NFL players will soon have to start wearing additional safety equipment during games.
The league’s owners passed a rule on Tuesday making it mandatory for players to wear knee and thigh pads. The new rule will go into effect at the start of the 2013 season.
Knee and thigh padding had previously been optional, and skills players like defensive backs and wide receivers often choose to go without because some feel it hinders their speed.
“They really don’t do much for you, but I guess the rule is what it is,” said Ravens receiver Anquan Boldin, who doesn’t currently wear leg pads. “They say they prevent knicks and bruises, but honestly they don’t. I’ve worn them in high school and you had to wear them in college, and in college you still got hip pointers, you still got thigh bruises, so you still got all of those. And they definitely don’t prevent the major injuries like torn ACL’s and meniscus, and things like that.”
The players union could oppose the rule, but Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, chairman of the competition committee, said that the league can implement the rule unilaterally because it is a playing rule.
“We have a vote of the membership and can implement,” McKay said. “Some of us felt we were remiss that we took it out of the rule book — high school and college makes it mandatory — and in our mind that is how it should be and will be in 2013.”
Owners also voted to move the trading deadline from after Week 6 to after Week 8, and to allow one “marquee” player placed on injured reserve to return to practice after the sixth game and to the lineup after the eighth game.
The NFL management council now has to work with with the players union before the trade deadline and IR rules are implemented, according to Jeff Darlington of the NFL Network.
If the change to IR goes into place this season, it could directly impact the Ravens.
Previously, placing a player on injured reserve ended his season, but this rule could allow the Ravens to put outside linebacker Terrell Suggs on IR to let his Achilles tendon heal and still bring him back during the season.
