In todays NFL environment, extremely long hair hanging out from a football helmet is pretty common. Polamalu is the classic example(or not).
Who was the first? When?
Didn’t that cocky defensive end from the jets have long hair in the 80s? Gastenou?
The first guy I ever saw with hair long enough to hang out from the back of his helmet was (drumroll)…
Jets receiver George Sauer, one of the heroes of Super Bowl 3.
I predict that the NFL will crack down on long hair sometime before 2020.
Ooh! Ooh! An NFL question I know the correct answer to!
Joe Namath, man.
In a sense, they have cracked down. If I have my information correct, the hair is considered part of the uniform. A player can be tackled by grabbing the hair. That is why I can’t understand why a player that would be expected to carry the ball would allow a handful of hair to extend beyond his helmet. But then, nobody ever expected pro athletes to make rational decisions if it interfered with their vanity.
Now Johnny Unitas, there’s a haircut you could set your watch to.
A player can also be tackled by grabbing his face mask, but I haven’t seen that happen much–wonder why?
Tackling a player by grabbing his hair is not a violation of any NFL rule. It is perfectly legal.
Huh. Didn’t know that.
On further thought, though, why wouldn’t it be prohibited? Seems to me that yanking a guy’s long hair from the back or side and holding onto it as he’s running, spinning and falling down, might cause some serious neck injuries.
Am i missing something? Are you being sarcastic?
There are very specific rules about grabbing the face mask. There are also specific rules about “horse collar” tackles (where the tackler grabs the shoulder pads in the neck area and pulls the runner down). There are also rules regarding helmet-to-helmet hits. None of this has anything to do with the fact that it is legal to grab the hair to make a tackle.
Actually he can’t.
And it has actually happened. I saw a game between the Steelers and Chiefs where Troy Polamalu was tackled by his hair during an interception return by - I want to say it was Priest Holmes. (He was already out of bounds on the play though, and the Chiefs player got flagged for that)
The player can also keep the hair tucked away or cut it. I agree that getting pulled down by your hair can be dangerous, but it also adds too much of an advantage to the runner if you outlawed it. Rather than making it a penalty, it would be better to force players to tuck their hair in or cut it.
You don’t get an option to simply go without a helmet like you do with hair.
Back to the factual question a second: the first guy I remember with long hair coming out the back of his helmet was Joe Namath’s friend and teammate George Sauer. Another contemporary of his with long hair was Cowboys receiver Lance Rentzel (he was briefly married to sex symbol Joey Heatherton, and was arrested for being a serial flasher!).
Anyone have earlier nominees?
Just throwing Ken Stabler out into the mix…not the earliest (70s and early 80s), but notable, nonetheless.
It has to be legal to grab the hair, otherwise growing long hair means you can’t be grabbed and tackled wherever your hair is, creating an unfair advantage.