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There he was, Desmond Howard, exploding through a crease up the middle of the wedge en route to providing the Green Bay Packers a perfect answer to the previous Curtis Martin touchdown in Super Bowl 31. If what current Packers president Mark Murphy says is true, that great moment would have never transpired.
According to Kevin Seifert of ESPN, Murphy has issued a warning in terms of the NFL kickoff becoming defunct of the league cannot make the play much safer.
At this week's owner meetings, evidence was brought to the table that revealed concussions are five times more likely to occur on kickoffs. Murphy is well-aware of what'll happen if the long-time play doesn't become much safer extremely soon.
Article Continues Below“We've reduced the number of returns,” Murphy told a small group of reporters, “but we haven't really done anything to make the play safer.”
The competition committee also presented statistics that reveal concussions continue to happen even on touchbacks, making the 25-yard line touchback incentive that much more unimportant.
“The other thing that's kind of frustrating,” he said, “is there were concussions on touchbacks. So even though there's no return, [the committee is] looking at what kind of things you can do to make sure people were aware that there's not even a return. You see this, too: One player lets up, the player covering lets up, and one of the blockers comes over and, you know. That creates problems when you've got one player going half-speed and the other one full speed.”
The day hasn't arrived yet, but common sense brings us to only one conclusion: Eventually, kickoffs will be eliminated. The NFL, steeped in rich tradition and history, will look to do anything to avoid it, but the realities that this league is run by money (and money and advertising dollars come from overall safety), will always rule the day.
