In 1980, not long after the NFL implemented a rule dictating that, in the words of the late Dave Brady of The Washington Post, “officials are to blow the play dead as soon as the quarterback is clearly in the grasp and control of any tackler behind the line,” then-Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert expounded a bit of tough-guy reasoning that resonates with football purists to this day:
“They’ll be putting skirts on [the quarterbacks] next.”
This argument—as well as its numerous, similarly antiquated derivatives—are invoked virtually any time the NFL goes about “tampering with” the violence that is inextricably woven into the very fibers of contact football.