Column: Pothole Prairie, by Tim Engstrom

Football without pads would reduce injuries.

I wrote a column saying just that back in 2004, when I was editor of the Ellensburg Daily Record in Washington state. It was before this debate arose about injuries and concussions. The debate was there, for sure, like when Troy Aikman retired in April 2001, but the debate hit the media fan when Dr. Bennet Omalu published his findings in July 2005 about chronic traumatic encephalopathy in Mike Webster’s brain in the scientific journal Neurosurgery.

My argument was, and still is, that players use helmets and pads as weapons, rather than as protection. Without pads and helmets, players won’t lower their heads to strike another player. Just watch a game of rugby or kids playing tackle football at recess.

I even called football players a bunch of wimps. I did play football in high school — mainly defensive end but some tight end, too. They are wimps because in other sports, starters spend most of the time playing. Football players rest and rest and rest. Take a linebacker. He doesn’t play on offense and probably not on special teams. He rests between each and every play when he is on the field, and he might come out for long-yardage situations so that the team can field another safety or cornerback. And they only play games once a week.

The unlimited substitution allowed under the rules of tackle football results in fresh players hitting worn-out players. If everyone had to play both sides of the ball, I wrote, the game would be more thrilling for fans. We’d see healthier, all-around athletes, not specialty guys. Teams ought to have no more than 11 backups, plus a kicker, a punter and a returner. The total roster would be 25 guys. Once you come out, you are done for the half.

The sports editor, assistant editor and our best staff writer — all guys who liked football — laughed at me. It was difficult back then to find anyone out there on the World Wide Web saying anything like that.

These days, many of my points are easy to find. Forbes did a piece in 2012 about how banning helmets would reduce concussions. Former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward says the same thing often these days. He says play with leather helmets, no facemasks.

“When you put a helmet on, you’re going to use it as a weapon, just like you use shoulder pads as a weapon,” he said.

To be sure, rugby players wear pads. They wear shirts with a slight amounts of padding stitched in — nothing like the great amount of pads that football players wear. And rugby players wear no helmets.

A column by Ben Lorimer for Bleacher Report from 2011 points out how reducing pads and removing helmets probably would make football more popular around the world. And goodness knows the NFL wants to expand outside the United States.

He said removing helmets would remove the feeling of invulnerability that helmets give players.

He wrote: “Instead of being taught to hit with the helmet, defenders would be taught to tackle leading with the shoulder, in the ‘true’ form of tackling. For those of you who feel that this would be dangerous, take a look at rugby games. Very few players are injured in the process of tackling.”

He makes an interesting point that the pads slow players down. Removing them would speed up the game “because players would be unencumbered by pads.”

As for substitution, there remains hardly any media content out there these days about that. However, it should be noted that football at one time had rules that limited substitution. Before the 1940s, players played offense and defense. It was called one-platoon football. College teams began fielding two-platoon teams, and the NCAA in 1954 banned it. After the 1964 season, two-platoon football returned, resulting in more specialized players. The NFL changed its rules in 1950.

Think of how many college scholarships are hogged by football because of this rule change. More colleges could use those scholarships to field baseball, gymnastics and wrestling teams — sports with male athletes cut under Title IX for the sake of fielding revenue-producing football teams. The fact is, the average football game has only 11 minutes when the ball is in play, according to a 2010 study by the Wall Street Journal. Most of the game is standing around preparing for the next play. What other sport does the clock tick while players do nothing?

Moreover, these student-athletes are playing only half the game, because of two-platoon football, if they get to play at all. They only play 12 games — 13 if they go to a bowl. A starting quarterback for a bowl-bound squad might see 78 minutes of ball-is-moving action all season long. And that’s a generous estimate.

Compare that with basketball, where the clock ticks only when the ball is in action. Before he was injured, Gophers basketball player Andre Hollins was seeing 30 minutes a game. (College games are 40 minutes long.) In a mere three games, Hollins played more basketball than a quality quarterback played football all season.

Sorry, I like football, too, but you have to admit that they are sort of wimpy — I mean, when you run the numbers.

Take off the pads. Take off the helmets. Limit substitutions. The injuries will go down. The men who play the sport will look like real men, not Michelin men. The revenue will still be there. In fact, the game will go global. Simple as that. If the NCAA or NFL had the foresight to take such bold steps …

If …

Have a happy Super Bowl XLVIII. Go, Seattle Seahawks!

 

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.