rayonsports.com

Writing the post on Tuesday about last weekend’s rash of violent hits got me to thinking about some of the hardest, most famous hits, and hitters, in NFL history. It sort of proves a point that the problem of vicious hitting in the league isn’t a recent problem. The NFL has actually done a good job of legislating dirty play out of the game, perhaps even going a little too far when it comes to protecting quarterbacks. I still feel the problem is with players not learning the fundamentals – both the fundamentals of hitting, blocking and tackling, and the art of being aware of your surroundings in a game and not putting yourself in vulnerable positions where injuries occur. The following is a rundown of hits and hard-hitting players in the NFL over the years:

During their 1960 championship season, the Philadelphia Eagles played a game against the New York Giants in which their hard-hitting linebacker, Chuck Bednarik, laid out Giants’ back Frank Gifford with a hit so vicious that it not only knocked Gifford unconscious, but sent him to the hospital with a severe concussion. It took Gifford a long time to recover from the symptoms of that concussion, and he didn’t play again in the league until 1962. The ferocity of the hit, along with the fact it involved a player who was a New York “Golden Boy” in Gifford, and a player nicknamed “Concrete Charley” in Bednarik, gave it legendary status. The photo below, of Bednarik standing over the prone Gifford like a predator admiring his prey, is also a stunning visual.

Bednarik admires his prey.

In a 1978 preseason game, Oakland Raiders safety Jack Tatum, whose nickname was “The Assassin”, hit Patriots’ receiver Darryl Stingley so hard on a pass play over the middle that Stingley wound up paralyzed from the chest down. Tatum also was involved in a hit during the Super Bowl, against the Vikings, that knocked the helmet off receiver Sammy White and left White lying whoozy on the ground. Amazingly, the Minnesota receiver actually held onto the ball.

Jack Tatum’s hit on Darryl Stingley.

During the Steelers’ championship era of the 1970s, quarterback Terry Bradshaw was involved in a hit that was so severe that it resulted in rules changes to protect quarterbacks. Cleveland Browns’ defensive lineman Joe “Turkey” Jones sacked Bradshaw by picking him up and “piledriving ” him head first into the turf, leaving the Steelers’ QB unconscious on the field. Bradshaw wound up with a concussion, and Jones was fined $3,000.

Jones piledrives Bradshaw into the turf.

In the 1964 American Football League championship game, Bills’ linebacker Mike Stratton hit Chargers’ back Keith Lincoln on a swing pass with a clean hit that injured Lincoln’s ribs and knocked him out of the game. The play became known in AFL annals as “The Hit Heard ‘Round The World”, as it turned momentum in Buffalo’s favor. The Bills won 20-7 for the first of back-to-back titles. The injury to Lincoln was unfortunate, but notice Stratton’s perfect tackling form below, leading with his shoulder and wrapping up the runner with his arms.

The Hit Heard ‘Round The World.

Hardy Brown was an obscure linebacker for the 49ers in the 1950s who became legendary for his hitting. There isn’t one incident involving Brown that is a lasting image, like Bednarik’s hit on Gifford, but Brown’s technique of winding up his shoulder and hitting opponents, knocking them back sometimes up to 10 yards, became legendary. He knocked out 21 players in the 1951 season, and once knocked out an entire team’s backfield in a single game. Playing in the era before the dawn of face masks, Brown also fractured an opponent’s face, almost took out a running back’s eye, and crushed another player’s vertebrae. He was banned from his own team’s practices by coach Buck Shaw.

Hardy Brown about to unload on Otto Graham.

