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Also, what kind of precedent does that send to other players in the league - are they going to be able to get away with that? And no, penalizing a player, I don't care how many yards, does not take care of the problem
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The precedent sent is that your team will be penalized "to the hilt" and ultimately cost them a game which depending upon the year could mean the difference between making the playoffs or not.
How would like to be the player that has to face his teammates because they lost a tie-breaker which meant no playoffs becuase of his "bone-head" move.
I am a baseball official and I wish baseball had another penalty other then ejection for some antics that are displayed.
A similar comparison to a football player throwing an officials flag is when a baseball player dislikes a strike call by the PU and draws lines.
Both acts are meant to show-up the official, however, in football you can penalize the team severly. With all that happened, the Ravens still had a very good chance to tie the game if they were not penalized 35 yards. (30 for unsportsmanlike and during the extra point 5 more for offsides) With the wind the way it was, chances are they would have had a decent run back. There were some 44-48 seconds left and one TO left. They only trailed by 3 so they didn't need a TD.
In baseball we cannot TRULY penalize the team for unsportmanlike acts as in basketball / football. Yeah it would be nice with say 2 outs and a player draws a line and we say TIME - That's out number 3. IMO, a better way to handle things then a simple ejection.
Therefore, it's difficult to compare baseball officials to other officials when it comes to EJ's because as mentioned in baseball the TEAM does not suffer other than if the player EJ'D is their Ace F1 or number 1/2 hitter.
Pete Booth