Sports Then and Now

James Harrison and the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't happy with the NFL's policy for fines on illegal hits.

For decades, the Pittsburgh Steelers have used the squeaky image of the Rooney family to portray itself as the blue-collar franchise of the NFL and a team filled with hard-working every-day players. Based on their recent vote on the collective bargaining agreement, it could be argued that the Pittsburgh players are instead actually a bunch of self-absorbed thugs.

Unlike the other 31 teams, the Steelers decided that they would vote as a team against the agreement because they didn’t like that it wouldn’t significantly alter the way in which fines and punishments are administered across the NFL for illegal hits or for violations of the personal conduct policy.

The primary reason for their displeasure is that Commissioner Roger Goodell has been very stern in recent years and doesn’t play favorites.

In recent years, Pittsburgh players have been among the most fined in the NFL for hits deemed to be dangerous and beyond normal levels of physicality. Most notably, linebacker James Harrison was fined four times for $100,000 in 2010 for illegal hits.

Granted that football is generally a violent game, but there are some hits that are without question made not to tackle an opposing player, but instead to try as much as possible to inflict bodily harm on them.

The NFL has been trying in recent years to reduce those kinds of hits and make the game safer. Some of their new rules, especially those related to a quarterback, may go a bit too far, but those designed to stop helmet-to-helmet hits and to protect a defenseless player have been a positive step.

In the recent labor agreement, a big issue for the players was health and safety. They bargained for a reduction in off-season, pre-season and in-season practices under the guise that fewer practices where the players are in pads and hitting each other will help prolong careers.

Having a strong policy against illegal hits would seem to be another valuable tool in trying to make the game safer. However, for players like Harrison, who play at a reckless level, the fines and punishment is seen as a hindrance to their ability to be successful. Read the rest of this entry →

Ed Sabol helped turn the NFL into a $9 billion industry by capturing the sport like never before.

It seems fitting that just days after the NFL and its players finally figured out how to split $9 billion dollars that one of the men most responsible for turning the league into such a financial juggernaut is being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Interestingly enough, the person I refer to, Ed Sabol, is the one person among the seven inductees that never played a down in the league.

Instead, as the founder of NFL Films, Sabol created a platform that showed the NFL players in a completely different light and elevated the sport into a national favorite.

Considering that unlike baseball and basketball, football players are hidden being a facemask, it would seem to be much harder for football players to become recognizable figures compared to players in other sports.

However, thanks to Sabol and NFL Films, which captured the grace and elegance of football through the use of slow motion and zoom cameras, generations of NFL fans are familiar with the style and power of players ranging from Jim Brown, Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in the early days to Walter Payton, Earl Campbell and Mike Singletary in the 1970s and 80s to current stars such as Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson and Ray Lewis. Read the rest of this entry →

Big 10 action gets underway in September of 2011.

It is almost time for the gridiron fanatics to dust off their megaphones and fluff up their pompoms!

College football, sporting several new and exciting realignments, is back on the horizon, ready to rise into full view in early September.

No conference has changed its traditional season lineup more than the Big Ten, divided into two divisions starting with the first non-conference games of 2011.  This was accomplished once the admission of the Nebraska Cornhuskers into the Big Ten was finalized.

The Divisions:

Legends: Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern

Leaders: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin.

Each Big Ten team plays eight conference contests including each team in their respective division plus three conference games outside of their division, called crossover contests.

Totally each team in the Big Ten plays twelve games starting on September 3, 2011.

The season concludes with the Big Ten Championship game played on December 3, 2011 in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium.

While most pundits haggle over  “Legends” and “Leaders,” the titles selected for the two divisions, few have complained about the actual division itself.  Most view the two divisions as equitable.

As preparations for the 2011 season get underway,  pundits are already rolling out their “best” lists for each conference.  In keeping with this annual rite of passage, following are the Big Ten players at each position deserving of a grade “A” rating as the 2011 season gets underway.

Here is our compilation of the  All Big Ten Pre-Season Team ahead of action in the newly aligned Big Ten Conference.

These players are the cream of the crop, as they say, in the Big Ten who will help their respective teams climb the ranking ladder as they try to bulldoze their way into the Big Ten Championship Game on December 3, 2011 in Indianapolis.

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