Helmet-to-Helmet Hits: A Catch-22

Every week I watch a lot of NCAA and NFL football, and every week I cringe when I see players taking brutal shots to the head.  As both the NCAA and NFL have acknowledged, a player's helmet can indeed be used as a weapon, and many (primarily) defensive backs have gotten into the habit of leading with their heads in an attempt to, at best, disconnect the offensive player from the ball or, at worst, inflict as much pain as humanly possible.  Most often, it's Stanford wide receiver Chris Owusu that I see taking the dangerous blows to the head.  But what I've come to realize, particularly after watching this past Saturday's Stanford game versus Oregon State, is that there's a very thin line between intentionally dirty play and well-intentioned, clean hits that result in head injuries.

On Saturday, Owusu caught a pass from Andrew Luck, ducked down in anticipation of contact, and was immediately hit by Oregon State safety Jordan Poyer (check out the video above).  While replays did show that Poyer's helmet and shoulder pads made direct contact with Owusu's head, to me it was immediately obvious that Poyer wasn't looking to hurt the Cardinal receiver.  On the contrary, Poyer was only trying to make a big play for his team and got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  While the penalty levied against Oregon State was appropriate according to the NCAA's rules - any direct contact to an opposing player's head, initiated by either the helmet, shoulder pads or arms, is grounds for a personal foul penalty - the play showed that not all seemingly vicious helmet-to-helmet hits are created equal.  While some players celebrate after dealing a blow to the head, Poyer was remorseful:

Conversely, the Oregon State player who put the hit on Owusu, Jordan Poyer, apologized to head coach David Shaw when he came on to the field to check on his wide receiver.  “He came up to me and apologized and I put my arm around him and said ‘Hey, don’t worry about, just play. Play hard, man,’” Shaw said. “It happens in this game. It’s hard. It’s a split-second decision between ducking your head and just barely missing his head or getting helmet-to-helmet. I’m not going to say it’s easy. It’s hard. But when it’s close, the officials have told us they have to call it.”

While it's difficult to watch an athlete, particularly one you root for on a weekly basis, go down in a heap after taking a direct shot to the helmet, I feel bad for Poyer in this situation.  Here we have an overmatched defensive player trying his best to make plays against a juggernaut offense - he's going full speed, doing everything he can to keep his team in the game (and, down just 14-7 at the time, Oregon State was doing a good job for the first half of the game), and playing hard.  Can we really expect a player like Poyer to pull up and avoid contact every time there's even a remote risk of helmet-to-helmet contact?  Certainly not.

If we can discourage defensive backs from intentionally leaving their feet on tackles and trying to make contact above the shoulders, we'll go a long way towards reducing traumatic hits to the head in both college and professional football.  But at the same time, we have to acknowledge that, as Coach David Shaw said, football is a rough and ruthless game, and sometimes unfortunate incidents are bound to happen.  While I'd never wish a concussion on anyone (let alone three, like Owusu has reportedly had already this season), we can't be naive and act like rule changes and fines are going to rid football of them entirely.  I just hope that Chris Owusu fully recovers from this latest head injury, and that Jordan Poyer doesn't feel too bad about being unfairly labelled as a bad guy.