The Remarkably Quiet Death of Tackle Football

Tackle football currently dominates the landscape of our national culture like no sport has done for almost a century. Almost single-handedly, it is keeping the major television networks—otherwise in a death spiral of their own badly broken business model’s making—alive. The Super Bowl is now the last remaining annual non-holiday happening we can legitimately consider a communal event, uniting Americans of virtually all demographics, at least for about five hours.

Paradoxically, tackle football, at least in the form we have come to know it, is also vanishing right before our eyes. Remarkably, though we live in a social media era that affords most subjects far more coverage and in far more detail than they deserve, almost no one is talking about this astonishing and seemingly contradictory development.

It could not be more obvious to avid fans of professional and college (now “minor league professional”) football that this once uniquely American sport is far less physical than it was just five to ten years ago. It is also clear that those in charge of the sport are dedicated, for various—mostly economic—reasons, to continue to push the sport in this feminized direction. It seems they will not stop until the game that became so popular in the golden era of the television age—the 1970s and ’80s—that it overtook baseball as the national pastime is completely transformed.

Quantifying exactly how soft tackle football has recently become is a difficult task. It is especially difficult for those under the age of 25 who, unless they happen to catch old clips on YouTube or TikTok, have little against which to compare the current version of football. Even at the professional level, the sport is now closer to the “flag” variety than the traditional “tackle” game. (In super-liberal California, where I live, there really isn’t even much need for helmets anymore, except in the top high school games).

While it is oddly never mentioned during football broadcasts, perhaps the best way to illustrate the dramatic change is just to look at the player’s uniforms. Skill players, especially in college ball, routinely wear what can only be called shorts—which are often further off the knee than the variety worn by their counterparts in basketball. Similarly, jerseys no longer have sleeves because the size of the shoulder pads has shrunk as significantly as the revenue ESPN receives from the badly ailing Golden Goose that was once cable television subscription fees.

The rules of the sport have been radically altered in an attempt to prevent injuries, especially concussions, at almost any cost. Tackles, which used to provoke roars from the crowd, can now—even without clear intent to injure an opponent—easily result in major penalties, ejections, suspensions, and fines. The defense has been so declawed that it seems almost miraculous when there are games during which the scoreboard doesn’t regularly light up like an old-school pinball machine.

This fundamental change in the nature of the sport has been most obvious when it comes to protecting the quarterback—the most important and glamorous position in this modern world where celebrity surpasses substance. Quarterbacks, who were regularly brutalized in the old game, are now so sheltered by the rules that they often taunt weaponless defenders by pretending to slide (thus ending the play and forcing the defense to avoid even breathing on them too heavily) or going out of bounds, before reversing course to pick up extra yardage, surely all the while flashing a Cheshire Cat grin.

There have been several key moments that explain how we got to this point so rapidly, and why the pendulum has swung from America falling in love with a sport that was often far too violent, to the emasculation of tackle football to the point where the game is now so safe that it is paradoxically endangered.

In 2015, Will Smith starred in a movie called Concussion, which focused largely on the horrors which befell several members of the iconic four-time Super Bowl championship team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, allegedly because of the physical toll a far more vicious version of the game had taken on their bodies and minds. One of the stars of that legendary team, the late Hall of Famer Franco Harris (who supported the film), became a rather close friend of mine, so this is a subject about which I am very familiar.

In short, concussions and their apparent connection to a debilitating brain condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—a connection that may be more complex than the simplistic media narrative surrounding it—became a mortal threat to the massive business that is the Football Industrial Complex. Wishing to avoid the fate of tobacco companies, the NFL led the way in subtly and quietly making the game safer, especially with respect to head injuries.

Their intent, while motivated by survival, was mostly noble—as were a lot of the practical changes. There is no question that football is now much safer at every level of play than at any previous time. Ironically, parents are nevertheless now more hesitant than ever to allow their young children to play tackle football, particularly when the alternative of noncontact “flag football” is becoming so popular in its place. This is partially due to flag football’s open support from the NFL, to the point where it is slated to be an Olympic sport in 2028.

As so often happens in this culture, however, we tend to overreact to every moral panic in order to properly signal our virtue, and things have gone too far in the other direction.

In 2020, when the COVID panic overtook the Western world, tackle football was made vulnerable in ways that inflicted far more lasting harm than routinely having to cancel games and greatly limiting crowd sizes. These measures—which now seem to have been motivated, at best, by societal symbolism and, at worst, by a political desire to prevent any resistance to the medical establishment—were damaging. But their direct impact on sports was largely temporary.

