Would playoff helmet hit on Chiefs’ Kelce now be outlawed?

Earlier in the week during a scrimmage at Chiefs training camp, safety Robert Golden hit tight end Alex Ellis after the catch in a nasty collision that appeared to lead with the helmet.

Out came the flag, and the Chiefs and officials got a lesson in the NFL’s new helmet rule.

On this play, the officials picked up the flag but after later reviewing the play they came back to the Chiefs and told head coach Andy Reid that the flag probably should have stood.

“It was a good teaching tool for our players, and it was good for the officials,” Reid said.

But the players say an adjustment period will be required to grow comfortable with the new rule that says: “It is a foul if a player lowers his head to initiate contact with his helmet against an opponent.”

The violation is a 15-yard penalty and the player also may be ejected. The league office in New York will play a role in determining ejections.

NFL teams have watched video showing examples of what will be called a penalty this year. It mostly showed defensive backs making tackles leading with their helmets. Such contact is being legislated out of the game for safety reasons.

“This is football, and bang-bang plays are going to happen,” Golden said. “We’ve been playing football this way for a long time, pretty much all our lives. Now they’re changing the rule.

“But who am I to complain about the rule? I’m just trying to abide by it.”

The new rule addresses a sobering statistic released by the NFL last season. Players suffered more concussions in 2017 than in each of the previous five seasons. There were 281 concussions and head injuries suffered in regular season, preseason games and practice, an increase of 15.6 percent over the average of the previous five seasons.

The NFL has embarked on a marketing campaign — NFL Way to Play — to promote the rule and a new tackling standard, which includes “head up and out of the way” to its players. And one former Chiefs linebacker Willie Lanier says it’s time for players to change their approach.

“Back then we were pretty old school,” Lanier said. “We were taught to use our head first when we would initiate contact. But now research science, technology and technique has brought us a better way to play.”

That is, without leading with the helmet.

The Chiefs’ postseason hopes might have turned on a play that resulted in a concussion to tight end Travis Kelce. Late in the first half against the Tennessee Titans, Kelce took a pass from Alex Smith, and when Kelce turned up field he was downed by a hard hit by Johnathan Cyprein in which the helmets collided.

Kelce, who led the team in receptions, missed the second half and the Chiefs blew an 18-point halftime lead and lost. No penalty was called and Cyprein wasn’t fined. The play would appear to be a difficult call for the officials under the new rules, but the NFL looks to reduce those moments.

Preseason games, which begin for the Chiefs next Thursday at home against the Houston Texans, will be a laboratory of sorts for the rule. Officials will use the games to establish consistency.

“I think it’s going to be an adjustment that players and refs are going to have to make,” said Chiefs safety Daniel Sorensen. “I think you’re going to see the line become more clear as you play and see how they’re calling it, how the players are adjusting.

“Preseason is there for us and refs to kind of figure these things out.”

The NFL rule differs from the college targeting rule,which prohibits forcible contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet. The NFL rule isn’t limited to the head or neck.