FOXBORO, Mass. — One narrative in the wake of Monday night’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Cincinnati Bengals bloodbath was that players need to be more cognizant of each other’s safety on the field. Until they are, new rules aimed at protecting players won’t truly be effective.
New England Patriots safety Duron Harmon agrees with that — to a point.
No player should try to drive the crown of his helmet through another player’s facemask. A solid shoulder to the midsection always should be the goal. But in a game as inherently violent as football, with players who seem to grow bigger and faster each year, Harmon believes it’s impossible to completely eliminate the risk of dangerous hits.
“That’s always hard,” Harmon said Thursday. “I mean, this is a physical game. I mean, every hit is a quick second. It’s hard to decipher if I’m hitting them in the helmet or I’m hitting them in the chest. These guys duck at times. It’s so much. It’s just all a part of the game. Some collisions, you’re going to hit the head. You don’t want to. You’re not trying to. But it’s just the way the game is. It’s so fast-paced, and things happen in the blink of an eye.
“It’s hard. All you can do is just try. I mean, the rules are going to be the rules, and the rules are to make this game as safe as possible. So I completely understand that. But certain things are just unavoidable.”
Those sorts of plays happen all the time. A receiver reaches up to make a catch over the middle, then hunches down to protect his ribs, lowering his head to chest level. If a defender already has begun his hit — one that would have cleanly struck the wideout right in the numbers — what can he do?
There’s no good answer to that question.
“I would say, me personally, I just try to make sure I always lead in a good spot with my shoulder — never with my head and always just try to avoid their head,” Harmon said. “Like I said, sometimes it’s hard, because at the blink of an eye, he could be up here, but then he’s ducking. So you could be aiming for the shoulder or the midsection, but when he ducks, the head turns into the midsection.
“You’ve just got to just try to play the game the right way but fast at the same time and know that sometimes some collisions are just going to happen. It’s just the way the game is. It’s football. We all signed up for that. We all know that. But at the end of the day, it’s football.”
Steelers safety Mike Mitchell voiced similar concerns — using much more colorful language — earlier in the week.
“I signed up to play full-speed, contact football,” Mitchell told reporters in Pittsburgh. “We’re not doing that. I feel like I’ve got to ask a guy, ‘Hey, are you ready for me to hit you right now before I hit you?’ That’s crazy. I’m going to mess around and get hurt trying to protect an offensive player because he’s running an over route. Dammit, your quarterback shouldn’t have thrown the ball messed up.”
Mike Mitchell absolutely killing it. Must watch. @TheAthleticPIT pic.twitter.com/SwcvJMJyHy
— Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly) December 6, 2017
While Harmon’s record is clean, Mitchell has been fined multiple times in his career for borderline hits. His impassioned rant came after Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster was suspended one game for laying out Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict — the same punishment Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski received for his after-the-whistle cheap shot on Buffalo Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White.
White wanted a harsher suspension for Gronkowski, while Mitchell and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger both argued it should not have been the same as Smith-Schuster’s.
Mitchell even defended Bengals safety George Iloka, who was suspended for his hit on Steelers star Antonio Brown before having it reduced to a fine on appeal. Gronkowski’s and Smith-Schuster’s bans both were upheld.
“We are physical safeties,” Mitchell said, via ESPN.com. “Think about what you ask us to do. We’re always the last line of defense on bang-bang plays. You never get to see us line somebody up in a hole like a linebacker. We’re playing full speed. He’s 4.4-4.3 speed. Aim that. You go do that. You can’t.
“It’s just the risk of playing football. If a ball is in the air and the man jumps and a man ducks his head, how do you want me to readjust my body? You cannot do it.”