Thanks to the general overreaction to the COVID pandemic, however, we also fundamentally changed the rules of medical freedom. For the first time in modern history, it was “decided” that we as a society had the moral and legal authority to tell everyone else what kind of decisions they are allowed to make about their own medical risk management. (Please spare me the rebuttal that mask and vaccine mandates, among other tyrannical measures, somehow helped others not become infected, as we now have overwhelming data proving that always dubious premise was false.)

Quite simply, in a country that no longer accepts the notion that adults are all allowed to make their own decisions regarding what kind of medical risk they want to accept, you just cannot have tackle football. At least not as it was before concussions became a major concern in the corporate news and sports media complex, thus endangering the sport’s huge profit margins.

In October 2022, there was a seminal moment within corporate media that told us a lot about where things are today and where they are likely heading. On ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecast, color analyst Troy Aikman objected to an obviously absurd roughing-the-passer penalty by saying that the NFL needed to “take the dresses off the quarterbacks.”

Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones sacks Raiders quarterback Derek Carr on Oct. 10, 2022, in a flagged play that caused commentator Troy Aikman to remark that quarterbacks need to “take the dresses off.” (ESPN Monday Night Football)

Those of us who understand how lethal the cancel culture’s voluntary police force has become immediately braced for Aikman to get demolished. While he did get widespread criticism—more for alleged sexism than for criticizing a clearly ridiculous penalty—he also received enough support from those fed up with the cancel culture to survive the incident relatively unscathed.

One of the many relevant aspects of this incident, however, was that Aikman was not just a quarterback in his playing days but one who endured many concussions. Yet he was advocating for less overt protection for his former position. Tellingly, Aikman is not alone among former quarterbacks now in the broadcasting field who have been similarly outspoken with regard to the game becoming too soft, with all-time great Tom Brady most prominent among them (though, importantly, he generally does not make such statements on the game broadcasts themselves).

Still, something very interesting has happened since the Aikman “dresses” episode. Network commentators have almost uniformly ceased to make strong comments condemning the way penalties on defensive players are radically altering the game in a negative direction. Now, the most you are likely to get from a network announcer is a very mild questioning of such a call, followed by a toss to the “rules expert,” who, being a former official, is never going to express anything more incendiary than mild disagreement with even the most outrageous flag, followed by the broadcast team quickly moving on.

While there is no way to be certain why the TV networks have suddenly taken this profoundly different tack, it is my informed speculation that the NFL made it clear to their broadcast partners, who are more than willing to bend over backward for the content creator keeping them in business, to “knock it off” when it comes to openly criticizing the wussification of their product. You see, without the added juice of a network announcer ripping a preposterous penalty, the clip of such a play no longer has the same potential to go viral on X or TikTok, and, consequently, the NFL can avoid the organized outrage over what is systematically happening to the sport.

This tactic has been extremely effective, allowing the NFL to get away with rule changes that would have caused a massive uproar just a few years ago. For instance, the new kickoff formation, created solely for the purpose of cutting back on high-speed collisions, has been an absolute disaster. Almost every kickoff now results in nothing but another touchback, with men formerly known as special teams warriors now reduced to pathetic eunuchs forced to go through an embarrassing ritual, all so we can pretend that there are still kickoffs in a sport called FOOTball.

Donald Trump ripped this farce during the presidential campaign, though even that failed to spark any legitimate discussion of how ludicrous it all is. Yet, somehow, the network broadcasts never fail to show us the kickoff—once one of the most exciting plays in the game but now the most boring, with hardly a word about how silly the whole charade is or how easily it could be corrected by simply moving the kicker back another five yards.

It is both interesting and ironic that all of this is happening in a political environment where Trump is now returning to the White House, in large part because many Americans seemed to choose his peculiar brand of masculinity over the feminism of Kamala Harris and the modern Democratic Party. It seems odd that football, a sport once synonymous with manliness, appears to be undergoing a self-induced chemical castration, all while much of its core fan base of mostly non-liberals is simultaneously lashing out politically in some sort of last stand for America to retain at least one of our metaphorical testicles for as long as theoretically possible.

The masculinity aspect of the current debate over the future of football (one that has intermittently raged since the sport’s inception in the post-Civil War era) is best illustrated by the controversy over so-called “guardian caps.” The controversy bubbling just below the surface of this year’s NFL primary storylines involves the use of what amounts to a kind of bubble wrap for the helmet. The theory is that these incredibly ugly and awkward-looking helmet covers will cut down on concussions by providing extra protection. However, the science behind them is, at best, unsettled—making them a lot like the COVID mask.

