Rempel wants league to snap to safe rule for his position

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This article was published 19/09/2019 (2214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chad Rempel would like the Canadian Football League to take a long look at the rulebook to find a better way to protect him and his fellow long snappers.

Rempel, a 15-year veteran who has played the past five seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, was on the receiving end of a violent hit from Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive lineman Lavar Edwards during a Sept. 1 road game. Edwards delivered a crushing blow that sent Rempel falling backward and his head bouncing off the turf.

“He timed it up pretty good. He had a good get-off and finished the play well,” said Rempel, who returned to practice this week after missing one game. “It was a bit of a perfect storm: my left foot got tripped up on our guard and unfortunately my head smacked the ground pretty good.”

Under the current rules, Rempel said the play was legal and so he takes no issue with the fact there wasn’t a flag thrown. The rule, which was tweaked in April, is as follows: “Making it illegal for a defensive player to deliver a forcible blow to the long snapper while the snapper’s head is down and they are in a vulnerable position and unable to protect themselves.”

“I didn’t like the hit, but it was within the framework of the current rule. Do I like the way the rule is worded? Not particularly,” Rempel said. “The rule was tweaked or just maybe more emphasized this year. But it’s kind of always been there.

“What I challenge people to do is snap a ball with their head through their legs and have a 275-pound guy who gets paid to get off the ball quickly and see once the head appears up if they can actually make a decision if he’s going to go left, right or over you? It’s impossible.”

Rempel said the way the rule is worded doesn’t only create the possibility for more long snappers getting injured, but it also creates a way for those snapping the ball to cheat the system.

“It rewards long snappers to keep their head down longer so that the guy can’t hit him and then he draws a penalty,” he said. “I don’t think that’s right, so I would like to see a change at some point.”

What Rempel would like to see adopted by the CFL is the added requirement for the defender to declare which side of the long snapper he plans to attack. It’s something the NFL added around five years ago after similar concerns were voiced by its players. Rempel added he’s heard of other remedies — including waiting two seconds before making a push at the line of scrimmage — but he insists none are better than the defender simply choosing a side.

“Choosing a side takes the midline of the body out, the head out and that makes the game safer,” he said. “All of that is because of the vulnerability of your head being down and when coming up, it’s only then that you get to take a picture of what the defence is doing. I’ve watched it 100 times and, yes, my head is up. But for the tenth of a second it was up for, was I able to make a decision to set myself to make a block? No.”

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Rempel said he’s feeling much better and expects to be in the lineup for Saturday afternoon’s road game against the Montreal Alouettes.

He also appreciates all the support he received from players across the league, many of whom voiced their displeasure about the hit.

“I have never enjoyed somebody coming in and playing for me. That’s why I’ve played through a lot of injuries over my career — because I never wanted to give a guy the opportunity to take reps from me,” he said. “It wasn’t easy to miss a game.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.