There’s a rule that needs to be changed. I don’t think the hit was intentional but it positively should have been a personal foul.
The rules evidently allow for helmet to helmet contact for a ball carrier, but if McGahee had been a quarterback that hit would have sent the Steeler to football suspension hell.
Players are too big, strong and fast to allow that sort of hit to continue.
That’s what Simms said, but Simms was wrong. Deliberate helmet to helmet is always against the rules. Of course then the problem is what’s deliberate. It looks like if McGahee hadn’t braced for the hit by folding up his head wouldn’t have been in the flight path, or maybe Clarke was aiming for the head and missed but go “lucky” (of course he got knocked out too). Another problem is basic human anatomy, you can’t really leap at someone without leading with your head, and that head has a very hard shell around it in football, and that shell when propelled by a strong weighty man can do a lot of damage even if it hits something other than head.
What I think is going to happen is that the NFL is going to adopt some variation of the NHL’s charging rule. In the NHL you can’t leave your feet for a hit because that leaping motion adds so much force which tends to injure. Now I don’t think the NFL can completely outlaw leaping tackles, for one not all are dangerous, but I do think they’ll define a range of angles at the ball carrier that can’t be done with a leap.