An extra-padded “guardian helmet” worn by Cleveland Browns player Hassan Hall. (Wikimedia Commons) Several players have begun to wear guardian caps in games. Still, despite the sports media’s failed effort to shame Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa—who has suffered multiple concussions—into wearing one, the movement has yet to gain much momentum. If it eventually catches fire, much like the COVID mask did for mostly political reasons, it will mark, at least symbolically, the beginning of the end of tackle football.

To be clear, no one is advocating for football to be riskier for the purpose of quenching some sort of sick blood lust. However, reasonably regulated physicality is an essential part of this formerly great sport, one that has benefits for the development of young men all the way down to the high school level.

Once this part of the sport finally fades away, there will be no going back. Our society is way too soft now to ever condone a mainstream commercial endeavor (especially one that now openly appeals to ardent Taylor Swift fans) becoming significantly “less safe” on purpose. When this eventually happens, an important piece of what once made America unique will be lost forever.

You may have noticed players wearing these ‘Guardian’ helmet pads on the field during practice and during games. During games they have fabric covers over them................

The players got too big and strong and well trained in delivering a physical blow to their opponent. Human bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles, brains, abdomens, cannot withstand the continual damage. The professional game had to change because it was losing stars to injury. Spectators don’t like to see their stars carried off the field on a stretcher or in an ambulance. Owners don’t want to fulfill million dollar contracts to players in the hospital.
Game has devolved to “basketball on grass”. Guys wearing pants which end above the knees with no thigh or hip pads is a joke.
Watching Dick Butkus blasting opponents , or Joe “Turkey” Jones just about destroy Terry Bradshaw is enough to let one know how dangerous to health the game had become.

I played football in high school. I had a great time but wasn’t very good. Second string tackle on a very good team. My kids played a few years of little league football. The younger one was small and switched to hockey full time. The older one was decent but in high school he was too slow to be good at a skill position and too small compared the 280 pound linemen that were in his high school. He asked to quit in the 11th grade because he never got to play. I let him.

I told him to keep up with the weight lifting, and he did.

Both my boys are now grown. Very smart, successful, physically strong, and healthy. I don’t think anyone would call them weak for not playing football.

The game has left the regular American fan. This is true in pro and college.

Like so many things we used to enjoy, money has taken over.

Last year I was visiting w family after a family event the day before. Someone said something about betting. I said I’d bet on how many times we’d have to see Taylor swift (taking over. My father would have been mortified to see what happened to NFL). Brother in law yelled. Something about Fox News watchers an d swift and whatever. New Yorkers. What can you do.

I said I’d bet on the game but I know the chiefs will win the fix is in. Mor ‘you Trump people!!! Bla bla bla

We went for ice cream at half time. The high school girls running the shop rolled their eyes when I asked them if they agreed with me. “Of course the game is fixed for the chiefs to win. Duh”. New Jersey girls.

Yawn. And yawn to the phony romance.

Things are getting pretty bad in America when even cartoonists can’t spell words correctly, and nobody cares.

To what misspellings, specifically, are you referring?

Regards,

“...The masculinity aspect of the current debate over the future of football (one that has intermittently raged since the sport's inception in the post-Civil War era) is best illustrated by the controversy over so-called “guardian caps.”....”

It is much more far ranging than protecting the quarterback, reducing violent tackling, or the guardian cap. The real change is that football, has become a big money business and not a sport, but this is true of most international sports as well.

In the US however, the NFL and AFL always drew on talent developed by college teams. We have seen student athletes wanting to unionize and get paid. If you look at the NCAA rules on “student athletics” you have to laugh, that these college players are often not students and often professional athletes supported financially with big money.

College football is a farm team for professional football. Just look at what happened to the PAC-12 as it disbanded over money.

There seems to be no reason to have NFL playoffs or a Super Bowl. Just hand the trophy to the Kansas City Chiefs and save everybody a lot of time and money. The NFL is no longer really competitive after the regular season. There is no reason to watch any sport where most teams have no chance to win a championship.

Grew up watching John Brodie with the 49ers. After Brodie, the dark, dismal years where the 49ers practice field in Redwood City didn’t even have a fence. No one was worried about protecting any game plans. Then Bill Walsh arrived, and changed football forever. Ronny Lott was..... Fierce. At practice during the week Lott would sometimes wear a cap with the word WAR emblazoned on it. Lott was famous for knocking the snot out of anyone daring to carry the football. No one ever accused Lott of dirty play. He never tried to hit the helmet, or knees, of another player. He just made sure that players with the football knew what they were in for.

No one would ever accuse Ronnie Lott of consuming quiche. Today, Lott would receive a prison sentence for his hits.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.