Bone-jarring hits. Getting jacked up. De-cleaters.

Those are all terms synonymous with strapping on a chin strap and shoulder pads. The NFL used to be a place for the men of men, athletes who gave up their bodies willingly for the sake of glory and victory in the ultimate team sport.

But the NFL's move to suspend players essentially for the hard hits that have elevated the league into professional sports dominance is a move in the wrong direction.

"Garbage man is going to stink after he gets off work, right? Because he deals with garbage all day,'' Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder told the Miami Herald. "You play football, you have a damn chance to get hit in the head. You're going to get a concussion because you have on a helmet and people can get you with a helmet. If you don't want to get hit in the head, don't play football.''

Honestly, the league has been moving this way for years. Yellow hankies for personal fouls are more prevalent in today's game than the number of fans wearing brown bags on their heads at a Detroit Lions game.

It seems like if you touch a player on the foot after the whistle, look at a quarterback the wrong way when he drops back to pass or scream too loud at a receiver going across the middle, the referee is going to throw a flag for unnecessary roughness.

But now the NFL has taken the tackle out of tackle football with its latest knee jerk reaction to an otherwise exciting weekend of football.

"We can't and won't tolerate what we saw Sunday," said Ray Anderson, the league's executive vice president of football operations. "We've got to get the message to players that these devastating hits and head shots will be met with a very necessary higher standard of accountability. We have to dispel the notion that you get one free pass in these egregious or flagrant shots."

There was nothing flagrant about any of the shots that made players woozy Sunday. Men going 100 mph collided. It happens every week and has been the case for decades.

What's egregious is the notion that defensive players should ignore their instincts to break up a pass or cause a turnover. If the NFL doesn't want head contact, then remove helmets from the equation and start handing out red and blue flags for players to wear around their waists.

Who wouldn't want to see more of Tom Brady's new hairdo or Drew Brees' boyish looks?

The new rules severely and unfairly hamstring a defense, which is already at a disadvantage. Who is going to risk laying out a receiver to break up a pass when they know a game check and a multiple game suspension might be on the line?

Player safety is important, but every NFL player knew the risks when they put on their first set of cleats in pee wee football. The NFL is risking losing the players and the fans by legislating what is as integral to football as the pigskin itself.

If you don't want to go home stinking, then don't become a garbage man.