Less than one month after the NFL altered its regulations on air pressure in footballs following the seemingly interminable DeflateGate saga, the league may be turning its sights toward sticky gloves.
NFL could soon look into regulating sticky gloves
Chairman of the competition committee Rich McKay says the league could investigate whether too much of an advantage is being gained.
Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports
Falcons team president and recently reinstated chairman of the competition committee Rich McKay told Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times in a lengthy piece on the subject that was published Sunday the NFL could soon come up new regulations for gloves.
“I think it’s time to go back and look at the gloves and see if, with what’s going on here with sports science in the past 10 years, if there isn’t too much of an advantage being gained,” McKay said.
Though the NFL banned players from using Stickum in 1981, several companies that make gloves players use — including Nike, Adidas and Under Armour — have qualities on them that are similar to the substance. These unique surfaces allow players to get a great grip on the ball — one that may even be better than the human hand.
"You know something’s up when guys like Tom Brady and Kurt Warner and Peyton Manning are wearing gloves to throw a football," former MVP Rich Gannon told Farmer. "Guys for years dreaded bad weather, cold weather, and they didn’t want to have anything that would take their hands off the football. Now guys are like, ‘These gloves are better than the human skin.'"
One of the analysts who was on the call for that game, NBC’s Cris Collinsworth, told Farmer overly regulating the surface of gloves could harm the on-field product.
“I think if they took the gloves completely away from the guys, including the quarterbacks at this point, it would have a major impact on what the game looked like on the field,” Collinsworth said. “And not for the better.”
If the NFL starts cracking down on which kinds of gloves players can use, the effects would probably be seen around the league. They would almost certainly hamper players’ fantasy production and highlight-reel catches, and one would be hard-pressed to find anybody who wants that.
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