Maybe you were more productive than me on this beautiful, three-day, Bay Area weekend. However, I’m guessing I wasn’t the only red-blooded American that spent Saturday and Sunday migrating from couch to couch watching NFL games.

It was during the Bears-Seahawks game that I had an epiphany—and no, it wasn’t that it is completely ridiculous how early games start on the West Coast. Actually, it is far more serious than that. It is that head injuries are part of football.

I am definitely not the first, and I most certainly won’t be the last sports writer to weigh in on this touchy topic. This year, the yelling about player safety in football has been louder than ever, as the NFL has begun upping fines for illegal hits. The trouble is, two Seattle Seahawks players were carted off the field with apparently serious head injuries on Sunday—and both came after entirely legal hits.

Writers and pundits alike have called for all levels of punishment and changes to help protect football players. My colleague Zach Zimmerman even went so far as to say that his kids won’t be playing football.

What was reinforced to me this weekend is that the notion that trying to change player behavior through fines will somehow change the way the game is played is entirely ludicrous. Instead of spending time trying to make players, whose entire livelihood is dependent on a kill-or-be-killed mentality, think twice before making a hit, time and resources should be pointed toward research and development of tools to make the game that exists as it does now safer.

As a former football player—who thought playing football was one of the most special, important parts of my life, and who will definitely let his kids play football if they want—I’d make the argument that players simply don’t have the time to think whether or not to make a hit or try to tackle a player one way or another because every play is different in football. If you try to regulate hits that cause injuries, eventually the NFL will turn into two-hand touch.

The interesting thing about football is that although technology has improved in recent years—helmets are far safer today than they were just a decade ago—the game is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous as players get bigger and stronger. That is why helmets need to continue to get safer and pads need to become more fortified.

Fox color commentator Daryl Johnston made a very good point after Seahawks cornerback Marcus Trufant was knocked out cold by a knee to the head while trying to make a tackle. Johnston reminded fans that players aren’t required to wear leg pads and that pad-less legs (especially knees) can be dangerous weapons. There is no reason not to mandate that players wear the standard knee, thigh, hip and tail pads. Sure, some speedy players will say it slows them down, but it will also lessen their chances of getting leg injuries, and other players’ chances of getting concussed by their flailing limbs, as was the case with Trufant.

This sort of change is tangible and will actually make a difference. Fining James Harrison $25,000 isn’t going to change how he, or anyone else, hits. Especially when the fine comes after a hit that is entirely within the rules.

Changes like the one Johnston suggested are what the NFL should be striving for. It also should be focusing on better concussion recognition, diagnosis and treatment—which it seems to have, as reports of concussions have increased this season.

In a sport that is predicated on violence, it is difficult not to be violent. As Herman Edwards of ESPN suggested on air, young football players need to be taught the correct way to tackle. You don’t lead with your head, you lead with your shoulder. You don’t roll your back, you arch it.

As Edwards suggested, nobody is taught to lead with his head, yet it still happens. Maybe every training camp, players should get a refresher course in the ABCs of tackling. Or maybe that is a ridiculous thing to ask of professionals—I’m not really sure.

What I am sure of is that trying to change players’ on-field, instinctual behavior just with warnings, rule changes and fines is not going to work. The work needs to be done elsewhere.

Daniel Bohm forgot to mention that he played his career in a two-hand touch league. Relive his glory days at [email protected].