ORLANDO, Fla. -- The NFL's new rules on not allowing players to use the crown of their helmets as a weapon is good in theory. After all, the league is working hard on player safety when it comes to concussions and other head injuries.
The real rub, however, is going to come with the enforcement of the crown-of-the-helmet rule, something Art Rooney II admitted when I spoke with him at the NFL meetings earlier this week.
"The rule is in place," Rooney said. "There are still some questions about the administration of the rule and replay in connection with the rule, questions about in-game ejections and how officials will handle those."
Those discussions will continue at the next league meeting in Atlanta in May. But rest assured, there's going to be a healthy debate about it.
In theory, it makes sense not to allow players to use their helmet as a weapon. In reality, however, it's going to be difficult to adjudicate.
That's why the league is going to continue to meet with players and officials to see how they want to handle this moving forward. But at least one former official, former NFL vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira, thinks the league is only creating more problems.
"You’ll see the same things happen with this as we’ve seen with the crown of the helmet rule: very few calls," Pereira said in an interview with Sirius XM's NFL Radio. "I think most of it will be taken care of after the fact with potential fines."
Yeah, that's what we need, more fines from the league. That will make the players happy.
To Pereira's point, the league previously passed a crown-of-the-helmet rule in 2013 that made it illegal for players to initiate contact with the crown of their helmet outside of the tackle box. This new rule, which replaces the old, makes it illegal anywhere on the field.
But, it was rarely called -- at least on the field.
“Two were called the very first year and they were both wrong, and there were none called in the two years after that," Pereira told Sirius XM. "I see these things happen, I see these rule changes, and I don’t want to call it hysteria, but there is to me a bit of overreaction.”
Perhaps the league will get really serious about it this time around. Perhaps, despite Rooney's denials to me that what happened to Ryan Shazier was part of the reason that this expansion of the previous rule is now in place.
But the chances are, there won't be the spate of extra penalties each game because of this. And there won't be a bunch of ejections, either.
That will be part of the discussions the league continues to have regarding this rule. Teams only get to have 45 players active on game days. Figure about half of those are defensive players, who will likely be hit harder by this rule than those on offense.
The league doesn't want to see games where three or four defensive players are ejected for inadvertent contact with the crown of their helmet.
• I understand why Le'Veon Bell feels frustrated with some fans in Pittsburgh who want the team to pull his franchise tag or simply "run the wheels off of him," and allow him to leave in 2019.
But he really needs to stay off of social media. Or at least, as Ben Roethlisberger does, hire somebody to do his social media for him.
It would save him a lot of trouble from posting stuff like this:
it’s so hard to be a hero in a city that paints youu out to be the villain.. pic.twitter.com/TBFAHTQJcm
— Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) March 29, 2018
I get it. Nobody likes to have bad things said or written about them. And social media has made it possible for fans to have direct interactions with players like never before. That works in both a positive and negative direction, as this story by SI.com points out.
Bell got a lot of backlash for that latest tweet. And I get it. It was an ill-thought-out post.
But the flippancy at which some people think an All-Pro running back can be replaced and/or the comments they make about his future are sometimes just as cringeworthy.
• The Steelers are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And Bell has made $14.5 million in his career, with $12.2 million of that coming last season. Of that $14.5 million, he's probably pocketed about half of that once taxes, union dues, agent fees and everything else are taken out.
And he plays a position that, for ordinary players, has a shelf life of about three years in the league. He's 26 and has perhaps four or five more years to do this as a living before he has to get on with his life's work -- which, sorry, won't be in the music business.
I've seen too many players who played in the league for multiple years have health problems from their playing days, trouble walking, brain trauma, etc., to say that any player is being "greedy." These guys put their bodies on the line on a daily basis. They risk life and limb every time they step onto a football field to entertain us.
• There were a lot of negatives to match the positives to come out of Friday's season-opening win by the Pirates.
But here's one I liked a lot as a longtime baseball coach. Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco both showed patience at the plate.
Polanco saw 31 pitches in his at-bats, the most on the team and one better than leadoff batter Adam Frazier. Marte, who has always been a free-swinger, saw 26 pitches in one less at-bat than Polanco and Frazier.
Heck, even Josh Harrison, another guy who has never seen a pitch he doesn't think he can hit, saw 29 pitches.
Major League Baseball doesn't have a pitch-count rule, but we all know how beholden most managers in the league are when it comes to not wanting their starters to throw many more than 100 or so pitches, even if they're going well.
The patience the Pirates showed Friday against the Tigers was a good sign, even if it only added up to four walks. They're willing to work pitchers deeper into counts and perhaps get into the opposing team's bullpen just a little earlier.
• The key for Jeff Capel at Pitt isn't going to have anything to do with winning his opening press conference, which he apparently did earlier this week. That's important in that it will help Pitt win back some of the fan base that showed an increasing apathy last season as the Panthers lost their final 19 games to end the season.
No, the key for Capel will be winning the recruiting battles that lie ahead. And he will be getting a late start on that while also being hamstrung by the NCAA's rules that limit coaches to 24 official recruiting visits within a two-year period.
According to the Sporting News, Kevin Stallings' staff used 22 of those visits the past two seasons, giving Capel just two more to use between now and Aug. 3, when the clock resets on that. There is an exception that could give him 25 percent of his visits back, but that's still not a lot this late in the game.
Capel has the reputation of being an ace recruiter. But that was at Duke, which has its pick of McDonald's All-Americans each year, turning away players Pitt would kill to have.
Capel is going to have to live up to that reputation now and pull a couple of rabbits out of his hat to help Pitt in the 2018-19 season.
• I detailed a few weeks ago how Lamar Jackson not choosing to run at the NFL Scouting Combine might cause him to fall to the Steelers. Then, he also skipped running the 40 at his on-campus workout at Louisville this week.
Mike Tomlin was there and was watching Jackson closely after dining with him, as well. Jackson was a dynamic playmaker at the college level. And he has plenty of speed.
The key will be whether the Steelers think he is, or can become, a competent NFL passer. Jackson's the most exciting playmaker at the quarterback position since Michael Vick. And we all know how much Tomlin liked Vick, even bringing him in at the end of his career, when it was obvious he was a shell of his former self.
I won't be surprised at all, especially considering the free agent signings of Morgan Burnett and Jon Bostic, if the Steelers select Jackson in the first round if he is available to them.