Sam Huff was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982. Huff, a Middleburg resident, played in the National Football League from 1956 through 1969 as a linebacker with the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins.

Players and fans of the National Football League suffered through a hectic summer last year, and this summer has its share of problems too.

This time between seasons is the time for major changes. The teams have begun to take shape again, at least somewhat. The coaches have a good idea of who they want to keep. Fans who love the game are watching the news, trying to make an intelligent guess about the lineups, about who will play where. That’s part of the fun.

For the players, however, the pressure is on, big time, as it is now or never. “Not for long” is the NFL’s refrain. However, if getting and keeping a place on one of the NFL teams were easy, no one would want to watch the players perform. Making it to the pros in any sport is a monumental achievement, and it should be.

There are major issues affecting the game now. My concern is whether these issues will change the game so that it’s not America’s game anymore. The NFL teams have enjoyed a long history of having   the sport with the most fans. That’s big money, really big money. Hopefully, those who have the responsibility of directing the NFL’s future will make a supreme effort to insure that most valuable history will continue. It is a treasured history. Most NFL greats have paid a tremendous price to make the game what it is today—America’s game. 

In my opinion, too many decisions regarding the NFL have been made by those who have never played the game, and when these decisions change the way the NFL games are played, the consequences are not always in the best interest of the game.  Regarding all that, I have said before, and I say again, the most valuable perspective can only be gotten from one source, playing the game. 

One of the NFL concerns lately, one of the issues written about often by the sports writers, has to do with brain injuries.  I know about that.  I wrote about it last year for the Loudoun Times-Mirror, “The Suicide Squad.”  I was on that squad when I played for the New York Giants; it’s a special team coached to take down the ball carrier after the kickoff. I recommended a change regarding the kickoff. I recommended eliminating the kickoff and placing the football on the twenty-yard line. I believe that would eliminate some of the brain injuries. Years ago, that change might have eliminated some of my problems and some I gave my opponents.   

Professional football is a violent sport. It is not the only violent sport, but it is violent - controlled most of the time, but violent. There is one football in the game and there are two professional, well-trained athletic teams trying to get it and take it where they want it to go—across the goal line. If you have ever been on the bottom of a pileup fighting for a loose football, you know what violence is. There is only one loose ball then, but there is a whole lot of grabbing going on.  Too, if you have ever lined up against someone like Jim Taylor or Jim Brown, you would wish you weren’t there. I did, I stayed and I went after the ball carrier because that was my job; that’s why they paid me. Football is a contact sport, and the fans love it.

In my opinion, Commissioner Roger Goodell and his buddies in New York should get out of their offices; visit the training and practice fields of the NFL teams more often; talk with the players, coaches, owners and officials and then make only carefully considered changes. There is a good deal at stake here. 

I talked to Billy Kilmer recently. He remembered a time in New Orleans my hitting him so hard I almost knocked him into the stands, knocked Gatorade all over his team.  Now he said, “Sam, you knew I was out of bounds when you hit me.” I laughed, “Well, I didn’t get the flag; so you must have been in.” We both laughed, friends now, off the field. Those were the days.

Sam Huff was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982. Huff, a Middleburg resident, played in the National Football League from 1956 through 1969 as a linebacker with the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins.