Craven: Passing was supposed to make football safer, but it's had the opposite effect

[caption id="attachment_20891" align="alignright" width="350"]Photo by Ashley Wirz Photo by Ashley Wirz[/caption] Statistics tell interesting, even if not complete, stories. The first legal forward pass was a 20-yard completion by St. Louis quarterback Bradbury Robinson to Jack Schneider on September 5, 1906 against Carroll College. In 1986, Miami quarterback Vinnie Testaverde won The Heisman Trophy after passing for 2,557 yards and 26 touchdowns. That is 232.45 yards per game. Texas Tech quarterback Pat Mahomes currently leads the NCAA in passing yards per game with 511.5. Through two games, the junior has 1,023 yards and nine touchdowns on 68 attempts. If he continues on this pace, Mahomes will finish with 6,138 yards. That is more than Testaverde racked up in four years at Miami, including two as the starter for the most talented team in the nation. Time flies, and times change even faster. The forward pass was invented to make the game safer and, probably more accurately, keep it from extinction due to growing concerns over deaths and severe injuries on college football fields. It was a pacifier to the masses. It allowed tank warfare the option of aerial assault. The pilot is in less danger than the ground troop, at least in theory. Ironically, the biggest hits we see each week no longer happen in the trenches. Highlights consist of a wide receiver being separated from the ball or a quarterback being slammed on release. Rarely does a running back carry the ball for 40 times. Fewer teams, even at the high school level, spend the entire game pounding the ball forward in hopes of breaking an opponent, both figuratively and literally. Football decided to play in the sky. Gravity suggests everything must fall to the ground. The footballs eventually drop, the receiver eventually goes after the ball and a defender is there waiting to dish out punishment. Targeting is the new forward pass. On paper, it is there to protect the players. To make the game safer. In practice, it doesn’t work. Players get flagged and then ejected for playing football. Fans boo. Coaches scream. Athletes miss out on a diminishing return of their football career. It is another deflection. The group in 1905 that voted for the forward pass didn’t want the forward pass. The group wanted football, and if that meant a few teams would lob the ball in the air then so be it. The rules we hear each year to help protect players are no different. Football is dangerous and no amount of rules changes that fact. The game of football is different. The motives behind rule changes are not.

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