I think that according to the rules, the penalty on Edmunds was the correct call. However, I think the rule needs to be reviewed during the offseason. The hit was not intentional and the RB did lower his head prior to contact. I think there should be two levels of punishment for the targeting penalty.
- Deliberate contact where the player is defenseless would result in a 15 yard penalty and ejection for a half. This would include launching.
- Hits like the Edmunds hit where there is contact, but the player is not defenseless would be a 15 yard penalty and the player has to sit for a series (or two). It would essentially be like a 2 min charging penalty in hockey.
You would still be trying to remove hits to head. Nobody wants to see kids get knocked out or severely injured, but players aren't missing a half because he is trying to make a play and contact is accidental.
Comments
Not a bad idea, Eddie. Varying the penalty for the severity of the hit could be a workable solution. At this point, we have a very black-and-white definition, but there is some gray area to deal with, for sure.
I disagree with anything that penalizes a defensive player for the offensive player's choice to deliberately cut and/or to duck his head into contact, both of which happened on the Edmunds penalty.
Proper form tackling doesn't mean leading with the top of your head, as a defender. Facemask, sure, but you don't need to lower your head. Keep your head up and you're fine.
However, I feel like the rule should also be applied to the offense. In a perfect world, both Edmunds and the RB are penalized for that hit. Edmunds certainly led with the top of his head, and the RB lowered his head into the tackle.
I like the reduced sentence of "a series or two" idea for hits against established runners, but was also going to add a quip that against Georgia Tech that could still mean missing a full half of football haha
The video shows Edmunds began a form tackle. If Wilson hadn't cut into Edmunds at that point, nobody would be saying a thing about whether Edmunds "led with the top of his head".
Any tackle at speed and at that angle of attack must "lead with the head". It is a physical impossibility to do otherwise and play the game of tackle football.
What should be the issue are intentional fouls.
Form tackle = squaring up, getting low, looking forward (head up), wrapping up.
Edmunds' tackle = charging in, lowering head, delivering hit. Still an effective tackle, but one that is illegal as written in the rule book. Generally only called if the runner also lowers his head, which is what bit Edmunds.
Head up means leading with the facemask. Head down means leading with the crown of the helmet.
Couldn't agree more. In my opinion the running back should have been called with targeting and thrown out of the game. If definsive players have to adjust how they tackle then running backs need to learn how to not lower their head.
Any helmet to helmet hit where the player who initiates contact with anything but his own facemask should be an ejection. Any hit to an opponent where the helmet is the primary contact point should be an ejection. Any ejection warrants review on whether a suspension for the next game is warranted. Apply to both college and the NFL, with the caveat that any ejection and suspension also forfeits your paycheck for that game.
Sorry, I'm tired of watching football turn into a gladiatorial battle. Players should not legitimately fear permanent physical and physiological damage by stepping on the field. Dangerous hits need to be completely eradicated from the game, and the only way this is going to happen is by going overboard on the penalties. Force players to respect those they play against, and force them to play it in a way that preserves the longevity of the players and the game. Right now, we're beginning the spiral towards the eventual downfall of the sport in American culture, whether through popularity or litigation over safety, and one of the few ways the game can stop it is to get proactive now. You're never going to make the game fully safe, but you can take measures like this to at least control what you can.
What we need is someway to protect the players from actual harm while making hits to the helmet hurt like hell. Every time there's contact to your helmet, you get an electric shock or something. That way, the helmet is there to protect incidental contact, but players don't feel like it makes them invincible. Think of it like a smarter way to have them play without helmets. Then we're not relying on some sort of conscious decision based on rules and potential penalties (that may or may not get called and enforced), but we're building in reflexive training.
Look, I don't mean this as a personal slight in the least. I respect you, and I think you are a great Hokie and TKPer.
But this is a poorly considered and demeaning idea.
I would say that it wouldn't have any chance of actually happening except, NCAA.
haha. fair enough.
I want to ask how it's demeaning, but all the possible answers I can think if are either political or PC.
I think it's safe to say that treating humans like dogs (or any animal, for that matter) is fairly demeaning w/out getting into political or PC gray areas
Exactly, it's essentially putting a shock collar into the football helmets.
Well I said "or something" it doesn't have to be a shock per se. Better than "hey there is no physical consequence with contact to your head...until there is and it's too late to do anything about it"
Whatever it is, you're advocating for a device meant to cause physical pain. That's a pretty slippery slope methinks.
Though, if I may borrow your idea to make some changes, maybe we could design a system where you measure the forces on the head for each player on the field, and if a hit exceeds some value the player that causes the hit (whether by leading with the head or putting his head in a dangerous situation, or hitting another player's head hard enough) sits for a play/series/drive. Repeat offenders or excessive hits sit for the rest of the game.
I'm not really sold on the idea. Just brainstorming, but here's the thought process behind it:
The system I described would be an electronic system with results constantly being streamed to some official. I assume they would then signal a ref to throw a flag, and then do a quick check of the video (I also assume the helmet signal would be timestamped, so this could be a semi-automated process) to see which player would be "at fault" for the hit. And if it looks "incidental" (there would have to be some pretty strong wording for this, but necessary for cases such as a player hitting his head on the ground during a routine tackle, which probably isn't anyone's fault), they can wave the flag off. This would fix your last point in #1, and not routinely losing playing time would be an incentive, to answer #4, similar to the "losing your helmet" rule today. Before the "losing your helmet" rule was instituted, it seemed rare to watch a game without someone losing their helmet. Nowadays it seems way less common.
