During Thursday night’s game at Lambeau Field, Davante Adams was the victim of a dangerously illegal hit by Danny Trevathan. He immediately crumpled to the ground after being tagged with the vicious helmet-to-helmet blow, and it wasn’t long afterwards that he was ambulanced to a nearby hospital. Thankfully he avoided a serious spinal chord injury but did sustain a concussion.
When the dirty hit occurred, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network and others hearkened back to a new rule that the NFL had supposedly implemented this past spring. The NFL reportedly “emphasized in March that players can be ejected for egregious hits to head, suspended for first offense,” per Pelissero.
Given the NFL’s recent emphasis on player safety, this seems like a logical step in the right direction. Players need to be punished severely for these types of hits in order to keep them from happening on a regular basis.
However, on Friday morning, the NFL had a different response to all this, per Pro Football Talk.
Per the NFL, no "automatic ejection" rule for "egregious" hits to the head was ever adopted in March.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) September 29, 2017
If that rule was never adopted, it should be. Immediately. Not that the league can change the rules in the middle of the season, but if it could this rule should be in effect like yesterday. Literally.
Trevathan isn’t known for his dirty play in the same way guys like Vontaze Burfict and Ndamukong Suh are. But what he did Thursday night is grounds for suspension. At the least he’ll receive a hefty fine for his action, but that really isn’t going far enough. It’s going to be interesting to see what the NFL does here to discipline Trevathan for his nasty hit on Adams.