Clark frustrated with NFL

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Steelers safety Ryan Clark says he's "disgusted" with the NFL as it explores whether to legislate against hits to the knees of defenseless players on top of its campaign to eliminate shots to the head.

Ray Anderson, the NFL's operations chief, told The Associated Press that the league's competition committee would explore taking action if it finds that hits to the knees are becoming a problem.

Only hits to the head and neck of defenseless players are prohibited. But direct hits to the knees that injured Miami tight end Dustin Keller and Minnesota defensive tackle Kevin Williams during the preseason have drawn rebuke from some players. Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez especially was outspoken about the hit by Houston Texans rookie D.J. Swearinger on Keller.

Keller is out for the season with several torn ligaments. Williams has a hyperextended knee.

Still, Clark was unhappy when told of Anderson's comments.

"I'm so disgusted with the NFL right now about those situations," Clark said. "If an offensive player makes enough stink about something, they'll change it."

Clark predicted there would be an increase in low hits as soon as the NFL began its campaign against concussion-inducing head shots.

"If you start penalizing guys or fining guys a lot for hits up top, guys go to the other extreme," Clark said. "Guys know there is no way possible I'm going to get fined if I go low. And I said it, it's going to be one or other. Guys are maybe going to hit up high and maybe risk a concussion or hurting a shoulder. And if you get hit low, the season is going to be over (with a knee injury)."

Eliminating shots down low would put defensive players, especially defensive backs, at a significant disadvantage, Clark said.

"If they decide to change a rule, they might as well put flags (on players)," and start playing flag football, Clark said. "Because then you give a guy like myself, who's 200 pounds, a 2-foot area to stop a guy who's 240 pounds, 250, running at full speed, and that's going to be kind of hard to do."

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/sports/mc-steelers-clark-frustration-20130827,0,7436771.story#ixzz2dE9a8mHu

He has a valid point. I'm scared to see how many knee injuries there are this year.

I'm reminded of a quote from Harrison ...

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“I’ve really lowered my target area to where it’s down around the knees; situations come along where you could tackle the guy high. I don’t do that anymore. I tackle the guy low.”

“I could have tackled him high, but if I had hit him high, I probably would have gotten a helmet-to-helmet or something and gotten fined, so I hit him low and strained his MCL. … They’re saying it’s a life-threatening injury to hit a guy in the head and he gets a concussion and so on and so forth, but I think a life-threatening injury is to go low on a guy and blow out his ACL or whatever, and he’s not able to come back the way he was before. Now he can’t make a living, he can’t feed his family, he can’t do what he does. That’s life-threatening to me.”

http://sportsblog.bethubb.com/james-harrison-admits-to-targeting-knees-instead-of-head-due-to-goodells-enforcement/

Another quote from Clark on wrapping up the legs instead of hitting ...

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"And also now I'm in a position where I can get hurt. I don't know if I'm getting hit in the side of the head with a knee.

"So, in some sense, you're protecting another player, but you're putting another one in harm's way, both physically and career-wise in terms of him losing his starting job."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/steelers/steelers-safety-ryan-clark-gets-defensive-about-low-hits-701033/#ixzz2dEgL1l7G

Another good point, but it's nothing new. The NFL has chosen to protect certain players (namely the skill players) and not others (everyone else). At the end of the day, it's not about protecting players ... it's about protecting the bottom line.

NFL has become purely a high profile offensive league. They want to see high scores, and they want to protect the prolific players in the league which the majority of are offensive players. However, in their desire to protect the offensive player they are eliminating the defenses purpose for being on the field - stop the offense from scoring!

They are going to end up getting these offensive players hurt by causing the defensive players to go low. I'd much rather take my chances getting hit up by my shoulders than down around my knees.