Thanks, I didn't see the animal connection initially; was anticipating answers related to corporal punishment or class distinctions, for example. I am not for demeaning anyone. I just wante. to be sure you weren't categorizing it simply because it was unpleasant.
How about ghost pepper packets in the top of the helmets?
Maybe a giant wooden badger...
No clue where you got that idea from......
So like shock training....like a dog....
Yeah, shock training the poorly compensated "academic" workforce known as NCAA football players......
Also, anyone with an unknown heart condition might die.
I love the inventiveness but....
This movement has already begun. The Seahawks have been the early leader in bringing the game back to a "rugby-style" tackle. The University of Washington has also taken the lead, and even use a 3rd party company to assess their tackling styles.
Seattle Times Link
The local high school football program here, from the Freshman squad to the Varsity squad, adopted this practice. It's proven difficult to re-train something that has been preached to you your entire football career, but I love the buy-in from the staff!
I'm with you. There shouldn't be "levels" to it. There aren't sever holding penalties, just holding penalties.
Every week there are a handful or more ejections for targeting. A lot of them occur in the heat of battle. Some of them are more egregious than others. But all have the same result.
Intent should be a part of the calls. There's plays where it's obvious.
~ David Pollock
Thanks, Horse. I was trying to remember which game I was watching when I saw a similar hit -- the offensive player should have been flagged with targeting. I see no reason to protect players on one side of the ball and ignore the dangers to players on the other.
Also, for DB at least, it seems like the greatest danger of serious injury comes from teammates. I don't know how many times I've seen a safety, flying in like a missile, barely miss the receiver and lay out the cornerback. It would be interesting to know what percentage of concussions are "blue-on-blue."
In a similar vein, everything I've heard about CTE has said OL accumulate the most damage over a career because of the frequency of helmet-to-helmet contact. The targeting rule is a good start, but there are other serious issues to consider.
Agree on intent, and every time this comes up I think of Miles Jack and get uber pissed that he was not ejected, banished to Antarctica, etc for his hit on LT
Miles Jack didn't hit LT. It was another LB.
Zumwalt, I think....
Yes, it was Zumwalt... LT lit up Jack blocking downfield the previous play
He wasn't blocking. He was running the ball looking like Andre the Giant out there.
F*** it. Why don't we just put giant magnets in helmets so it flicks the players heads out of each others way?
I got whiplash just by reading this.
My neck hurts just from thinking about all the extra weight of those magnets....
:You could decrease the size and weight of the magnets by having the players wear battery packs (like SCUBA tanks) and using electo-magnets.
My personal belief is that a head up tackle (assuming a body position moving towards horizontal) is idiotic. I rarely ever did it. If you've pulled your head up, then you have reduced the possible remaining movement of your neck. So, if you take an impact to the head at this point, your neck has nowhere to go.
Add in that your increasing the risk of getting poked in the eye by doing this.
My preferred tackle was, and always will be, head in line with body, across the body of the runner. You should never lead with your helmet. But all these people saying you should be tackling with your head up obviously never took a hit that hurt a neck.
This appears to me to be the trajectory Edwards was taking. Also worth noting the top of the runner's helmet hit the side of Edwards helmet, although he got the worst of the impact.
Teach better tackling from the earliest age that football is played.
http://www.stack.com/a/the-new-tackling-technique-thats-revolutionizing-...
Then narrowly define the rule so that clear "spearing" and forearm, etc. blows to the head are penalized, which was the intent all along.
Pretty good video by the Seahawks
And in nearly every single one of those proper rugby-style tackles, the head leads.
All it would take for one of those to become a penalty is exactly what got Edmunds suspended: A change in vector and/or head position of the ball carrier.
"The official kombucha of the Seahawks." What a world.
Coach sure does talk about "#31" a lot. That drill at 8:35 is particularly explosive.
lol, in every single clip of that video the player has his head down.
targeting (By rule) is inevitable, Intent is not.
In this video of "Perfect Hawk Tackling", both players have their heads down.
Incidental targeting is complete bullshit, because the metric in which it operates happens every single play.
This is one of the most watched videos on youtube about form tackling.
This coach literally says, seconds before this screenshot, to keep your head up, and do whatever whatever
The most watched youtube coach at a camp for kids, while not wearing pads, in a total opposite of what I would call a game situation, you might even refer to it as a simulation, can't even avoid leading with his head.
Someone expects players to?
I'm on board with categorizing helmet to helmet contact from severe to incidental, and only giving the severest penalties if the contact is intentional and to a defenseless player, with the review officials having the discretion of assessing the penalty using very specific criteria.
I also think that the field refs should just flag the contact, and the review officials should assess the penalty. Seems to me this would improve the consistency.
If that's the case, though, they need to do it quickly. There's nothing more disruptive to the rhythm and flow of the game than a 5-minute replay. Or maybe they could allow play to continue while they assess the film, then stop after a play or two and announce that a player has been ejected. that would seem weird until you got used to it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. A penalty has to be called and assessed before play can continue, but an ejection could come two or three plays later.
Actually Troy Aikman had the solution years ago when this topic became hot. Make everyone wear leather helmets.
I like the rugby idea. FB is headed toward that anyway. Look how the O line is allowed to push the pile now.