The Point Of Litigation's Impact On Football.

I don't often read the Sunday Sports section.  Today, the front page photo you could almost feel go "crunch!" caught my eye.

Judy Battista writing for the NYTimes, "Point of Impact," reports on changes in the NFL: football players are using their head to think through a tackle, not use it for the tackle.  Excerpt.

"N.F.L. officials said that ever since opinion quickly coalesced around the need for harsher discipline in the wake of a series of frightening shots to the head on one Sunday last October, they had seen signs that players were adjusting, albeit sometimes reluctantly, the way they hit to conform to the rules.

They point to a decline between the 2009 season and the 2010 season in the number of plays for which fines were assessed —  Ray Anderson, the executive vice president for football operations, said the number dropped by a third —  and a corresponding drop in the amount of dollars paid in fines (almost $1 million, Anderson said) as evidence that players are changing.

In a film review last week, N.F.L. officials noted play after play from the preseason and the first two weeks of the regular season in which defenders passed up what would have been the most jarring and dangerous hits in favor of the preferred lower hits to the body."

Sure, the players are avoiding being penalized tens of thousands of dollars in fines if they use their head to hit, tackle or spear.  Some may also be erring on the side of brain safety.  And while these combined efforts to change player and organizational behavior are laudable, I like to think that the impetus for the changes came about as a result of the lawsuits successfully filed against the NFL and helmet manufacturers, like Riddell and others, by lawyers who were at the forefront of player safety.

Folks often deride lawyers and the legal profession.  I am not saying there isn't something to deride as there is no matter where you look.  I am saying let's recognize the point of litigation's impact on football: more players now stay on the field or walk off it.  Thank you.