Steve Young Has Joined My Campaign To Ban The Slide - "It Puts Your Head On A Pedestal"
Welcome to the resistance, Steve Young. To common sense. To realizing just how bonkers crazy and lazy is it to think quarterbacks should be allowed to slide. The Hall of Famer was an incredible guest on Pardon My Take and kudos to PFT Commenter for asking Steve what he thought of quarterbacks sliding.
"It's dangerous... it puts your head on a pedestal...you gotta change the slide"
I've been blogging this take since January of 2023. Most recently after the hit on Trevor Lawrence by Azeez Al-Shaair who I'll admit isn't exactly the first defender I'd choose to represent my point.
Even if you think Shaair's hit Lawrence was on purpose, it does nothing to mitigate the argument. The fact of the matter is the NFL incentivized Lawrence to put himself in an incredibly dangerous situation. That's why I put it 100 percent on them. Think about this from the NFL's lens. They care about safety to their players, right?
LOL. Of course not.
They care about not getting sued. Allowing quarterbacks to slide to avoid a collision can be a nice little piece of evidence their lawyers could use in their defense should they need it down the road. But think about what this actually means. Think about how lazy this really is. There's an assumption here that quarterbacks can know with 100 percent certainty while on the run exactly at what point is the right time to slide. As if they can do the math while running 10-15 mph and the defender doing the same in the opposite direction. And if he screws up that math, his head is now - as Steve Young said and I've said numerous times before - on a pedestal. But the irony of this is that pedestal is exactly the plane where a defender must aim in order to make a legal belt-high tackle had he not been tricked by a last milli-second slide.
But hey - let's look at some numbers. I'm Stathole after all, I should be able to dig up some goods to illuminate my point. If I'm wrong and sliding is a safe measure then we should see some sort of trend to support this. One indication might be a lower amount of unnecessary roughness penalties called on quarterbacks who take off and run out of the pocket. If allowing quarterbacks to slide prevents these situations from happening, we shouldn't see an influx in these penalties.
With play-by-play data going back to 1999, here is a quick histogram showing the number of such instances by year with a black line at 8 for 2024 for the actual number, and the bar at ten showing the projected figure for the 18-week regular season.
Specifically on the run so in the pocket penalties aren't included
Look at what's going on here in the paste decade or so. The rise is well above what anyone would expect even when accounting for the change to a 17-game season. It's almost as if quarterbacks have been given some false sense of security and safety…
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I will say - in fairness - these aren't all necessarily penalties on a slide. No data source I know of logs this specifically. And that's OK. We just need to use our brains and connect the dots to see that the past ten to twelve years have been considerably more dangerous for quarterbacks than years prior. And sliding is a huge part as to why.
So what's changed since 2010? It's not the rule. Sliding was implemented in 1985 back when quarterbacks on the run were an absolute last resort and none of them were anywhere near as athletic as those in today's game. The question is largely rhetorical. We all know, right? Quarterbacks are amazing playmakers on the run. Maybe Michael Vick was the trailblazer that led to everyone wanting to be the next Vick. So they're going to maximize every last inch they think they can get. And they've been given the false security by the league. Think about it. When an authority makes a rule or law, you tend to think that if you abide by it you'll be safe. Whoever made that rule or law did the work to make sure of it.
LOL. This league did zero work to validate anything. They just don't want to get sued. That's what the NFL is all about. Not Finna Litigate.
That's why you see so many more unnecessary roughness penalties on quarterbacks. They take more chances with a false sense of safety they've been given by the league. And I hear this argument that sliding is safe because most of the time injuries don't happen. This thinking completely disregards the fact that a hell of lot more quarterbacks are on the run given this rule being in place. Basic behavioral pyschology. That's like saying playing Russian Roulette must be safe too for the same reason.
Anyway - welcome aboard the resistance Steve Young. This fight doesn't end until sliding does. If a quarterback choses to run, fine. He just needs to know he's getting tackled when making that decision. Someone else other than me needs to tell them that.
That someone is the NFL.