I love football. Since I was a little boy, I loved watching it on Saturday and Sunday (and Monday and Thursday), playing catch in the backyard and reading all about the post-game in the paper. Even to this day, I still have plenty of football lying around in the backyard so that if no one is around I can pretend I'm the quarterback calling out the defense in a championship game and making the perfect over-the-shoulder touchdown catch the end the game. I am twenty-five years old. No, I am not ashamed.

Lately, American football has been going through some turbulence. In this increasingly political world that we live in, more and more people have spoken out against the NFL about head injuries. They say that football has caused former players traumatic stress in their life after the league. Some former players have claimed that the NFL knew about the longer lasting effects of head trauma but withheld information from the players. Earlier this year a large group of former players sued the NFL and won a settlement to the tune of 700+ million dollars. That's a lot of money, even for an organization that grosses 9 billion annually.

I have an issue with all of this new criticism of football. The former players who believe that the NFL withheld information are trying to grab low hanging money. How in the world could a grown adult not realize that bashing your head against another man's body as hard as you can is bad for your health? The body is an amazing machine but no machine in the world could take the harsh punishment that football players put it through and come out without long lasting side effects. I think that part of the reason that now, after the NFL has been around for 50ish years, people are coming out of the woodwork to speak up about concussions in football is because we are a 'look at me' society. Services like Twitter make it very easy for one individual to think that every thought that they have is golden and the world needs to hear about it. It's a very short jump to believe that the world owes you something for risks that you knowingly took earlier in life.

To combat this new found criticism, football has instituted some new rules- specifically about targeting a "defenseless" receiver. If a player is in the act of making a play on the ball and is not focusing on where he is in relation to the defense, the defenders can not make a big hit on the receiver. The defense is forced to either slow down and not hit the receiver so hard to aim lower for possibly the rig cage or legs (which also isn't a great idea). Some former players, ones who are not trying to grab money from the NFL, have decried that the NFL is going to legislate contact out of a contact sport. I tend to agree with them, but there is something to be done.

If you watch any highlight reels of "big hits", you'll notice one thing: the players who are doing the hitting make themselves into missiles. They tuck their head and shoulders, lower their arms to their sides and launch hard off the ground with their feet. They don't actually see what they are going to hit ( which often leads defenders to hit their own teammates). **I do have a problem with this.* Since I was little, and when I played high school football (for that one, whole year) I was taught how to tackle. I was told "See what you hit and hit what you see." "Head up, wrap up." Players these days don't do this. This method of tackling is more effective than just launching at a receiver, but not as intimidating. Much more safe, but not as flashy. Lately, targeting like this can cost a team 15 years, can cost a player a hefty fine and can sometimes cost a team that players (NCAA football can eject a player for a targeting penalty). I understand why football is trying to make the game safer. I may not agree with the motives behind it (mostly $$ related). I do have an idea as to how we can have our cake and eat it too. Players just need to start acting like they are tackling properly.

Seriously, if a player were to use their arms and attempt to wrap a player up, but still duck their head & shoulder to launch at a player, a would be half of the targeting penalties would be called. The audience still gets our ultra-violet hits and the NFL can say that the players are attempting to tackle properly.

"There's this parish priest, goes up to the Pope, drops down on his knees, starts weeping... asking forgiveness. "Holy father, holy father, what am I to do? What am I to do? I do not believe in God anymore. What am i to do?" And you know what the pope said... "Fake it." "