Defensive Bias In Football

Submitted By landen20
Words: 498
Pages: 2

As an avid fan and viewer of the National Football League, I can't help but notice the colossal shift toward offensive bias over the last decade or so. With annual rule changes and more focus on safety, offensive players and coaches are continuing to exploit this to their advantage. These days with no hand-checking after five yards or contact with a defenseless receiver, defensive players find themselves in an obvious physical disadvantage. Also, the quarterback can no longer be hit above the shoulder pads or essentially anywhere below the waist so this leaves a 320-pound defensive lineman with an extremely small target area to make a play. While I agree with improving player safety, I see referees and league officials over-interpreting the rules every game in favor of the offense. Not to mention larger player fines and penalties are being levied now more than ever which almost always happens to a defensive player. With this move toward safer conditions for offensive players there has been a shift in skill players coming out of high school now. More than not, your more talented athletic skill players are moving toward the offensive side of the ball. It's just so much more glamorous and fun to play offense these days. There are more and more ex-basketball players like Jimmy Graham making the move over to football. With this being said, you get a very big but agile athlete creating headaches for defensive coaches all over the league. You are also getting the bigger, stronger, and more physical kids playing wide receiver versus cornerback now so that creates mismatches as well. One play in particular I'd like to bring to a viewer’s attention as they are watching games is the back shoulder throw. This play is now a fixture in most teams’ playing calling and is actually worked on in practice now routinely. Again, keeping in mind all the