25 times the rate of normal tackles and altered the kickoff which had the highest injury rate of any play in football. Regardless of its injurious nature, to the naked eye the “hip drop” tackle looks completely normal. In the action for the most no intent to harm the other player and there is no weaponizing of the equipment. 

For this reason the tackle could simply be seen as a risk of the game as opposed to a dirty play, but the NFL seems to believe otherwise.

While the aforementioned alterations may seem to be obvious decisions, when it comes to practicality and tradition, these changes massively alter the flow of the game.

The same can be said about changes to the kickoff, perhaps football’s most iconic play. The new, dynamic kickoff that was taken from the XFL forces teams to announce onsides kicks resulting in an extremely low success rate , thereby removing part of the excitement that came with the original kickoff. Although the change may have had noble intentions in seeking to increase return rates and decrease injury, it simply isn’t as entertaining.

Given the reality that in football players will inevitably get injured, the NFL would be better off keeping the old kickoff and modifying other rules to encourage a higher return rate on kickoffs given that the original format was simply more popular.

Ultimately, while the NFL has notably committed to enhancing player safety in recent years in some areas, it may be overstepping and damaging the game’s integrity when it could be working towards injury mitigation through newer and better equipment, all while still honoring the sport’s legacy.