I agree that hits to the head can be "caused" by the receiving player ducking. There is also the fight between offensive and defensive players to get low for leverage and, for the defender, to get under a ducking offensive player wtih the ball in an effort to dislodge the ball and cause a fumble.
The answer is that the NFL does not give a flying f**k about those issues. Their answer, really, is that if you want to do anything more aggressive than "wrapping up" the player, then you better make absolutely goddamn sure you don't hit his head. Forearm shivers to the head are OUT. Shoulders to the head are OUT. Head to anything is OUT. Launching is OUT.
And to be honest, while we can all sit here and make comments about putting skirts on players and all that, it doesn't take too many viewings of a Kevin Turner (former Patriots player who now has ALS, or Chris Henry, the Bengals player who died, had an autopsy perofrmed, and became the 50th person diagnosed with a condition caused by repeated severe brain trauma.
Quote:
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Chris Henry, the Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) -- a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head -- at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University.
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http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5333971
So yeah, ultimately, I'm good with it.