2024 NFL Regular Season

Textbook Spearing

In some of the discussions about player safety, here’s an example from over the weekend of a penalty that may have been called just the same even before changes in the rules to protect players from head trauma, especially since 2010.

This hit is textbook spearing.

James was penalized in the game, but I’m still not sure why a player is not tossed for such an egregious hit.

Now James sits out a game without pay, subject to appeal.

No helmet innovation is going to keep players safe who make such hits, so there is much to fix here because as in the case of James, many fines have not been enough before we got here.

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