To the anchorman: I can buy into at least some of what you say, but two things from my enfeebled brain:
1].
Issues must be divided from one another in discussion or nothing can be focussed upon and nothing accomplished. Cut blocks are an issue. Hitting with one's head is another.
Hitting someone in the head is a third. Weighing 350 pounds is a fourth. Any of these are legitimate and largely separate discussions. Make a thread about any of them, or better write the NCAA.
This thread was about blocking and knee injuries.
Actually the thread waisn't about blocking and knee injuries but about possible rule changes to college football. "New Rules Proposed That Could Effect Opponents". Various people took it in different directions including one that introduced, "helmets to the head, and facemasks grabbing, and one in the pros that outlaws any hitting the QB in the head. None of which deal with blocking nor knees.
2]. On a "philosophical" note: there has always been a moral and legal distinction made [especially in matters of burden-of-risk] between a risk involuntarily inflicted upon a person, and a risk which the person takes upon themselves [even if judged by some of us to be foolish]. Examples of this would be an exposure to a pollutant vs getting in your car and driving....or, being cut-blocked into the hospital vs eating unhealthily to play nose tackle.
May be my engineer's training but I don't grasp the ethical difference of involuntary inflicted risk/risk a person takes themselves as the examples cited. Concussions are an inherent part of football. Players give them and receive them. In giving one they may also receive one. In '88 Southern Cal QB Rodney Peete threw a pass that late in the first half that was intecepted by CB Stan Smagala. As Stams raced down the sideline heading toward the endzone for a tie breaking TD, Peete made the decision to use his 195 pounds to try and tackle the smaller, 180 pound, cornerback thus "voluntarily" placing himself in the role of defender, the inflicter. DE Franks Stams now on the Offensive, threw all of his 240 pounds into a block against the potential tackler, the smaller Peete. Peete never saw him coming. Blindsided - "involuntarily". Never saw him coming. BAM! The Block Heard Round The World! A DECLEATER! Peete didn't get up. With a damaged shoulder he was done.
22 years later, QB's still get hurt trying to make tackles. It's part of the game. And so are cut blocks.
Perhaps I am just jabbering meaninglessly, but I had to address ethics regularly in my classrooms and smearing things together was a sure blockage of progress. But, what-the-heck, this is just IE so I should shut up I suppose---why be serious??
I don't see Anchor's "smearing things together" any more than you introducing helmets, heads, and NFL rules into the thread. I find his comments though provoking particularly as Wenger waits an NCAA ruling on whether he's eligible to get yet another concussion. See Bartley Webb, Luke Schmidt, and a long list of other ND athletes with career ending injuries for relevancy.
As long as we're discussing ethics now (germaine or not) how about addressing a 170 pound Everett Golson facing opponents that twice have put the 230 pound Dayne Crist into surgery and rehab. Golson did well against DLs that outweighed him by as much as 100 pounds in HS. Should Golson ethically be allowed to play against DLs weighing as much as 200 pounds more than he does and possessing two or three times his strength? I have visions of Corey Haim's Lucas under a pile up.
Or perhaps how a 175 pound Toma is supposed to block a 250 pound ILB like Te'o, say Southern Cal's Chris Gallipo or Devon Kennard. A Toma sized guy is not going to move mcuh less stop a 250 pound backer standing up but throwing a cut block, even a missed one, could spring a ball carrier for a big gain. If nothing else that backer has to take his eyes off the ball carrier for a second or so to deal with the attacking flea.
Cut blocks may increase knee injuries but contrary to the objections of some raised in this thread they are not dirty. They're legal. As legal as Stam's hit on Peete which knocked the QB of the #2 team in the nation in 1988 out of the second half of the game with a shoulder injury.
