Matt Chatham: NFL Getting It Wrong With Vague ‘Neck Area’ Penalties

To combat the growing concern with head injuries in the NFL, the league has taken to strictly enforcing penalties on what it deems “helmet-to-helmet” hits. The result? Questionable penalties like the ones assessed to New England Patriots cornerback Brandon Browner last weekend and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Jason Worilds this Sunday.

These borderline calls have drawn the ire of many, including former NFL player Matt Chatham. Yet Chatham doesn’t place all of the blame on the referees. Instead, he puts the onus on the NFL, which he believes has wrongly expanded the no-contact zone for defensive players to include an ambiguous “neck area.”

This “neck area” rule makes it even more difficult for defenders to execute the safer, body-to-chest hits that the league set to encourage in the first place. Most importantly, Chatham writes, the rule is one of many vague edicts pushed onto today’s game that needs to stop.

There isn’t a ‘defenseless receiver,’ or a ‘neck area,’ or ‘leading with the head,’ or ‘no known concussion link’, or anything else… just because they said so,” Chatham writes on FootballByFootball.com. “Demanding more of the game you’re covering for a living, or spending your valuable time and money consuming should be a default position, not some new idea.”