Roger Goodell is taking away the physical aspect of football

Anybody who has played football, or let alone watched it, knows that it is a dangerous game.  There always have been and always will be injuries in professional football.  If there wasn't, it wouldn't be football.  Why do you think they have injuries on video games?  It makes the game more realistic and shows that injuries, (not just in sports), are apart of life.

Now it was about last year when Roger Goodell started to really tick people off.  Particularly us Steelers fans.  I honestly lost count of how many times James Harrison was fined for "illegal hits" last season.  Of course those are "illegal hits according to Roger Goodell," that is.  At first I thought that he was just prejudice against the Steelers, (which he is), but now it seems like the number of flags and fines have sky-rocketed.

Last week, Troy Polamalu was fined 15k for a horse collar tackle on Ricky Williams.  Seriously?  He didn't do it on purpose.  That's like if somebody unintentionally hits a cameraman when pushed out of bounds, and is fined for it.  It's ridiculous, and a disgrace to the game.  But believe it or not, the Steelers aren't the only team being abused.  Other big names such as Ed Reed, Brian Urlacher, Robert Mathis, and Brandon Meriweather have all been fined at least once in the last two seasons.  Even the "safety video" released by the NFL late last season doesn't show much of a difference in the hits that they are contrasting.  Maybe Goodell likes some players better than others?  Ray Lewis leads with his head every play.  Why hasn't he been fined?

After Goodell had eliminated all big hits in the NFL, he figured he might as well take the kickoffs away too.  That's when he crossed the line.  Are you kidding me?  Aren't kickoffs apart of football?  Aren't certain players trained specifically to be special teams players?  The new rule states that the kickoff tee will be placed at the 35-yardline, instead of the 30.  So in essence, there will be a significant increase in touchbacks, and a decrease in kick returns.  I wonder if Goodell wrote a personal apology letter to Devin Hester?

So in conclusion, I will say that players safety is definitely an important part of the game.  Concussions are becoming more and more serious as the years go by.  But why not just issue personal letters to each team about player safety before you hand out all of these fines, and enforce all of these rule changes?  But what are the odds of that?  That would be the smart thing to do.

Written by Alex Muchnok