SmashMouth

Marshall Faulk would rather eliminate helmets from football than tell running backs they can’t lower their heads into tacklers.

Faulk, the Hall of Fame running back who played for the Colts and Rams, blasted the NFL Competition Committee’s proposal to penalize running backs for leading with the crown of their helmets.

“This is a joke,” Faulk said on NFL Network. “If you’re a ball carrier and you’re trying to protect yourself, you’re going to duck. . . . I understand they want safety and I’m all for safety within the game. But it can’t just be some old guys in the room who didn’t carry a football making rules that are really going to affect how this game is being played. I just don’t understand.”

Faulk added that if the Competition Committee really thinks running backs are using their helmets as weapons to injure their opponents, he’d rather just see players go back to the 1920s and play without helmets.

“Take the helmets off. Let’s be honest, if you think the helmet is a weapon, take it off. Because I know the helmet on my head is not being used to head butt anyone, it’s being used to protect myself,” Faulk said.

The NFL’s owners are expected to vote either today or tomorrow to approve the Competition Committee’s proposal, and make the practice of a running back lowering his helmet into a defender a personal foul.

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