Show of hands: Who is enjoying the NFL’s new player-safety rules?
Hello? Anyone? I know you’re out there — I can hear you cracking your knuckles.
Truth: No one likes the new rules of engagement, designed to reduce collisions on kickoffs, on helmet-to-helmet contact and on hits to the quarterback. Not the fans, though the fans don’t have much of a stake in player safety beyond the gladiator-on-gladiator mayhem that goes so well with pizza rolls and chip and dip. The players don’t seem to like them. Packers linebacker Clay Matthews hates them with the white-hot intensity of 1,000 suns.