Quote:
Originally posted by wolfpup27
A player was disqualified during a recent game for a hand to the helmet. The LJ who threw the flag stated that he assessed it to be flagrant due to the fact that the players arm was extended and elbow locked. The player claims that it was incidental as he was swiping at the offensive blocker's arm who was holding onto his jersy, and that the heel of his hand hit the facemask unintentionally. What rule qualifies the LJ assessment to "automatically" make this a flagrant action?
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First, based on what you said, I don't think the LJ said what happened was "automatically" flagrant.
In addition, none of us saw the play. It was, indeed, a judgement call on his part, and without seeing the play, none of us can confirm or refute the validity of this call.
Also, if the official said it was flagrant because of "the rule that says if the elbow is locked, the block is worthy of a DQ" then he would be wrong on the rule, but he is not misapplying a rule that does not exsit; he is "correctly" applying the fake rule (if you can correctly apply a rule that does not exist!?).
Finally, the issue with consistency. In the NFL it is relatively "easy" to have consistency in the calls. If the league decides that if one swear word slips out of a player's mouth it is only a warning, then it is fairly easy to make sure that different officials will not flag it. In contrast, I don't find using "damn" to be an offense worthy of a foul, but an official in North Dakota (I'm in Pennsylvania) might believe it comes at a cost of 15 yards. At this level, there is going to be some amount of consistency within an association, but between different areas, there are going to be different ideas on judgement calls.