NFL Institutes a “No Horseplay!” Rule Following Complaints From Parents

For over a century now, the National Football League has kept millions of fans entertained and hundreds of concussion injury doctors rich. However, football as a whole has been commercialized and exploited for entertainment to the point that many feel that the sport has become far too rough. Pro players are shouting expletives, pushing each other, and even tackling their opponents to the ground. Parents of players have begun to speak out against the roughhousing and express their concerns online in facebook PTA forums. Parents are demanding that the NFL take a stance on the issue and make some serious rule changes to protect their 30-year-old children’s safety.

One search on X of the trending “#footballgavemebooboos” hashtag will reveal a slew of posts calling out the NFL, as well as some proposed solutions to solve the issue. Joe Burrow’s mother, Robin Burrow, was one of the first parents to publicly critique the league. In a post with over a million reposts, Mama Burrow stated “My poor, sweet, innocent child hurt his wrist and I need someone to blame. Little Joey just wants to play with all the other kids, but there is way too much tomfoolery going on. Let it be known that I am fully prepared to unleash the wrath of God upon the NFL if nothing is done about this.” The Bengals quarterback himself responded to his mother’s post saying, “Shut up Mom! You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends!!”

Health and wellness specialists from all over the country have begun suggesting alternatives to make the game safer for players and boring for spectators. Daniel Fairmount, a professor of health sciences at Princeton University, had these suggestions: “The leading cause of injury in the NFL is contact, right? So I propose that instead of traditional tackling, players can perform a pseudo-tackle by shouting ‘Tag! You’re it!’ when they’re within a foot of an opponent. Now, of course, there will need to be safe zones where a player is unable to be pseudo-tackled.” After pointing out that this was sounding an awful lot like freeze tag, Fairmount stormed off to his room and his mother scolded our interview team for upsetting him and asked to speak with our parents.

In response to the mountain of criticism the league is facing, the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, held a televised press conference this past weekend. The most significant rule change announced at the conference was the “No Horseplay!” rule, in which players are prohibited from behaving in any way that could be viewed as rough, including but not limited to: tackling, diving, throwing the ball too hard, “wet willies,” running too fast, and chest bumping. Penalties for violating this rule will be five whole minutes in the timeout corner, a letter sent home to the player’s parents, and public execution in the most extreme cases. Goodell also announced that the NFL will take steps to rebrand into a more family-friendly industry, starting with a name change. The NFL will now stand for the National Friendship League.

All in all, it seems like the National Friendship League is headed in a new, positive direction… depending on who you ask. Hopefully, these new changes will protect players and give fans better things to do than watching a game for four hours and relentlessly sucking off  Patrick Mahomes, but they’ll probably do it anyway.