Aikman: NFL Doesn't Truly Care About Player Safety
(WSCR) On a public front, the NFL screams its goal is centered around keeping its players as safe as possible.
Yet, according to one NFL analyst and Super Bowl winning quarterback, when it comes to paying more money to keep the players safe by having regular officials, the league is more concerned with saving money than safety.
"As it relates to what happened with Bounty Gate, player's safety, and suspending coaches for an entire year and all that has gone on there, to see what has happened in the last three weeks, there's no question that these players have been more at-risk through the first three weeks of this season than they would have been otherwise with the regular officials," Troy Aikman told The Mully and Hanley Show. "What's the delta on what's happening with this negotiation? I don't know how far apart they are, but if we really want to see that player safety is important, I think there is a price that should be willing to be paid to say, 'Yeah, we want to protect these players and they're not being protected.' ... I think the league throws out player safety as kind of a catch phrase when it's convenient, but when it's not, then it tends to be over looked."
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Aikman said that when players believe they can get away with dirty hits, they'll continue to do so until refs start throwing flags.
"We had (a hit) in our game yesterday," Aikman said. "Tony Romo got drilled. I'm surprised he didn't break his jaw, yet he was able to get up. We've seen hits like that. At the end of the day, the fines are going to occur. The league is going to look at the hits. They're going to fine the players like they did last week and like they'll do again this week. When the player is not penalized, I think that they become emboldened and they think they can do more. It's not going to get called. We've seen a number of these things not get called."
