Quote:
Originally Posted by wwcfoa43
What is illegal is using the helmet as the primary force of contact so that the contact becomes a ramming action ("butt, spear and ram" do appear in rulebooks).
So long as players tackle by moving forward and bending their bodies, the head (and consequantly the helmet) will lead the way!
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When the "Helmet Contacts" (Butt blocking, Face tackling, Spearing) were originally declared as illegal there was a clear and definite reference to the intention and motivation of the player delivering the blow. At the very beginning with "Spearing" I seem to recall the allegation of "punishing the opponent" was included in the definition. Face Tackling and Butt Blocking were terms evolving from expansion and refinement of the original problem called "Spearing".
At that time the rumor was that an alternate approach, of simply removing the facemask, received serious consideration as a means of persuading players to stop using the helmet as a weapon should the "Spearing" prohibition fail to accomplish the objective.
As suggested above, head to head contact in the game is inevitable, simply due to the nature of the game and it's inherent collisions. Unfortunately, head to head collisions are not always predictable, consistent or intentional and really can't be covered adequately by a blanket description.
As no two collisions are exactly alike the final determining factor, as is so often the case, boils down to the judgment of the covering official and what he concluded, based on what he observed.