Orlando: NFL owners rewrote the rule on using the crown of the helmet, making it a 15-yard penalty to initiate any hit with it.
Rich McKay, chairman of the competition committee, called it “a significant change,” noting that it was a “technique too dangerous for the player doing it and the player being hit.”
McKay said the tackle made by the Steelers’ Ryan Shazier last season that resulted in the linebacker suffering a spinal injury — Shazier underwent spinal stabilisation surgery two days later — was not the impetus for the change. But it was an example of what needs to be eliminated from the game.
“This one technique, we saw so many hits when a player lowered his head and delivered a hit and either hurt himself or the player he was hitting,” McKay said. “It was time for a change of this magnitude.”
