Last offseason included the official announcement that the NFL would enforce the wearing of leg and thigh pads for all players. In fact, Merton Hanks, the league's vice president of football operations, told NFL Evolution how players would be fined and suspended if they didn't follow the bulked-up pads rule, giving the NFL equipment inspectors more discretion than ever.
After all of the rhetoric from players who said they were unhappy about the rule, Fox Sports reported last week that mandatory padding is no longer an issue with NFL players.
FOX Sports 1 reported that Hanks responded in an email that said the NFL considered the first-year of the enforced rule as a success. Despite the league saying one season wasn't a big enough sample size to show if the pads cut down on injuries, Hanks said the rule isn't going away.
-- Bill Bradley, contributing editor
