Correlation B/w Low Tackles and WR Career Longevity

[jman3134]

Has anyone looked at the adjustments to the tackling rules and how it has impacted the longevity of NFL receivers? Anecdotally, it seems like there are an awful lot more hamstring injuries on a week-to-week basis. Lower body injuries must portend shorter careers.

Any thoughts on this hypothesis?

[Jigga94]

Ideally less hits = less chance for injury. But injuries can be so random (non contact for example) that I bet there's not much correlation.

Maybe in a case like Austin Collie the new rules will help but he was still an outlier back then and WR still get concussions and come back and perform at varying rates.

[_yeti]

I am not of the belief hamstring injuries come from tackles. I hurt my hamstring by hyperextending my leg 9 years ago and it still gives me problems. They linger. Now that hit on Godwin on the other hand

[Kelldon]

Hits like the one on Godwin are gonna happen a lot more and it's the NFL fault. Half the time a defender makes a legal hit where he hits a wr in the shoulders and helmet makes contact or wr gets hit upper chest right under chin it's gets flagged. So defenders are saying "okay, I'll just go for his legs sorry not sorry."

[FantasyFreak]

Hits like the one on Godwin are gonna happen a lot more and it's the NFL fault. Half the time a defender makes a legal hit where he hits a wr in the shoulders and helmet makes contact or wr gets hit upper chest right under chin it's gets flagged. So defenders are saying "okay, I'll just go for his legs sorry not sorry."

As they should. It is the NFL's fault, to some degree, but the game is inherently dangerous, which was already discussed. Defenders need to be able to tackle. There was a time where a defenseless receiver didn't exist, the D is now being punished to some degree for being in great position, and the more you make rules about where you can and can't hit, the more you punish the D for that. It's a tough call, but at some point, you have to make rules that punish the offense in order to protect them. Like not allowing YAC etc if a player is deemed defenseless, but again, in live game action, a defender trying to know if a ref is determining the player defenseless is problematic.

[_yeti]

Hits like the one on Godwin are gonna happen a lot more and it's the NFL fault. Half the time a defender makes a legal hit where he hits a wr in the shoulders and helmet makes contact or wr gets hit upper chest right under chin it's gets flagged. So defenders are saying "okay, I'll just go for his legs sorry not sorry."

I totally get this and think the NFL's over-emphasis on targeting is just to buy time before the full ramifications of CTE are known. And I am the first guy to back up defenders saying NFL players are moving so fast and trying to elude you, it only looks like they are able to target or are able to in certain situations because they are some of the best athletes in the world. Your average joe would come up with air trying to make an aimed tackle on an NFL player.

That being said on the Godwin hit, Godwin did not see him coming and wasn't attempting to be elusive. He could have easily hit him at center mass like a normal tackle and actually went way out of his way to drop to the ground and dive through his knee. In my opinion it was one of the dirtiest football plays I have personally seen, like intentionally metal cleating a guy on a slide in baseball for instance, that level of dirty for me. I bring it up because the post was about low tackles and Tom Brady has been talking about this for a long time, there should be protection to WR knees when making a catch.