For some reason, it was a particularly violent weekend in the NFL this past week, with a number of vicious hits to the head that caused concussions making the headlines. The NFL has made it a point to take extra precautions to help take the blows to the head out of the game. Quarterbacks are given extra protection, and blows to the head on a QB, no matter how minor they are, are penalized these days. Head blows to defenseless receivers are also being legislated out of the game. I don’t know what happened this weekend, but in a few instances, most notably in the Pittsburgh-Cleveland, Baltimore-New England, and Atlanta-Philadelphia games, players totally disregarded the league’s movement toward eliminating unnecessary head shots. Atlanta’s Dunta Robinson hit the Eagles’ DeSean Jackson so hard that the blow knocked both players out, but Jackson suffered a severe concussion that included loss of memory. There were a couple of questionable hits by Steeler players on Browns’ players that left those players unconscious. The Steelers were wearing their throwback uniforms on Sunday – maybe they decided to play the same style as the guys who originally wore those uniforms in the 1960s, mean, physical, and borderline dirty, a reputation the team had back in those days. In the Ravens-Pats game, New England’s Brandon Merriweather deliberately launched himself into Baltimore’s Todd Heap.

Now it’s being reported that the NFL office is going to start suspending players for these flagrant hits, and that’s a good thing, but I don’t know how much more the league can do as far as rules changes without turning the sport into flag football. On ESPN, a couple of their analysts had ideas on how to cut down on the head shots. Mike Ditka says that the helmets have become weapons to today’s players, and that the equipment is so good today that players feel invincible. He suggested that  face masks should be removed, that if that happened “these pretty boys playing today would never lead with the helmet for fear of ruining their looks and losing endorsement deals”. I love Ditka. I wish he were the commissioner. Of course, removing face masks is too radical, but maybe going back to the single and double bar masks instead of the robot-looking full cages isn’t such a bad idea.

Mike Golic, also on ESPN, says the league should study making form-fitted mouthguards, and make mouthguards mandatory for all players. His thinking is that a lot of the concussion problems come from the jolt that happens when the lower jaw hits the upper jaw when a player is hit under the chin. I was actually surprised to hear that mouth guards aren’t mandatory. Golic has a point. I’ve noticed over the years that it is now “cool” to wear your football pants up over your knees, with the knee exposed, as opposed to when the pants had thigh pads and extended below the knee, with knee pads  covering the knee joint. I don’t know if the NFL has an insurance policy that pays players when they are on injured reserve, or how their system works, but if I were the insurer I would refuse to pay claims on players that don’t wear the proper protective equipment.

If I had to name one reason that is the cause of all the concussions in the league today, I’d point the finger at the coaches. The fundamentals are so bad throughout the NFL today that it’s no wonder players are getting hurt. Everybody is trying to get himself on the highlight reel with a crushing blow, rather than squaring up, wrapping up and tackling the old-fashioned way. The officials should be instructed to penalize any player who attempts to tackle without extending his arms and trying to wrap up the opposing player. There’s no reason why any player needs to “launch” himself into another player in order to bring him down. Today’s players need to be reminded that the object is to stop the runner’s forward progress, not put him in the hospital. When I was growing up, I remember reading a pamphlet, written by then Chicago Bears assistant defensive coach George Allen and sponsored by the Milk For Health campaign if I remember right, that described and illustrated all the fundamental skills needed to be a football player – blocking, tackling, running, throwing, etc. with drills that a kid could practice to improve those skills. If I were NFL commissioner I would hand out copies of that pamphlet to every head coach in the league, and tell those coaches to either teach their players those fundamentals or find other players who will play with those fundamentals, since any player who doesn’t will be suspended continuously until they are all out of the league. Any coach whose players were being constantly fined and/or suspended would be suspended also. All these teams have elaborate training facilities with all kinds of modern equipment. Do any of these teams use tackling dummies or blocking sleds anymore? That’s where the fundamentals are learned.

 I would also direct the competition committee to implement stern sportsmanship rules, making it an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for any player who does anything other than get up and go back to his huddle after making a play. Do these guys really think the fans want to watch them dance for 5 minutes after making a tackle 20 yards downfield in a game they are losing 45-0?  It may not have anything to do with head injuries, but then again, if I’m a player and some guy acts like a jackass when he beats me on a pass play one time, I’m probably going to think about wanting to knock the guy’s head off on the next play.