Michael Dixon
Beginning with the 2017 NFL season, blows to the head may carry more than just a 15-yard penalty. According to Ian Rapoport, a rule passed on Tuesday calls for ejections “egregious hits to the head.”
The NFL rule on automatic ejections for egregious hits to the head was approved. Sounds like the competition committee expected this
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 28, 2017
This is certainly not surprising. The NFL has been working towards eliminating hits to the head and an ejection is a strong deterrent.
The most glaring problem is that “egregious” can be a subjective term. Two different people can look at the same hit and disagree on how egregious it was. Vontaze Burfict’s hit to the head of Antonio Brown during the playoffs following the 2015 season was one that illustrates this to perfection (watch here).
In fact, one person can look at two similar hits and easily one as egregious and one as not.
But this is certainly the way that the NFL is trending. It’s not the first move made for the sake of player safety and limiting concussions. Odds are, it will not be the last, either.
