Last December in Cincinnati, Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier suffered a spinal injury while making a tackle. Nearly years before, in a playoff game against the Bengals, Shazier, leading with the crown of his helmet, tackled running back Gio Bernard.

Neither play was flagged but in 2018 they will be; the NFL passed a new helmet rule this offseason and it is now illegal if "a player lowers his head to initiate and make contact with his helmet against an opponent," and under certain circumstances a player can even be ejected.

But Shazier, who has already been ruled out for the 2018 season but plans to play again in the NFL, concedes that it will be difficult to adjust to the new rules.

"Honestly I have been playing football when I was 4, so some of the hits that I did were some of the same ones I've had since I was 10 years old," Shazier said this week in his first news conference since the injury, via the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"So it's kind of hard when they are trying to tell you to avoid hitting a certain way because at the end of the day, a lot of people who are playing this game have been probably playing it since before they could really speak full sentences, and honestly it's a little hard. But you just have to start playing the way they want you to play, start tackling more with your shoulders, I guess, and just to completely avoid people's upper half. At the end of the day it's kind of hard if somebody is coming at you a certain way -- but you have just go play the way they want you to."

Shazier added: "I probably just have to play a little safer, put my head up a little more."

For now, the 2014 first-round pick and 2017 Pro Bowl selection is "submerged" in rehab and remains adamant that he would play again, telling teammate Roosevelt Nix in February that not only does he plan to return to the field but his goal of making it into Canton hasn't changed either. 

"I've gotta get back, bro," Shazier said during an appearance on Nix's podcast. "Every day, bro. Every day I'm like -- right now, I'm reading a book and it's basically saying trust the process, bro. I'm really trusting the process and I know the end goal. I'm taking it every step of the way but I'm like, I'm giving it like my football effort, like 1,000, everything I've got."