leagues banned the technique of spearing in the sport due to the risk of injury. When a player makes head-down contact, that player has much more of a chance of a significant spinal cord injury. After the initial rule change, many of the cervical spine injuries stopped. Therefore, this prompted a new tackling technique to be adopted, such as the head-up tackling technique. This technique does prevent catastrophic spine injuries, but it can result in brachial plexus injuries. After the rule change, it has been estimated that stingers have gone up in prevalence. References External links Stinger article at spine.org Burner article at WebMD Neurotrauma