While Alex Ferguson loves the big hits in the NFL he still wants to see more done to protect the players.
Hitting back at dangerous tackles
I'm as excited as the next person about September.
I love the passes, the last-second field goals, the Hail Marys, the diving interceptions, the crowds, the parties, and of course, the cheerleaders. And if I'm honest, I like the hits, too.
It's the dark side of me that gets brought out when I see a linebacker crush a quarterback - something I've been pretty used to as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan for these past few years.
But when reports emerged that US medical tests had found Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry already had brain damage prior to the car accident that left his brain dead, it got me thinking: shouldn't the powers-that-be at professional, college and high school football levels be doing more for their players' safety?
I've seen two hits in my life that will always stick with me. One was in the 2009 Rose Bowl, when USC safety Taylor Mays delivered a monster hit on Penn State wide receiver Jordan Norwood. I still can't understand how Norwood wasn't carted off the field. I can understand even less how he returned later in the game.
The second hit was one on Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco by Baltimore Ravens future Hall of Famer Ray Lewis in 2009, which was such a crushing blow that the receiver's helmet was blown clean off.
In fact, just go to YouTube and search for "NFL" and "Hits", and you'll be drooling over men in pads knocking seven bells out of each other and looking for the eighth to stamp on. There are over 150,000 highlight reels at the last count. It's still stunning not to see more players extracted from the ground via crane or wheelchair after their bodies take the beating.
Sadly, though - as was the case for Henry - you didn't see the evidence for the hits until much, much later. Football players tend to have lower life expectancy - not surprising if you consider that amount of rappings that they've had on their noggin during their three careers in lyrca and a helmet.
The 'softer' side?
There are some factions who believe that grown men running around the field wearing pads and helmets shows somewhat of a 'softer side', but this writer would rather face up to a 200-300lb monster wearing a helmet and pads, rather than a simple shirt.
Sadly, the hitting that happens in American Football is also leaking its way through to other sports, too.
In rugby, the hitting seems to get more and more ferocious year on year and the injuries seem to get increasingly more serious by the year, too.
Some rugby stars have been outspoken about their admiration for American Football, and you can be pretty certain that there are rugby players out there who look at the (legal) hitting done at NFL and NCAA level and think: "I wonder how I can get that sort of hitting into the game I play".
But the bottom line is this: there needs to be sanctions on dangerous hitting at NFL, NCAA and high school level.
The bottom line is that American Football is a sport, and you shouldn't take your life into your own hands every time you play it - at whatever level you do.
At all three levels of the game, I want to see professionals, college footballers and kids padded up to their eyeballs so that a big hit won't cause so much damage. So what if the shoulder pads are widened a bit and the helmet is made tighter because it is filled with more foam? So what if the chests look wider because they are fuller!
And if the NFL or college players are found to be playing without certain types of padding, they should be suspended from the field of play until they are attired properly.
That might seem draconian, but who wants a wide receiver to end up a drooling mess because he wanted to lower the height of his pads, endangering himself in the process?
Dealing with dangerous play
As for tackles - and we're talking the Taylor Mays-type ones to be completely outlawed so that any player who doles out a hit like that won't just receive a 15-yard penalty, but can be dismissed from the field of play (like they do for dangerous tackles on the soccer field) and then suspended for a game or two.
Suddenly, Big Johnny who decides to try and wreck the career of Little Johnny, he might think twice about it when he's sitting on the side. After all, 'dangerous play' seems to be outlawed in most other sports - why can't it come with a banishment during a game!
If someone wants to go out and maim somebody in the so-called 'field of battle', then can I suggest a future career in boxing, UFC or WWE?
Sure, some of the NFL's rules have worked. The rules about tackling on the blind-side and the rule to make sure that prevents, in the words of the Boston Globe: "a defender on the ground who hasn't been blocked or fouled directly into the quarterback from lunging or diving at the quarterback's lower legs."
But we need to stamp out the ones that can put a player's life in danger, like the neck or head tackle.
Of course, you can argue that every challenge made on the 'field of battle' is a dangerous one, but we all know where there's a line.
We know that the NFL fines players for various misdemeanours, and to be frank, a fine and a two-game suspension for what will be deemed a 'dangerous challenge' might just be the thing to make sure American Football has more fun and less tragedy on its fields of play.
