The NFL Needs to Tell Players to Stop Banging Their Helmets TogetherUnnecessarily

The NFL is obviously making a huge push right now to try and eliminate head injuries from the game of football. Now that a lot of former players are suffering long-term effects from the head injuries that they sustained during their playing days, the league is cracking down on things like helmet-to-helmet hits and basically making it illegal for defensive players to hit offensive players anywhere above the chest. As a result, it feels like a penalty flag is thrown on every other play for unnecessary roughness.

But for whatever reason, the NFL still hasn't eliminated what you see in the GIF above from the game of football. The GIF features Dolphins teammates Cameron Wake and Paul Soliai slamming their helmets together prior to theDolphins/Buccaneers game last night. They literally slam their helmets together so violently that it's kind of amazing they didn't knock each other out on the spot. It appears as though they were trying to get one another going for the start of the game. But it's strange that players are still doing this on the sidelines, given how much they know about the trauma caused by helmet-to-helmet hits like this. And it's even stranger that ESPN picked it up and ran it live on the air.

Maybe this is nothing. Maybe we're just overreacting. But with all the emphasis surrounding head injuries and helmet-to-helmet hits, it seems silly for this to be one of the lasting images that the nation has after last night'sMonday Night Football game. There are enough violent collisions that take place on the field during games. Why do players need to add to that by having helmet-to-helmet collisions of their own on the sidelines?