Jim Owczarski

jowczarski@enquirer.com

BOCA RATON, Florida – Within 45 minutes of the National Football League stating that it will reinterpret the rule regarding hits with the crown of the helmet, specifically because Giovani Bernard was laid out on the Paul Brown Stadium turf in early January because of one, the Cincinnati Bengals running back indicated where his mindset was on the play with a short message:

glad to see I made somebody's highlight tape lol

It was a significant change for the league, which had previously deemed Ryan Shazier’s hit on Bernard in Pittsburgh’s Wild Card Playoff victory on Jan. 9 legal because of the angles of the two players.

But, because of the stage, the out-in-space spotlight of the play, and the fact that Bernard was knocked out cold before he hit the ground, something had to change.

“I think we all agree that it’s an ugly hit,” said Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, who sits on the league’s competition committee with Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis. “It’s not one that we want in football. It wasn’t illegal. We just looked at the language around the rule and softened it or altered it in a minor way to make sure that we are creating a climate where those hits don’t occur.”

NFL: Shazier hit on Bernard now illegal

In that case, Bernard took a global view of a play that potentially altered the Bengals’ postseason and put him at the forefront of the league’s larger conversation about player safety.

“You don’t want to be the guy to get completely knocked out,” Bernard said with a laugh. “But I think just the fact that I’m a part of something that’s going to better the game is always a good thing. Obviously, I’m not happy with how I got hit or whatever that may be, but things are going to happen in a football game. It’s part of the game. We know the risks in playing this football game, we know the risks that we’ve been doing all our lives. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. He just got me in a good spot.”

As for the play, Bernard said he has seen the play plenty of times and has had his “bell rung” a couple of times as a player but “I’ve never been completely laid out on the ground, sleeping. But it’s part of the game.”

Bernard, who would eventually come to and run off the field to the Bengals locker room, said he felt “perfectly fine” within two days and would have been cleared to play in the divisional round had the Bengals advanced.

The 24-year-old is ready to move on to 2016 but acknowledges the discussion around the play he was a part of, and the change that came about because of it, is an important one.

“Obviously, I’m not the happiest of people because I don’t have a Super Bowl ring on, but I mean, we had a good season but we didn’t want it to end the way it did but as far as the whole rule changing, it’s good,” he said. “The biggest thing is for player safety. That’s what the NFL is kind of migrating to, is player safety for everyone, which is good. It extends everybody’s careers by however many years and that’s what we want. The whole CTE, whole concussion (discussion), all the studies and all that, it’s going to help it out.”