The Latest NFL Technology To Prevent Quarterbacks From Being Concussed Is A $126 Slip N Slide From Amazon
Ladies and gentlemen what you just watched in the clip above is where the NFL is at in the year 2024 as a $20 billion dollar industry in quarterback sliding R&D. The best investment in technology we have to prepare franchise centerpieces from insta-concussions while on the run at 20 mph is a $126 (30% off) Wow Sports Super Slide.
In fairness I was only able to find the "red" version on Amazon, so perhaps there is something technologically superior going on with the "blue" version used by the Bears I am unaware of. And just for the record, this isn't a dig at the Bears. At least they are doing something. I can only presume other teams opted to save that $126 or however much cheaper it was on Prime Day a couple weeks ago. But come on. What are we doing here?
I'm cool with finding fun ways to get a break from the grueling hot summer practices, but this was clearly and actual drill with an actual coach demonstration. Yes, grown men were showed how to use a device specifically engineered to be intuitively used by kindergarteners. That's tough. And tougher when you merely pretend to use a football in the demo. I mean, is this the NFL or did a hungover peewee coach forget to bring the bag of a balls to practice?
And what exactly are we learning here in this drill anyway? This isn't baseball. Having your quarterbacks practice how to slide is like having calculus students practice drawing numbers. You're focusing on the obvious simple part and ignoring the important hard part. It's not HOW to slide that quarterbacks need to understand. It's WHEN to slide.
I've blogged several times now about how I'm the only sports writer who's red pilled with the clairvoyance that the NFL should ban the slide for the safety of quarterbacks who - quite frankly - dont have an earthly clue when the right time to slide actually is.
While the clip showed quarterbacks sliding across the ground, it cemented me in my take that the slide should be banned. I always wondered how quarterbacks were so inept in figuring out when a defender crossed the event horizon in committing to a tackle and - well - I guess now I know. In the evolution of preventing potential career ending concussions and future CTE, we are at level "let's do some slip n slides in late July".
Where is Boston Dynamics when you need it? Probably doing something stupid like learning how win olympic badminton or some shit when we really need them to design a robot to run towards a running quarterback so said quarterback can practice sliding. Give it some wicked breaks to stop short of colliding and measure if the quarterback done and fucked up. Don't tell me that's over the top either. Patrick Mahomes is worth half a billion. Joe Burrow, Tua, etc. are right about there too.
Or we can do what I've been saying we should do. Ban the slide!
