With each new N.F.L. rule forbidding late hits, low hits, high hits, hits against defenseless players and hits that pile drive an opponent into the ground, the league has tried every magnified, overarching way it can think of to protect its biggest stars.
But the N.F.L. has a problem. You can’t legislate the violence out of the game.
It is also a football rule that the hits will keep coming, usually until someone with the ball is on the ground. And sometimes not everyone gets up right away.
And then the league takes a hit of a different kind.