Football is a vicious sport and sometimes, things happen. We all love the fact that there are extremely oversized, muscular, and super quick athletes on the field trying to take each others' heads off. When James Harrison lays a brutal hit on somebody, I thoroughly enjoy it. However when people start getting hurt, we suddenly don't have the belly for it anymore.
I'm not condoning cheap shots. There is no place for that, and those instances should be punished. However its unreasonable to expect defenders to do a mini-diagnosis lasting hundredths of a second, to try to estimate where they are going to make contact with a ball carrier or receiver. That will inevitably lead to second-guessing on the part of tacklers, and will further result in missed tackles or at the very least, sloppy tackles and no hard hits.
Every 10 year old is taught to pursue the football with "reckless abandon." We were taught to lay a hit on somebody without regard to your own well-being. James Harrison practices that better than anybody. If body parts unfortunately get hurt while laying a clean hit on somebody, well, at least you can brag to your friends later about how hard you hit the other guy. Likewise, if a ball carrier unfortunately gets hurt while being cleanly tackled, sometimes those are the breaks. Everybody who puts on a pair of shoulder pads and a helmet knows the stakes.
I wholeheartedly agree with Jack Lambert, and would add receivers to the list of players who ought to be wearing dresses (in addition to quarterbacks). It's football, and football is a brutal sport. If you don't like that, then don't pay attention to it.
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