A Tough Job Made Harder: Football Officials in an Unforgiving World by Richard Lister

Author:Richard Lister [Lister, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781641972154

9

Protecting the Player, Protecting the Game

When Dr. Bennet Omalu described his findings after examining tissue from Steelers center Mike Webster’s brain, he ignited an inferno. He did it by adding three words to the lexicon that caused—and still cause—the football world to shudder. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

The now-familiar debate followed with the game’s proprietors eventually conceding that, yes, football and brain trauma bear a relationship. While scientific study of football’s effect on neurological health will carry on for years hence, prominent players’ deaths appearing linked to CTE rightly sounded alarms. Headlines and reporting called the game’s viability into question, proclaiming that brain injuries are the sport’s existential crisis.

Though the game’s keepers at first tried to discount the risk, wise thinkers ultimately determined that rule changes would be essential. No longer could human missile shots with the helmet as a warhead remain in the game, let alone be celebrated as defensive football’s essence. The old tackling method where the defender leads with his head had to change. This after decade on decade having been orthodox behavior. Following years spent arguing that neurological compromise from playing was overblown, the NFL stepped up.

“If there is anything the NFL has done right, at the top of their list over the last ten years, it’s aggressively dealing with the player safety issues, the concussions,” says McAulay. “I’m sure it came to a head when the commissioner of the NFL and the commissioners in college were called in front of a congressional hearing. And at that point it was down to either we fix it ourselves or government is going to try to do it. So the NFL has really led, and the colleges have been good about it too.”

“It was like the league had to become their own OSHA,” says Bergman. “We’re going to police ourselves. We’re going to put these laws in place.”

New rules went on the books. Coaches and players had to adjust. Of course, so did the officials. The changes defied a smooth transition. “We have so many more rules now than when I came in in 1991,” says Bergman. “The game is a lot more complicated. There are more things that can go wrong that you have to anticipate than ten, fifteen, twenty years ago because of the new rules. And the majority of them are for player safety.”

The game now looks to its officials to stand between player and neuro compromise. They must master an array of prohibited conduct that was encouraged before the masses had heard of CTE. New terms entered the rules lexicon. Helmet-to-helmet blows. Leading with the crown. Launching. And, of course targeting as the most prominent example.

“We started this with Troy Aikman. He got hit in the chest a few times, and they said put the helmet on the numbers,” says Carollo. “So you’d lead with the head, but the top of the helmet hit him in the chin. He probably had a dozen concussions. But that got our attention about getting hit in the head.”

Though perhaps

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