It is a great question. I am so proud and honoured to say that the game has already changed more than you could possibly appreciate.
I'm an athlete who played in the 1980s and early 1990s, and I can tell you that this version of the game is very different. It's safer. When I first started playing football in Winnipeg, the techniques that we were taught were effectively “my nose to your nose”, so it was essentially teaching effectively a collision between the athletes who faced one another. Today, the techniques they're teaching children and ultimately that we're teaching the athletes at the professional level are far different.
The game used to be played vertically, where the combatants went at one another almost in a direct pursuit of one another. Today, the game is played horizontally, which is to say, if you watch offensive linemen, who I am one of, you'll note that on almost all plays, their first step is sideways. They're trying to gain ground. The game today has a very different fundamental dynamic than it had back when I played. The game, in my view, has never been safer in its history. We continue to look for ways to improve and evolve the game, but really, it is a combination of the way the game is taught and played, and the culture of the game is also changing.
I would submit to all of you that we are living in the echo of the two most violent decades in sport, the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, if you turned your TVs on in the evening, the highlights in sports were almost always the biggest collisions and the toughest fights. That's what we watched for. During those two eras, I think athletes were engaged in a very combative sport that was more focused on the physical combativeness than the version today. We've refocused on the beauty of their athleticism, the big catches and the big plays.
In fact, in my first season as commissioner, we called it the year of the catch, which was evidence of our own desire to reframe the narrative and the conversation around our sport, not so much for its pure physical toughness but for the beauty and the skill these athletes have.
The game has not just changed physically. I could take you through.... If we could come into the centre of this circle, I could show you just how differently the techniques are taught today than they were in my era, but the more important thing is that the culture is changing. Players are learning to take care of one another. There's a greater emphasis on respecting the fact that your competitor is an athlete who is, in our sport, making a living playing the game and needs to be respected. That's why we've been very tough on our discipline.