Mike Abou-Mechrek: Now You Know
I mean no disrespect to Tiddly Winks, Paddy Cake, or Tiddy Bumping; they are all great games and I am sure that some people may enjoy playing, or even watching these contests; but when I tune into a game, a professional football game, I want to see super human feats of athleticism that take decades to master…not the equivalent of two marshmallows Tiddy Bumping. I’ll just say it: I want them to stop trying to take the hitting out of the game!!!
Some of these unnecessary roughness/hitting to the helmet/hitting with the helmet/high hit on the QB/low hit on the QB/late hit on the QB/hitting a defenceless player/etc/etc, have been absolutely ridiculous…in this game sometime roughness IS necessary.
I am all for protecting the players, but I hoped that would mean coaching the ’next’ players at the grass roots the proper ways to protect yourself, and others on the gridiron- not a slap on the wrist 15 yard penalty for potentially ending a guy’s career on a cheap, dirty play…which, apparently is the same penalty for a d-lineman who brushes his guided hand across the side of a QB’s head. Preposterous! – and this is coming from me- a guy who spent 20 years of his life, and got paid decent money to protect the QB.
Now, don’t for a second mix words and think that I am saying “have at the quarterback,” I am not. I would not be averse to having more severe punishments handed out by the league for deliberate intents to injure. On every football play each and every player has the option to end another guys career- within the framework of the rules. When you become a football player (not someone who plays football, but a football player) you join a fraternity. As easy as we make it look on TV, it’s tough. Waking up at 5am to work out, leaving your family ‘back home’ so you can earn an income, missing convocations, family weddings or the birth of your own child all in the name of a game. No one ‘gets’ us like other football players, whether we know each other or not. We all know that “this” could be our last play- and that’s within the rules! We, as players have to respect and trust each other (yes, trust our opponents) enough not to cross that line and deliberately injure someone, or end their career- a career that they depend on to feed their families.
So, I say when that line is crossed- throw that player out of the league, but ridiculous, powder puff calls from attention craving refs have effected too many games of late. After all, QB’s are not like Kickers, they are considered “football players” because football players are asked to hit, and be hit, and when we cross the wide white line we know the risks. Now, I say this with a 4 year old son who is 3 foot 7, 72 pounds, so whether I like it or not there is football in my boys future, and at the grass root level the kids simply don’t hit hard enough to damage each other – sure kids get seriously hurt in football, hockey and climbing trees, and that is tragic- but if we teach them the respectful way to punish your opponent they can make their mistakes while they are little marshmallows tiddy bumping each other, and not finely tuned gladiators with the capacity to decapitate.
My hope is that my boy learns what I, and most others learn from football: how to work in a team, that hard/smart work pays off, confidence, discipline and respect- for the game and his teammates. And while on the topic of respect…remember the good old days when opposing receivers Respected the middle of old ‘Taylor Field’, now Mosaic Stadium, because there was a guy who wore Number 27 who hung out there and as nice as he may seem now on TSN, when the opposition tried to move in on his turf he was not very nice. But “not nice” doesn’t mean not having respect for your fraternity brother. It is a fine line, but a line nonetheless, and in my opinion, that line right now is not where it should be.
As much as I hate to side with the defense on anything, I have to on this because it is changing the game I love. Defenders are doing everything they can to do their job-whether it’s getting after the QB, or prevent a receiver from making a catch- I wonder whether the folks in charge of making the rules, or blowing the whistle, ever played a down of football? I don’t know how a defender can do their job effectively and then in a milli second be asked to freeze on the spot, or perfectly place their shoulder pad in an 18×10 inch ‘hit zone’ that is deemed acceptable to tackle another player in…but not too early, or too late, and defiantly if he doesn’t think he’s going to be hit. (It’s football…we HIT!!!)
…I don’t know where I am going with this write up. I think I just wanted a public forum to rant. So far this season I’ve focused on some of the things that need to go right for a team to have success and that’s hard enough with the refs changing the rules on a weekly basis- and in my opinion not for the betterment of the game.
I hope this rash of unnecessary roughness calls isn’t the direction that the game is going and just the CFL refs calling ‘everything’ leading into the playoffs, because everyone knows that the flags and whistles go away in the playoffs.
(I value your feedback at Mike.Abou-Mechrek@InvestorsGroup.com)
