Concussions on the Rise

This past weekend brought to light a very real and disturbing trend in the NFL. League-wide offensive players are getting hit in the helmet on tackles made by defensive players, often times when the offensive player is defenseless. There were three hits specifically that created a stir this weekend. These hits caused the league office to make some changes and implement a rule mid-season. The rule change that is being implemented is, if a player leads with the head on a tackle, that player will be suspended instead of just being fined. One of the players it would have affected, if it was in place last week, would have been James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Here is a video on both of his hits. Both of these hits were absolutely unnecessary. The first one on Joshua Cribbs, Harrison didn't even try to wrap him up with his hands and he was already in the process of being tackled. The second hit on Massaquoi was ridiculous. Not only did he not try to wrap up, but used his entire body to through himself at his head. You can see how his hands fly out after crushing his helmet. That is just an absolutely dirty play. If you want to make sure he doesn't catch the ball, then fly in and go for the ball by stripping it with one hand or just tackle him. Another hit that was in the discussion from the weekend was Dunta Robinson's hit on DeSean Jackson. Here is that video. This one was a little less intentional head-to-head hit, but still knocked Jackson out and gave him some memory loss. The third hit was by Brandon Meriweather of the Patriots hitting Todd Heap. Here is a look at that video. He was clearly gunning for Heap's head on this play and an earlier play when he fortunately missed. This type of play has to stop.

Concussions are very dangerous to our future health. There have been some studies on the effects of concussions on mental health later in life. There has been speculation that ALS symptons in athletes might actually be a side-effect of multiple concussions. Researchers on this subject have gone back through newspaper articles when Lou Gehrig was playing and found that in one year alone, Gehrig was knocked out 5 times by the baseball and played the next day. They wonder if perhaps this was the cause for his ALS symptoms, that it was only the concussions causing the problem. So what should the NFL do to make players safer? Will suspending them help make the players more cautious of how aggressive they play? Some people have called in to talk shows and suggest they go back to leather helmets. They figure if they are wearing the leather helmets and not the current helmets, they would be less likely to feel invincible and safe, and therefore not want to put such a licking on a player. Instead, they would resort to fundamental tackling. What are your thoughts? How should the league handle this situation? Are they handling it properly with suspensions?