Larry Brown Sports

With any rule change there is bound to be opposition. Professional athletes are creatures of habit, and they don’t like having to change the way they have been doing things their entire lives. With the NFL recently passing a rule that will require players to wear thigh and knee pads in 2012, you could have guessed there would be uproar among many of the players. There is.

“Personally, I won’t be wearing them,” Raiders cornerback Ron Bartell told the Contra Costa Times. “So I’d better put some fine money away. It takes away from the speed of the game,” Bartell said. “Hip pads, knee pads, thigh pads. They’re not going to stop you from tearing an ACL. It may stop a couple of soft-tissue injuries, but a knee pad isn’t going to stop a guy from blowing out a knee.”

Depending on how strictly the NFL enforces it, there could be ways around the rules. As Bartell’s teammate, safety Michael Huff, explained, he and some other players doctored them while at Texas so they were tiny just to appease the authorities. Bartell and Huff are not alone in not wanting to wear the extra equipment next season.

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Cam Newton has officially changed the game of college football. With the way Newton played this season at the NFL level it may be easy to forget what happened with him at Auburn. Newton won the Heisman trophy and led the Tigers to a National Championship, but to say his college career was filled with controversy would be an enormous understatement.

A little over a year ago, Newton was reinstated at Auburn and declared eligible for the remainder of what would become a championship season. While it was determined that his father, Cecil Newton, tried to auction Cam off to the highest bidder, the NCAA could not prove that Cam knew about the illegal activity. As a result, Newton was allowed to play.

On Wednesday, a rule change assured that we will not see a repeat of the Newton situation. Here is an explanation from the USA Today:

The association’s Division I legislative council endorsed a measure Wednesday expanding its definition of an agent to encompass third-party influences – including family members – who directly or indirectly market an athlete for profit as Newton’s father tried to do as the quarterback was being recruited out of junior college.

Among the specific targets: anyone who “seeks to obtain any type of financial gain or benefit from securing a prospective student-athlete’s enrollment at an educational institution or a from a student-athlete’s potential earnings as a professional athlete.”

In other words, Newton would have been ineligible under the new rule whether he was aware of his father’s pay for play scheme of not.  Anyone who actually believes that Cam was not aware of what his father was doing is either extremely naive, the biggest Newton fan on the planet, or both.  Had the NCAA been able to prove it, Auburn would not have won a championship.  Fortunately, there will be no need to prove it should the situation arise again.

With all the outrage we are hearing about the new kickoff rule in the NFL, it is tough to imagine how the decision received enough votes to pass.  Thus far, it seems as though everyone hates the fact that kickoffs have been moved forward five yards.  The Bears showed their displeasure with the rule by ignoring it altogether in a preseason game.  Bill Belichick even told us that the NFL plans to eliminate kickoffs altogether, which would be a devastating blow and change the game completely.

Former Titans safety Donnie Nickey decided to weigh in on the subject on Monday.  Nickey sent an email blasting the NFL for changing the rule, saying they are eliminating jobs and “destroying the true game of football.”  The Tennessean shared the email with us and the entire thing is worth a read, so here it is:

Just a thought from an unemployed ex-Titan … In today’s economy industries need to be creating jobs. In the NFL, the new kickoff rule is eliminating jobs. The kickoff may as well be eliminated all together. For eight years I made my living covering kickoffs and I took pride in it. The kickoff may be the most violent play in all of sports but is one of the most exciting and game changing plays as well.

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After only one week of preseason games, a ton is already being made about the new NFL kickoff rule.  It is no secret that the rule change was put into effect to protect players and increase the amount of touchbacks.  An increased number of touchbacks means a decrease in high speed collisions.  There is one way the NFL could eliminate kick returns altogether, and that would be to eliminate kickoffs.  According to Bill Belichick, that is the direction the league hopes to head in.

