Is it time to institute replay for helmet to helmet contact?

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Is it time for the CFL to institute Replay on Helmet to Helmet Contact?

Poll ended at Tue Oct 10, 2017 5:50 pm

Yes
5
50%
Study it for the future
1
10%
No leave as is
4
40%
 
Total votes: 10
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Toppy Vann
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http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/video/3-downs-is- ... ct~1211961

Farhan Lalji raises the question if this should be instituted as officials say some of the helmet contact comes so rapidly that officials can't really assess it.

Various ways of handling include:

1. Referees calling it like a fumble call and then altering if the review shows no real hit.

2. Eye in the sky automatically calling for a review and off field makes the call.

3. Let the PA handle it and get their members to not hit helmet to helmet.
Argument here is that they have a responsibility but the counter says it has to be in the hands of referees (Note: refs say it's happening at times they can't see it).

Others say that the same players who call for more league rules on player safety are the same ones doing the helmet hits at times and it's naive to think they'd be able to control individuals. It's not worked in the NHL to get players associations to reduce head shots there so is this approach at all viable?

4. Do what the Seahawks did a few years, teach no helmet tackling and wrapping up like rugby tackles as we're seeing too many trying to knock down ball carriers versus tackle them.

Your thoughts.
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KnowItAll
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make em play with no helmets like rugby.
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WestCoastJoe
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Good points, Guys.

Rugby tackling.

No helmets.

Leather helmets.

Consider methods to prevent concussions.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

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Toppy Vann
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Seahawk tackling technique instituted by Pete Carroll.

https://www.si.com/2014/08/15/pete-carr ... ling-video

Yes...go back to leather helmets hahah.. No one complained of concussion in those days.

Actually the helmets today are not only far better protection, they're likely to be harder hitting than the old helmets variations.
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.businessinsider.com/seahawks ... -nfl-2017-
The Seahawks' dominating defense uses a safer rugby style of tackling, and it could change the NFL

Scott Davis

Jan. 14, 2017, 1:47 PM

Michael Ainsworth/AP

The Seattle Seahawks are in the playoffs for the fifth-straight season and once again they are being led by one of the NFL's best defenses.

The "Legion of Boom" is notorious for its stingy, hard-hitting defense that squashes opposing offenses, but the Seahawks are at the forefront of a safer, revolutionary style of tackling.

A year ago, ESPN's Sheil Kapadia detailed the Seahawks' effort to promote a new, rugby-style tackling method that has been paying dividends over the last four seasons.

It's been pushed by assistant head coach Rocky Seto, who, after coaching at USC, joined Pete Carroll and the Seahawks in 2010. Seto has been promoting a different tackling style that removes players' heads from the equation.

According to Kapadia, Seto showed a visiting English coach the method in 2012 when the coach told him that it looks like the way rugby players make tackles.

The basic idea is to target the hips and thighs and drive your shoulder into your opponent. Seto told Kapadia:

I believe that's how the game was originally played when the guys were wearing leather helmets or the helmets without the face masks. You didn't want to put your nose right into someone's chest or knee. You're going to get hurt. So that's just what the rugby guys do, as well. They try to get contact with the shoulders. So that's the biggest principle.

The Seahawks produced a video showing how they teach players this safer method. Players are leading the tackle with their shoulders and trying to hit opponents at their center of balance to bring them down.

Linebacker Bobby Wagner said that there's a little bit of an adjustment to it: "We didn't really teach tackling growing up. You just hit the guy."

Seto explained why there's a transition period for players to use the new style, telling Kapadia, "Conventional football is to get your head across or to see what you hit, essentially using your head as a limb to stop guys from coming forward."

Instead, this method of tackling tries to avoid any contact to the head whatsoever.

While Richard Sherman said players just do what they're taught and are not consciously thinking about the new method, Earl Thomas said he thinks this could change football.

"I think so, especially when you're talking about concussions and your brain shaking and stuff like that, and the effects that it has after football, of course," Thomas said. "We do a great job of incorporating the rugby style with tackling."

The new method seems to have had a positive effect on the Seahawks. According to Sporting Charts, the Seahawks were second in the NFL in total yards allowed after the catch in 2015 and seventh this season. Kapadia notes that from 2013 through 2015, the Seahawks allowed a league-best 4.3 yards after the catch and were fifth in the NFL in yards allowed after contact to runners.

Similarly, in terms of player safety, the Seahawks reported the 12th-fewest concussions per game from 2013 to 2016.

Pete Carroll said of the practice: "There's enough examples already of how dangerous sports are, and we have to do everything in our sport that we can to make it as safe for our players as possible, and we're going to continue to do that."
There ia a leather reference above in the article, 7th paragraph. Toppy.

I put my helmeted head on a running back's knee one time, as his knee was coming up. Just once. Luckily, just a quick ringing of the bell, and then OK. But I got the message. Same with a diving tackle on a hard, grassless field. Ratched the knee. Always tried to run through the runner after that.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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Toppy Vann
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New videos from Lions practice today follow the first clip on the hit on Messam including Wally Buono. I like his statements!!!

The hits on Mike Reilly over two weeks are not in this clip but Awe fined for two hits - one of which was on Messam. He's young but he'll need to reign it in a bit here.

His excuse is not that great though as like a hockey player near the boards you have to be responsible for your actions.

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/video

Lions' players on new rules:

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/video/lions-under ... st~1213290

Wally in a good interview on player safety and how the game has changed and players including Sol E have adapted to this.

