Or with technology we have today, not allow any helmet contact to any part of the body. You could outfit the helmets with a sensor and a light so the refs know it happened.
Yes, this would drastically change the game and how it is played. But it would probably still be entertaining enough to draw in the crowds they hope to draw in.
I wonder about that. In theory it seems like it should help, but at the same time, there were lots of fatalities in the early, leather-helmet days of the sport.
Honestly, the simplest solution to me seems to be switching to flag football or something similar.
They either need to make it safer or stop the sport altogether. Or at least stop letting kids play tackle. If an adult wants to make that choice, maybe we let them, but don't let adults make that choice for kids.
> but at the same time, there were lots of fatalities in the early, leather-helmet days of the sport.
This is a good point. We'd need to know if that was because medical science was worse or if it was actually less safe.
We know that players would not be "far more cautious," because they were not more cautious in the era of leather helmets.