This effort to clarify the rule actually creates more confusion, apart from the fact that the league office has now identified two different rules to two different media outlets as the codification of the new helmet rule. Although Rule 12-2-8 surely represents the official rule (since it tracks the precise language of the 11th-of-10 proposals made by the Competition Committee in March), the modification to the Unnecessary Roughness rule can’t be ignored.
For example Rule 12-2-8 expressly applies only when a player lowers his helmet and initiates contact. The new Unnecessary Roughness rule contains no such limitations, encompassing generally any an and all spearing, ramming, or butting with any part of the helmet, with no requirement that the action be unnecessary or violent.