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/video/buono-confi ... st~1211962
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KnowItAll wrote:
Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:31 pm
make em play with no helmets like rugby.
Or bring back leather helmets.
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B.C.FAN
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I'm not in favour of anything that would slow the game down and give video officials more power to overturn plays on the field. A lot of helmet-to-helmet contact is hard to see in real time or on video review, and a lot of the marginal contact I've seen lately look like clean hits in which the helmet-to-helmet contact came after initial contact. I'm fine with the current system of doling out supplementary discipline, including fines or suspensions, after a thorough review during the week after the game.
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I like the Seattle idea but unsure of replay for helmet to helmet contact. It should be available to the to the officiating crew but only if there is a serious possibility of helmet to helmet contact on the play. As for the leather helmet idea, I'm sure Wally still has his as well as film from showing how to run the offence and defence
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Hambone
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I'm not sure I'm for or against but I think if they were to go down this path I prefer Toppy's Option 2 as the way to deal with it. My biggest fear is how it would impact flow as there are several instances per game where it appears helmets were very close to making contact. Anytime a player tries to wrap a player up tackling around the chest area his helmet will be very close to contacting the ball carrier's helmet.
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WestCoastJoe
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Not following NFL football much these days. So I had not heard of Pete Carroll teaching rugby tackling. I really like the notion. Another example of Carroll's forward-looking, outside the box thinking IMO.

As much as possible keep the head of it.

Also, I have posted on this site a few times about leather helmets.

Toppy, I think you would look good in a leather helmet. Ha ha So would we all.

It seems to me that the leather helmets would give some protection to the one wearing it. And it would be far, far less of a weapon than the high tech ones players wear today.

Just IMO, for the safety of the players ...


BN-KH700_RUGBYT_GR_20150915113800.jpg
rugby 1.png
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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WestCoastJoe
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Leather helmets.

In the days when pro football players were not fashion models. Ha ha

leather-football-helmets.jpg

Hey, is that Toppy? Or WCJ? No, it's Red Grange.
red_grange_chicago_bears_football_sketch_card_by_avintagedreamer-d82bpt7.jpg
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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Toppy Vann
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Caught a bit of a CBC radio interview with Ken Dryden last night on his new book on Steve Montador.

Then just noticed that Bob Mackenzie has written on TSN on the book and head shots as he personally has had to deal with this as a family issue.


http://www.tsn.ca/the-work-continues-an ... e-1.886555

I think there is a role for fans to speak out also to make the game safer (football, hockey) as these are good games and if things don't change, it invites governments and of course more lawsuits.

The column is long as Mackenzie speaks on the book then how he became a (failed) crusader for making changes - fell on deaf ears his advocacy for changes.

Quite frankly there are dinosaurs in all sports who resist change but you'd think owners would want to preserve their assets better rather than 'it's just part of the game' and take injuries for granted. If it was a $1million piece of equipment that got damaged unnecessarily things would change.

Bob Mackenzie column:
It's called Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador and the Future of Hockey.

It's written by Hall of Fame goaltender and acclaimed author Ken Dryden.
As you would expect -- coming from the man who wrote the definitive hockey book in 1983, The Game -- Game Change is excellent. Well written. Well researched. Well reasoned. Informative. Intriguing. Thought provoking.

As the title suggests, it is first and foremost a story on the life of Steve Montador and how he went from being a fun-loving, quintessential, hardcore NHL "hockey guy" to a depressed, manic and deeply damaged young man who was dead at age 35.
But there are two other stories being concurrently told in this book: the story of the NHL, how the game is played, how it's changed and how it's governed; the story of medicine and science and how they relate to brain trauma, concussions if you will, and the advances in this field; and how those two stories have become intertwined with Montador's.
What HOFer Ken Dryden is saying for hockey:
"Two small changes," Dryden writes in the book. "No hits to the head; no finishing your check."
And why he is advocating for Bettman and the NHL to do away with the finish-your-check mentality that permeates the game and make any and all hits to the head illegal.
"No hits to the head," Dryden says. "No excuses."
Football - we see some injury inducing shoulder hits as a player is going down and they're excused as the player is lowering their head. Naaman Roosevelt is one such hit and Nik Lewis (among others) tweeted all night that it was not the defender's fault.

There was no need for the hit on Roosevelt like that. He was going down. While it looks good to fans he's now looking like he's not in the line up this week. Not practicing - is that good or is he considered just an easy replacement? I think he's a budding star now but who knows now.

DBs can play recklessly with these shoulder checks. Loffler for the Bombers is one such player where one of his recent efforts actually just took out his own player.
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Hambone
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Toppy Vann wrote:
Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:45 am
Football - we see some injury inducing shoulder hits as a player is going down and they're excused as the player is lowering their head. Naaman Roosevelt is one such hit and Nik Lewis (among others) tweeted all night that it was not the defender's fault.

There was no need for the hit on Roosevelt like that. He was going down. While it looks good to fans he's now looking like he's not in the line up this week. Not practicing - is that good or is he considered just an easy replacement? I think he's a budding star now but who knows now.

DBs can play recklessly with these shoulder checks. Loffler for the Bombers is one such player where one of his recent efforts actually just took out his own player.
I think the root cause in football is the simple fact the big hit has replaced the tackle as the DB's preferred method of bringing a ball carrier down. That carries over into other aspects. It ticks me off when I see defensive player(s) allowing a ball carrier to pound ahead another 10 yards because they are too busy trying to strip the ball to bother making the tackle right away.
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