Michigan Democratic state representative Robert Kosowski has introduced House Bill 5605 which would "prohibit a public school from participating in an interscholastic football game unless the Michigan High School Athletic Association creates a rule to end games if one team has a lead of 17 points or more with a minute or less remaining," according to Michigan Capitol Confidential.
Go ahead and read that again. It sounds even more ridiculous the second time you read it. Down by 17 or more with a minute to go? Let's go ahead and call the game, no need to play that last minute...someone may get hurt.
Representative Kosowski says that the law would allow the game to be called in order to prevent injuries to players when one team decides to take a knee. He also adds that he felt a responsibility to make the proposal after a 2011 high school game resulted in assault charges for four defensive players who busted through the line and injured a quarterback taking a knee in the game's waning seconds.
To summarize what happened at that 2011 game; the players were warned by the referees that the quarterback was going to take a knee, but decided to bust through the line and tee off on the quarterback anyway. The quarterback ended up getting a serious concussion as a result. The assault charges were eventually dismissed by a judge.
The article points out that Kosowski played small college football at Adrian College (D-III - MI), and feels that government shouldn't put their nose in how football games are played, but felt compelled to take some kind of action after talking with the parents of quarterback that was hurt.
Personally, I think this sounds beyond ridiculous. Ohio adopted a new mercy rule this year that had a lot of coaches upset, and on the very long shot that this one gets passed (we're talking one in a million), or even listened to seriously, I know a lot of coaches that are going to be beyond upset. Let's be honest, if politicians tried to eliminate every situation where a player got hurt, football would no longer exist.
As coaches dedicated to teaching life lessons to our players, how can an injury or two in a thousand take-a-knee snaps justify us having to tells our players that it's okay to wave the white flag and fold up the tents early before the final horn sounds? I think the better course of action is to educate our kids about how to carry themselves in that end-of-game situation, rather than sending the message that it's okay to quit in certain circumstances.