That's one of the questions that NFL owners will be wrestling with this week in Palm Beach, scene of their annual spring meetings. The place we'll be camped out. 
A proposal has been formulated by the Chiefs that would require players' nameplates on their jersey to be visible at all times. Thus, if a player like Polamalu, who sports very, very long hair that goes down almost to the middle of his back, would be required to tuck it into his helmet.
"We don’t have anything against long hair,” Chiefs president/general manager Carl Peterson said. “It’s certainly not a cultural thing. We submitted the proposal because we think the long hair should be in violation of the NFL uniform code. We think there are also safety implications that should be considered.
“We aren’t the only team that wanted to address this. We’re just the team that volunteered to make the proposal. I think the competition committee is in support of it. We’ll see what the response is from other teams. I know there are some teams that are supportive of it.”
Honestly, this is much ado about nothing. Whether it's Polamalu, Asante Samuel, Bob Sanders, or any of the handful of other players who wears their hair long, you can always tell who they are, and I've never heard of an instance where long hair is somehow a danger to playing football. Polamalu once was dragged down by Chiefs running back Larry Johnson by the hair after an interception return, which is about the only instance that immediately comes to mind.
Not sure if this one will even come to a vote, quite frankly. It's come up in discussions before, but has never gotten anywhere. And there is language in the collective bargaining agreement that prevents players from being sanctioned for the length of their hair.
Honestly, there are other more important things to worry about - like what happens as a result of the continued deadlock between owners and the NFL Players Associaton over the collective bargaining agreement.
In other words, it's more about the deadlock, not the dreadlocks.
Comments (4)
My problem with the hair length issue is players shouldn't get penalized if they have to pull a ball carrier down by their long hair. It's part of their body, no different than an arm or a leg. But it is a pretty random topic for the league to worry about.
bg,you should ask lenn what his take is on this.
Winston... they don't get penalized.. unless I'm getting a case of early onset alzheimers
My apologies then. I thought I saw a scenario where a player with long hair, it might have been Polamalu after an interception, was dragged down and they called the tackler for holding. But don't quote me on that.