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Published on 05/22/2012 at Tue May 22 20:30.
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Knee and thigh pads mandatory starting in ’13

Posted Tue May 22nd by

Bronco players may be required to wear more padding next season.

NFL owners met on Tuesday to vote on three new proposed rules.  The new rulings aren’t locked in yet, but they’re likely to become reality starting in 2013.

The first change was moving the Week Six trade deadline to Week Eight, which is self explanatory.  The second ruling involves injured reserve lists.  The new IR rule would allow teams to take one player back from IR after Week Eight of the season and activate him to the active roster mid-season.

The third and final change would make knee and thigh pads mandatory starting next season.  This change was met with mixed reactions from the players.

“That’s great for high school kids and college kids, but I don’t know,” said Broncos defensive lineman Justin Bannan on Tuesday.  “I think if you’re going to have an injury happen, a knee pad or a thigh pad isn’t going to save you. I had a thigh pad on and gotten just as deep of a thigh bruise as you can have with the thigh pad on.”

Other players, including cornerback Tracy Porter, were in favor of more leg padding.  “I’m a believer in it,” said Porter.  “I’ve been wearing them since my rookie year.”

“My opinion is that I don’t want to wear them but you have to follow the rules and policies,” concluded cornerback Drayton Florence.

The NFL is also close to deciding the location of the 2013 Pro Bowl game.  The league has considered doing away with the game completely due to the lack of competitiveness in the game.  If a Pro Bowl is played next year, it will either be in Honolulu or New Orleans, according to reports.

  • Anonymous

    What in the world do they think they are protecting? The players are concerned about ACLs, not thigh bruises. They force them to wear thigh and knee pads and then require tacklers to hit them low.

    Makes a lot of sense . . . to mental midgets, maybe . . .

  • http://Facebook.com/BroncosZone Jon

    Honestly, I think the NFL is just trying to be a jerk by making them wear pads that they hate and say it’s “to make the game safer” so the fans will be on their side. I really think it’s political, they’re trying to get the NFLPA to agree or compromise on something and this is leverage — that’s just an assumption though, I have no facts to support it.

  • Anonymous

    That’s the way it seems to me, Jon. The NFL is in panic mode, with all the budding lawsuits and all. It seems to me, though, that the NFL is reacting a bit late.

    On the other side, however, are players who are looking to blame someone but themselves for what happened to them. As Justin Bannan said, “Nobody held a gun to my head and told me to play football.”

    It just seems to me the whole thing has spiraled out of control, and both sides are threatening to destroy the integrity of the game. As for me, I’m just glad I got to see the last 50+ years of football as football was meant to be. Henceforth, that may be all that remains: the memories.