If you’re a fan of college football’s targeting rule, I’ve got good news: The NFL is getting its very own version of it, starting next season. League owners unanimously passed a rule that outlaws lowering the helmet and using it to initiate contact with an opponent.

While the rule has been passed, the league still has to formulate the official language and set a standard for what will be considered a flaggable hit. Right now, this is all we have from the league:

“Lowering the head to initiate contact with the helmet is a foul.”

So how will this affect the game? To get a sense, we reviewed the first-half of the Week 13 Steelers-Bengals game on Monday Night Football and tried to identify as many of these now-illegal hits as we could.

Here’s what we found…

(Here is a log of every play. We’ve included a video clip of every play that includes a possible penalty. We’ve embedded the spreadsheet below, as well.)

Over the course offirst-half plays, we foundpossible penalties onplays. Based on the language above,of those possible penalties were obvious calls, leavingborderline calls. Running plays were far more likely to include a possible penalty. Of theruns in the first half,plays included a questionable hit. On those 13 plays, we sawpossible penalties,of which were deemed “obvious” penalties. Onpasses, we saw justplays including at least one questionable hit.of those plays included at least one obvious penalty. Defenders were twice as likely to commit these penalties. We countedpossible flags on defensive players compared tofor offensive players. The remaining two flags came on one kickoff return.

Now let’s put all of that into context. We’ll set aside the borderline calls, leaving us with 22 penalty plays, not including the seven penalties that were actually called in the first half of the game. So, with the new targeting rule in place, we would have seen 29 penalties in the first half alone! Refs called about 6.7 penalties per half during the 2017 season.

If the league fails to come up with language that sets a standard for what will and will not be flagged, the 2018 season could fall off the rails because of this rule change. Consistency is the key here. Otherwise, well, former Steelers RB DeAngelo Williams put it best…

One of the key decisions the league will have to make is what constitutes “contact with the helmet.” Take this tackle, for example. The Steelers player, Coty Sensabaugh, lowers his helmet but it’s hard to make out if he made contact with his shoulder or head. And does intent matter?

According to Rich McKay, the Chairman of the Competition Committee, referees will try to police helmet-to-helmet hits in the trenches, as well…

That’s going to be hard to do, because it happens on just about every play.

Is this block by Bengals center Russell Bodine (#61) a penalty? HE lowers his head and makes the initial contact with his helmet, even though it’s not a particularly violent hit.

And how does this head-to-head collision between Stephon Tuitt (#91) and Tyler Kroft (#81) get called in the future?

With so many areas of gray, these 50/50 calls could end up deciding a significant number of games in 2018 as players learn to adjust. While we wait out that adjustment period, the games will be hard to watch if we’re getting penalties on almost every other snap.

In the short-term, this rule change is going to hurt the product. But that sacrifice should improve the sport over the long haul. It will be safer, in theory. And players will be more fundamentally sound with coaches more motivated to teach proper tackling and blocking technique. We’ll just have to suffer through a couple years of bad football to get there.

The NFL is often criticized for putting business ahead of player safety. The league deserves credit for this rule change. It’s risking the quality of its product, which is already losing viewers, in order to make the game safer. Even if this is a colossal failure, it’s well worth the effort.