As nearly a ten year veteran of flag football, I am thankful everytime I'm on the field that at 35 years old I have someone to play football against. I started in Omaha in the Run-N-Gun league, with the same rules we play with in this league. I then moved to Chicago and played in a full contact blocking league for 5 years (www.northfieldfootball.com). Based on what I've seen I believe bringing more contact into our game will make our league stronger and provide us with better longevity. Let me tell why...

INJURIES
I know some of you may say that you don't want more contact because of risk of injuries. From what I have seen I would argue that our rules increase the risk of injuries. When you screen block in our league downfield you are a sitting duck as I found out this year. My leg was rolled up on and I missed 3 weeks. Also when you block on the line with your arms behind you it sticks your face out and you get hit in the face. The only injuries I saw in the full-contact league could have happened in our league just as easily.

PASSION
How many of you have gone to recruit someone to play line and then you tell them the blocking is screen blocking only? That does'nt get too many people excited. Believe me you allow more contact and you will have more people excited to play line and more players in our league. This opens our league up to a whole new group of players. Stronger team, stronger league more longevity. I've seen teams that pride themselves on having the best linemen. We are competing against other sports for athletes, make it exciting for everyone including the linemen.

RULES
Guys, the rules we play under now are meant to provide a form of football so girls can be included in intramurals. Through no fault of anyone, this is just what was taken from college intramurals and passed on to flag football in our area. None the less, we are all men here and there is more contact in just about any other adult sport in the area (old man hockey, YMCA basketball, soccer, you name it).

I know change does not come easy, but I believe this is the way our league needs to move to provide the best experience for everyone and set the league up to be around for along time (The league in Chicago is in it's 23rd year).

There are great athletes in this league and it can be better.

I'd like to hear from everyone, please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Shane Connor
Hustlers #5

Being a lineman, I would like to be able to do more to protect my QB than just trying to get in front of a rusher. I keep my hands out but do not make contact with anyone and that works ok I guess. My only concern would be how refs could keep an eye on the contact blocking and make holding calls while trying to survey the rest of the field as well. We have played a few games this season with only one ref. Even with two refs calls are missed all the time.

I also am not sure how much skill the league has as a whole when it comes to proper technique, avoiding the face, giving someone an elbow instead of only blocking, etc. I only trust my teammates because I have no clue what the other team's mindset is. Do they want to hurt me? Is this guy going to bull rush me and take my head off? I'm just not sure if the league is ready for that yet. Maybe a few exhibition games with contact should take place first before the whole league make a move. Just my thoughts.

One more thing, I think there might be a reason other than safety as why there is no contact. The league might be associated with a bigger association that does not allow contact. Could I get clarification on that?

When this league started there was full contact leagues going on with more teams and large financial backing. But every season players would leave that league and decide to play by the 7v7 flag football rules. Between the fights and injuries constantly happening in a full contact league, it just wasn't worth it to these players and eventually the league had to shut down because it couldn't get enough teams, that league went from 20 teams to zero, while ours went from 0-60. The main reason being that most of the guys in the league have other things going on in life (work, families, etc.) and can't afford to be walking around injured all week or getting in fights with people in a full contact league. I know it sounds good on paper, as a former linemen myself I see the apparent appeal of it, but in reality you end up just having a bunch of players who try to take out their lifes frustrations out on the field, and I've never seen it go well. But its something we've considered doing over the past few years, and it just never gets enough traction.

On our team the linemen get more passes then the WR's, so when I talk to people about playing line its an easy sell.

No we're not, but we typically follow an adaptation of NIRSA flag football rules, which is the largest flag football body in the world.

I like the sound of it but I think alot of people would not only get hurt but would find themselves out of the league very fast. I think some people have a distorted view of their abilities and they would find out very quickly .I agree with Wyatt that the league would slowly dwindle away. No more little WRs at 190 lbs trying to side shuffle on the line. All of those guys would get destroyed. But as a D-lineman myself, I think it would be awesome and sounds good. But when looking at the big picture, its a bad idea.

I don't think there has ever been a full contact blocking league in Omaha. If there is anyone that played in the Lincoln league (or any other contact blocking league) please let us know what your experience was like. My experience in the league in Chicago was overwhelmingly positive. There could be alot of other reasons the Lincoln contact league did not make it. If there were fights than it sounds like they did not deal with it properly and anyone involved should have been kicked out of the league on the spot. Again with the injuries, I think it is a myth that you see more in a contact league based on my experience.

I think if you surveyed the linemen and linemen only more contact would be overwhelmingly favored. Most of the time it seems its the DBs and WRs that don't want to allow more contact on the line when they already have everything they could ever want. As far as technique, that is a valid point but we are playing a different game right now and would need to teach proper technique.

Based on what I see we are missing a big segment of people who would play that enjoy blocking and rushing the passer and don't need the dump passes to get motivated to play line. It also opens up alot of plays that are not run as much in our league such as screens and other run plays.

I'm not familiar with NIRSA but, I can tell you most everything to the East of us is part of USFTL(www.usftl.com). In Chicago we hosted tournaments and played against teams from Milwaukee, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Baltimore and DC. I know there is also a similiar league in NYC as well as other cities. These are all successful contact blocking leagues. They also have a national tournament each year in Florida.

I think an exhibition game would be a good place to start if there is support.

Thanks, I appreciate all of your comments.

I'd be willing to give it a try in an exhibition setting.
But in all honesty, I played pickup basketball for years and there was always a hot head out there on the court that would get bumped during his shot and wanting to go all Ron Artest on other players. I saw a fight almost break out during a softball game. I also saw a few instances this year (and I can only speak of games I played in) where the little contact we're supposed to have resulted in a lot of trash talking. The hot head will always be out there, but the big difference I've seen here and in other settings is that it never carried over off of the field.
I think it can work....but it would have to be watched very closely.