The NFL appears to be serious about player safety, possibly to the extent of taking the big hits out of the game. Owners passed four safety proposals Tuesday that will make the game so safe, you may be falling asleep mid-quarter.

Let me start by saying this, I'm a big fan of safety in football, especially when it comes to the quarterback position. Those guys are defenseless back there, and no one wants to watch backup quarterbacks play. For every Matt Cassel waiting to shine, there's a whole handful of guys like...whoever wound up running the Lions and Bengals last year.

However, the big hits and collisions of the game are why the NFL is the overwhelming number one sport in the country. Every time the ball snaps in the NFL, it could be someone's last play. Through injuries and accidents, the sport has an urgency to it that no other sport can match. Every down is a series of collisions and impacts, and let's face it, violence and urgency make for a great spectator sport.

To start with, they've outlawed the "wedge" on kickoff returns. Apparently the way we've been taught since grade school to return kickoffs is too dangerous to continue. If you get more than two people together, it's a penalty. We're a step away from having the return team link hands and play "Red Rover" with the kicking team.

Onside kickoffs have become even weirder, now the kicking team isn't allowed to group players together at all. The mad scrum for the ball on one side or the other is gone.

The NFL has now elevated Hines Ward to cult status, as he now has his own rule about blocking downfield. Ward's blindside hit that gave Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers a broken jaw is now a 15 yard penalty.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that everyone has seen that hit a couple of times. If you saw it on a DVR or Tivo, you backed it up and watched it again. If someone in your house was in the other room, you called them in and watched it yet again. It was a great hit, legal at the time. Now, it's 15 yards.

And the final proposal accepted involves "defenseless receivers," basically giving the center of the field back to the receivers. As I said, I'm a fan of safety but this is starting to get ridiculous. Going over the middle and the dangers involved have been a part of football since the first forward pass. That's why when you talk about a possession receiver, it's a badge of honor when you say they go over the middle. It's supposed to be the most dangerous place on the field.

To me, the guy who defined toughness in the modern era of the NFL was Ronnie Lott. Now, if you look at Ronnie Lott's Hall of Fame induction video, almost every highlight you'll see would cost him fifteen yards and some fines these days.