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5:57 PM Tue, Dec 18, 2007 | Permalink
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Whether it's something as significant as a suspension, or as small as an illegal contact penalty, you can usually break players into two camps on rules like the horse-collar ones that will keep Roy Williams out of Charlotte on Saturday night: 1. Offense The idea that defensive players look at some rule changes as a bed of nails on the road to doing their jobs is nothing new. Simply, it's long been perceived that the NFL tweaks and adjusts its regulations to promote scoring, in turn making things more difficult on the guys trying keep points from going up. “You look at all the passing rules, it’s to help create more explosive plays for the offense, it gets you more crowds, gets you more fans enjoying the game," linebacker Akin Ayodele said. "(The horse-collar rule) puts you in a predicament. Should I get this runner down? Or should I stop and let him run by me and then look bad? Because you’re gonna look bad on film. The reporters are going to say, ‘Well, Roy Williams had a chance to bring him down, but he just stopped.’” “This is how I feel, and you guys can take a consensus in seeing how the other defensive players feel – If I was put in the same situation, I’d rather take the fine than let my teammates down.” Ayodele said that defensive coaches will accept certain penalties easier than others, so their players will maintain a certain level of aggression needed to play on that side of the ball. The idea's that you don't think too much about something before you do it. Because anyone who's played football can tell you: There's just about nothing worse than being hesitant. "Learning not to get a dead-ball penalty is being conscious enough to know, 'OK, once the whistle blows, stop,'" Ayodele said. "But once the ball’s snapped, within that timeframe, I’m allowed to go full-speed and do my job. A lot of things happen within that time before the whistle’s blown. "Wade (Phillips) said, ‘I don’t care. As long as you do your job and you’re trying to get to ball defensively, or offensively blocking it, and you’re being aggressive, and you get a penalty, I don’t care about that. You’re being aggressive, (as long as) you’re not being stupid, you’re not trying to hurt somebody.’" And when offensive players do things similar? “It’s their actions with the chop block, and pulling you down, they’ll grab underneath your arm and try to lock to where if you run and try and pull out, you’ll hyperextend your elbow," Ayodele said. "Stuff like that goes on all the time. It’s legal because it’s within the box. But those actions are actually trying to get you hurt.” Pretty simple, it seems. And it shouldn't be a news flash either: the league is looking to protect its offensive players in general, and its stars in particular. That, Ayodele thinks, is the reason for the rule in the first place and that it's no coincidence that it was the injury to Terrell Owens that put the wheels in motion. "If you’d have had a guy on the practice squad, and Roy did that to him, before T.O., I’ll bet the rule wouldn’t be there," Ayodele said. "We wouldn’t be talking about this right now. It was because it was a star player, T.O., that got hurt." |
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Comments
Posted by chuck @ 9:45 PM Tue, Dec 18, 2007
Akin brings up a good point, really. There do seem to be a lot of rules that take away from defensive guys being aggressive. Didn't Williams grab him by the jersey anyway? I realize that it's technically illegal, but that doesn't really seem fair. Then again, if someone brought T-Mo down that way, I suppose we'd be up in arms. It's a hard call.
Posted by steven @ 2:42 AM Wed, Dec 19, 2007
Who in the hell is T-Mo? Did I miss a new nickname or something?
Posted by Greybeard @ 11:18 AM Wed, Dec 19, 2007
Someone needs to tell Ayodele that TO's injury wasn't the sole reason for the rule, he was just the icing on the cake.
Roy injured Tyrone Calico in the preseason with a horsecollar and he missed most of the season.
In week one, Steve Smith was grabbed by his collar and was given a "horse collar lite"(Grabbed him by the collar, pulled him back and down long enough to injure him before losing his grasp.) by Hannibal Navies, ending his season.
Then Roy broke Musa Smith's leg with a horse collar. He was done for the year. If my memory serves me right he used it on Jamal Lewis as well, though he didn't injure him severely.
Then Roy knocked Owens out for the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs until he made his comeback for the Super Bowl.
That's 5 players injured in one season by the same basic technique, 4 of whom lost significant time or all of the season, 3 of whom were/are established stars.
For the people who hate the rule, there's your reason. If it were 1,2 players in one year, probably no rule. If it were 2,3 over a couple of seasons, probably no rule. 5 players going down in one year like that was too much to ignore. Steve Smith was the star of a team coming off a SB season. Jamal Lewis was the reigning PFWA NFL MVP and AP offensive player of the year. Owens was the driving force of Philly's playoff run that year. Musa Smith's injury was just plain ugly. Calico's came in a meaningless preseason game.
Posted by KsDalFan @ 1:58 PM Wed, Dec 19, 2007
How many players have been injured by getting tackled by another method? If there is only 10 then I can see the rule. If there is more than fifty then this rule looks fishy. The defender is trying to get the offensive player to the ground. If you want to put a permanent stop to it then require the offensive player have a handle attached to the back of his pants to grab ahold of. When the player is running away from you there is only one place to grab and that is the shoulder pads.
Posted by KsDalFan @ 2:01 PM Wed, Dec 19, 2007
How many players have been injured by getting tackled by another method? If there is only 10 then I can see the rule. If there is more than fifty then this rule looks fishy. The defender is trying to get the offensive player to the ground. If you want to put a permanent stop to it then require the offensive player have a handle attached to the back of his pants to grab ahold of. When the player is running away from you there is only one place to grab and that is the shoulder pads.