According to Tom E. Curran of CSNNE.com, Belichick hinted on Monday that the NFL intends to eliminate kickoffs altogether.  When pressed further, the Patriots coach basically said it was a fact and not his opinion.

“That’s what they told us,” he said hastily. “I’m not speaking for anyone else. That’s what they told us, that they want to eliminate the play.”

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Any time there is a rule change there is bound to be opposition.  When the NFL decided to move kickoffs back to the 35 yard line, six teams were unhappy with the decision.  One of the six, the Chicago Bears, decided to do something about it during their first preseason game on Saturday.  Rather than adhering to the new rule, Chicago lined up and kicked the ball from the 30 yard line as if nothing had changed.

As Mike Pereira shared with us on Twitter, via Shutdown Corner, the Bears got away with kicking off from the 30 twice without officials noticing.  After the second time, the NFL’s vice president of officiating, Carl Johnson, called Soldier Field and made the officials aware of what was going on.  The Bears were then forced to kick from the 35.  Lovie Smith told the Chicago Sun-Times that his team’s decision to kick from the 30 was not a mistake.

“[Bears kicker]Robbie Gould … we can put it on the 35 and he can kick it out each time,” he said. ”We’re not really getting a good evaluation of what we can do coverage-wise on some of our players. That’s what we were trying to do with it.”

A lot of the players who are on the NFL bubble gain recognition on special teams during the preseason, so Smith has a point in that sense.  If there’s a touchback on every kickoff, guys are not getting a chance to showcase their abilities and state their case.  That being said, the rule was passed for player safety, which the league takes very seriously.  Lovie made his point but should not be surprised if the league makes theirs by penalizing the team.

When we see an injury like the nasty one Buster Posey suffered at home plate on Thursday night, we are reminded that at certain times baseball can be as physical as football — without any of the protection.  Fans love to see players who aren’t afraid to go all out and truck the catcher.  We also love to see a catcher who isn’t afraid to put his body on the line for an out even if it means getting run over.  The only question is: Does baseball need it?

Posey’s agent, Jeff Berry, said on Thursday that he plans to contact Major League Baseball and raise the idea of a rule change on plays at the plate.

“You leave players way too vulnerable,” Berry said. “I can tell you Major League Baseball is less than it was before [Posey's injury]. It’s stupid. I don’t know if this ends up leading to a rule change, but it should. The guy [at the plate] is too exposed.

“If you go helmet to helmet in the NFL, it’s a $100,000 fine, but in baseball, you have a situation in which runners are [slamming into] fielders. It’s brutal. It’s borderline shocking. It just stinks for baseball. I’m going to call Major League Baseball and put this on the radar. Because it’s just wrong.”

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A proposal that will likely lead to an abundance of touchbacks in the NFL next season — or whenever football resumes — was passed Tuesday afternoon.  The spot of a kickoff will be moved from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line, which is where kickoffs were spotted prior to 1994.  Another proposal that would have made things even more interesting was to move the spot of a touchback from the 20-yard line to the 25-yard line, but that proposal did not pass.

Several changes have been proposed for kickoffs this offseason in an attempt to protect players on one of the game’s most dangerous plays.  Players will now only be allowed a 5-yard running start on kickoff coverage, compared to the 10 to 15 yards they were allowed before.  Surprisingly, the return team will still be allowed to use the two-man wedge — a maneuver that has been blamed for many serious injuries throughout the league over the years.

NFL players are getting bigger and stronger with each passing year, and kickers have not necessarily been an exception.  We now have jacked place kickers like Jay Feely and guys who can kick the ball a mile off a tee like Stephen Gostkowski.  A lot of return men like to put on a show in today’s game, which makes choosing to return a kick from three yards deep in the end zone a fairly common occurrence.  Any kick from 2010 that was three yards deep in the end zone will nearly find its way out of the end zone in 2011, and will likely not be returned.

Overall, we can expect this rule to result in less injuries, more touchbacks, and worse starting field position for NFL offenses.